A lot of the foundation work is still being completed. This project is going to be a ‘U’ shape and will be 5-stories tall. It will also feature structured underground parking as well as ground floor retail. You can find the renderings and more details of the project here.

And now on to some of the best new features when a project is going under development; the tower crane. This is a top slewing crane by Potain which can also be found being used on the Cesar Chavez Modernization.

In this bonus picture, right next door, Prospect on Central is looking more completed by the week and fits the area very well. With this and the addition of 1560 Boulder, the Lower Highlands will be even more of a dense urban community.

There are a lot of projects in the Highlands neighborhood from town-homes to apartments being built right now. Always a great accomplishment for any neighborhood!

Looks like most of the wood framing work is done. It creates a nice street wall and is a great infill project for the area.

Here is a shot on the other side of the project which appears to be a courtyard.

Next project is Prospect on Central. The facade is nearly complete and as well contributes to a great street wall that faces Interstate 25.

It also looks like the project at 1560 Boulder Street has started to get underway. Ken did a post on this in October with the details.

I was recently up in the Hyatt Regency and have some bonus shots of a couple projects: one of 1099 Osage and the other of the new Auraria hotel. It’s great to see new development wherever you are in the city!

As part of the small section of the Downtown street grid that’s located west of the South Platte River, the block’s history goes back to the city’s founding when General Larimer staked out a new town called Highland in December 1858, a few days after the founding of the towns of Denver City and Auraria, east of the river. The Town of Highland extended from the mighty Platte west to Zuni Street, the area today known as Lower Highland. In 1860, the three towns consolidated into a single municipality named Denver. Fifteen years later, in 1875, the Town of Highlands (with an “s”) was incorporated, covering the area west of Zuni Street over to Sheridan Boulevard. The Town of Highlands lasted until 1895, when it was annexed by Denver. But I digress… back to 16th & Boulder.

Given its historic roots, the site wasn’t always vacant, of course. Buildings once occupied the site in question. After searching the extensive online historic photos archive at the Denver Public Library, I found an image that gives us a good glimpse of the buildings once found along this side of the block. First, the entire photo is shown below (credit: Colorado Historical Society). The building on the right is the original Olinger Mortuary building, now home to Lola and Scarlet Salon. This photo is from the 1940s.

After a bit of zooming and cropping in Photoshop, here’s a close-up of the site. Click to embiggen:

As to when these buildings were demolished? May have been the ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s… I’m not sure. If anyone has info on this, please let me know.

Here are two views of the site today, with the one photo showing the stairs and retaining walls from the old homes still in place:

In the mid-1990s, the block (excluding the historic building at 15th & Boulder) was rezoned as a PUD (Planned Unit Development) that called for a total of six new buildings: two along 15th, one mid-block facing Central, and three along 16th Street. The first three of these buildings (two along 15th and one facing Central) were built in the late 1990s as the Overlook. In 2008, the fourth building was completed—the Highland Bridge Lofts—at the corner of 16th and Central, which features the ground-floor businesses of Living the Sweet Life and Masterpiece Delicatessen. 1560 Boulder will complete the plan for the block.

Now on to the new project…

1560 Boulder is being developed by Holland Partners Group of Vancouver, Washington, with Denver’s Sprocket as the architect. The project will consolidate the two remaining buildings in the block’s PUD into a single five-story, U-shaped building, with the open end of the “U” facing the interior of the block, as seen in this site diagram submitted to the city as part of the project’s development application:

Due to the site’s significant slope, two levels of structured parking will be mostly underground…tucked into the hillside. Ground-floor retail (with outdoor patio space) will anchor the project at the corner of 16th & Boulder. Four levels of residential apartments, a total of 130 units, will top the ground-floor uses, with a swimming pool, clubhouse, fitness center, and rooftop deck as project amenities.

The exterior design is still being refined, but here’s a preliminary rendering of the project, courtesy of Erik at Holland Partners and Matt at Sprocket Design. The building facade will be constructed of masonry, metal, and stucco:

Holland Partners is planning to break ground on the project this fall, with completion scheduled for 2013.

