The light rail plaza officially opened to the public around 10AM on Friday, May 18^th. Here are some pictures of the celebration Kiewit threw at noon to mark to occasion – which included comments from Councilwoman Judy Montero, music from the band Electric Avenue, and dance performances from a women’s Zumba troop.

The most noticeable change to the plaza over the last couple of weeks has been the completion of the detail work of the pavers and the final landscaping of the plaza, planters, and benches.  Below are close-ups of a couple of planters:

Here are close-ups of the landscaping surrounding the benches adjacent to Chestnut Pavilion

But to truly appreciate the scale and design of the plaza – I took the following pictures from the 8^th floor pool area of the Glass House.  I’m sure you will agree…the plaza is truly stunning!  But I can’t tell if the plaza looks better in the daytime or at night?  What do you think?

Finally, I saved my favorite photo for last. To me, what makes a public space great is not just how it looks, but if the public actually uses it. We have a little while until the plaza will be fully utilized, but for now though, check out this photo of the plaza full of Rockies fans heading to the game on Friday night!

First of all, the station itself is historic. Yeah, it’s 131 years old, but I think the more important part of its age is the people who have traveled through the old building. Of the millions of Union Station’s travelers, I’m sure that the vast majority was ordinary people simply going from Point A to Point B. Many others were soldiers and sailors going to wars, sadly fewer coming home. Still others were going off to and coming home from college, weddings, vacations, meetings, you name it. In the early days, I bet many were get-rich-quick schemers, gunslingers, gamblers, plus those who hoped to tame the schemers, gunslingers and gamblers. Through it all, Union Station welcomed them: the good, the great, and the bad.

Second, it’s big: hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of workers, years of work.

Third, it’s nice. The complete project will fill in the only remaining space that was once, well, you know … pretty ugly. A bustling bus station, and shiny, new buildings will be a dramatic improvement.

Fourth, we can see a glorious future. I think it’s fascinating that the old, great station can come back to life with even more ordinary, famous, and infamous characters. The prognosticators predict that 220,000 passengers a day will travel through the station complex within a few years. By comparison, last year, 147,000 passenger a day traveled through DIA which was the eleventh busiest airport in the world.

Fifth, there is probably a personal connection for you. There is for me, and I’m the new kid in town. When Ken Schroeppel and I discussed this milestone posting, he suggested that I had become an “accidental celebrity-blogger.” That put a smile on my face and caused me to think about how it happened. My wife Cini and I traveled