This exciting project completes the development of a prominent block on the edge of Downtown Denver, and will further enhance the vitality of one of Denver’s most vibrant districts.

As you can see, the elevator core has topped out.

This project takes up the whole block on Central Street.

On the 17th and Central side, the building is going to be 7-stories tall, then dropping to 4-stories on the Kensing Court side.

This is a very positive addition to the Lower Highland neighborhood and will help create a nice wall of buildings facing Downtown Denver.

In this bonus photo, next door to the Highland Crossing project, Amato’s Ale House just opened. A great new local restaurant in the Lower Highland neighborhood.

and here’s a rendering of the project. OZ Architecture of Denver, Inc., did the design:

To give you all the details about the project, I’ll refer you John Rebchook’s blog InsideRealEstateNews.com, where John has just posted two excellent articles about this project, here and here.

The proposed building appears to be perfectly in scale with all of the beautiful historic block buildings and other new infill projects in the area, and also seems compatible architecturally with the district’s predominant use of brick. This is a fine addition to Denver’s urban core and a hopeful sign that the worst of the economy is behind us.

First, let’s start with the one that is a straight-forward street reconstruction project. 15th Street is being rebuilt in concrete between the bridge over the South Platte River and the intersection of 15th/29th/Boulder/Umatilla (one of those fun grid-colliding Downtown intersections). As a Lower Highland resident, I can vouch for the fact that 15th Street through there, particularly around the Platte Street intersection, has been a bumpy ride for years. The street reconstruction is about 50% complete, as you can see from these photos:

Next is Larimer Street between 15th and 17th. This project includes reconstructing the street in concrete (from the current asphalt) as well as removing one traffic lane and widening the sidewalk with the reclaimed space. The sidewalk expansion will occur on the Writer Square/Tabor Center side of the block. While the Larimer sides of those two mixed-use complexes are not all that interesting from a pedestrian perspective, they’re more interesting than the Larimer Place/Barclay condo towers on the other side of the street. Bulb-outs (or, if you prefer, bump-outs) will be installed at each intersection, shortening the crosswalk distance across Larimer even more. Currently, Larimer is four through lanes in this area, and at 15th, the left two lanes continue as through lanes into Larimer Square and the right two lanes are right-turn-only lanes onto 15th. After the reconstruction, there will be three through lanes, and at 15th Street the left lane will continue into Larimer Square, the right lane will be right-turn-only onto 15th, and the center lane will be a combo through/right-turn lane.

Finally, there’s the Colfax/13th/Tremont intersection. Chris blogged about this project a couple of months ago. That project is now under construction. Here’s a Google Earth aerial of the existing intersection (an automobile-oriented mess) and the diagram Chris provided of the reconfigured, more-pedestrian-friendly, new intersection:

Here’s a photo of the corner I took this morning:

There are more infrastructure improvements planned for the Downtown area coming up… topics for future blogs.

Central Street side:

17th Street side:

Another positive step for Lower Highland and the greater Downtown Denver area!

The project’s first two phases were built in the early 2000s and consist of several condominium buildings along Boulder Street between 17th Street and Kensing Court. This final phase will develop the rest of the block with a new structure along Central Street featuring 55 residential rental units and two ground-floor retail spaces. Here’s the location via Google Maps:

View Larger Map

The building will be generally U-shaped with structured parking located to the interior of the site. Along 17th Street, the building will be 7-stories high, dropping to 4-stories along the Kensing Court side. Here are a couple of images from a few years ago when the project was going through review with the city. I cannot confirm that these images represent the final design of the project, but I believe they do generally reflect the scale and layout of what is being developed. I’ll post more up-to-date renderings if I can obtain them. The project is being developed by the Salazar family, the same folks who renovated the old Regency hotel near the Mousetrap into Auraria student housing.

Here’s a shot I took about a week ago of the site under construction:

This project will fill in a gap in the nice wall of buildings facing Downtown Denver that’s developing along the Highland bluff, and add to the vitality of the Lower Highland district.

The first attempt in establishing a settlement in what is today Denver occurred on September 24, 1858, when some Kansans established the St. Charles Town Association, which claimed the area immediately east of the Platte River and north of Cherry Creek (known today as Lower Downtown). However, they didn’t stick around to actually settle the site; instead, they went back to Kansas to seek a legal town charter from the territorial legislature with plans to return in the Spring of 1859.

Meanwhile, a separate party—from Georgia—established the Auraria Town Company on November 1, 1858 and immediately started building cabins and laying out streets in the area immediately east of the Platte and south of Cherry Creek. Consequently, we will officially celebrate the sesquicentennial of our city’s founding on November 1, 2008, thanks to those Georgians and their settlement named after the town of Auraria, Georgia.

Another party of Kansans, led by General William Larimer, showed up a few days later and unilaterally “assumed” the St. Charles Town Company’s claim and established the town of Denver City on November 17, 1858 in the same area east of the Platte and north of Cherry Creek. (Later, the St. Charles people would return but they failed to assert their claim.) On December 11, 1858, General Larimer waded across the Platte and established on the west side of the river the third town in the area, Highland (without the “s”). Of particular importance to this blog topic is that the western boundary of the town of Highland was Zuni Street (Gallup Avenue at the time).

Among these three towns, not quite one hundred cabins existed that first winter of 1858-1859.

The towns of Auraria and Denver City didn’t get along very well. A rivalry existed as to which town would become the dominant community. Although Auraria had the early lead, thanks in part to the fact that Denver City had the stagecoach station and the only official U.S. Post Office for the three towns, Denver City prevailed. On April 3, 1860, Auraria residents voted to merge with Denver City, and Highland joined in as part of the merger too. The new combined town was named just Denver, and had a population of about 4,700. The area that was once Highland became known within the local government as North Denver, Auraria became West Denver, and Denver City became East Denver.

Over the next decade or so, most of the growth in Denver occurred east of the Platte. But by the mid-1870s, the land to the west of the original town of Highland—i.e. west of Zuni Street—finally caught the attention of a real estate speculator. In the area around what is today W. 32nd Avenue and Federal Boulevard, a new upscale subdivision named Highland Park was platted in 1875 that was modeled after a Scottish village and included curvy streets with names like Argyle, Dunkeld, Caithness, Firth, and Fife. Dozens of additional subdivisions sprang up nearby and later in 1875, the town of Highlands (with an “s”) was established. The eastern boundary for the town of Highlands was Zuni Street (the western boundary for the original Highland), and Highlands eventually extended north to W. 38th Avenue, south to Colfax, and west to Sheridan. Its city hall was located at the corner of 26th and Federal where Denver Fire Station #12 is today.

Highlands was an elite suburb that looked down (literally and figuratively) upon the dirty, crowded, smoggy, crime-ridden city of Denver. Highlands prided itself on its clean air, beautiful gardens and tree-lined streets and, in particular, its high moral standards. Thanks to a fee of $5,000 to obtain a town of Highlands liquor license, there wasn’t a single bar in the entire community. While sinful Denver surged by 1890 to a population of 106,000, affluent clean-living Highlands counted about 8,000 residents.

Denver tried to annex the town of Highlands several times, but Highlands residents always voted against it. Finally, it was their financial state that caused Highlands to give in. The lack of an industrial tax base, a treasury depleted by the Silver Panic of 1893, and a long list of needed infrastructure investments left the town with little choice. On June 22, 1896, the town of Highlands voted to be annexed to Denver.

That’s the story. So what does this mean for us today with regards to the Highland versus Highlands question? I suppose it means that if you are referring specifically to the oldest part of northwest Denver closest to Downtown (east of Zuni Street including the little section of the Downtown street grid west of the river), you should probably call it Highland, and if you are referring to anything west of Zuni, you should probably call it Highlands. Or, call the whole thing Highland and distinguish the part closest to Downtown and the Platte River as Lower Highland. But please, please, whatever you do, just don’t call it “LoHi”!!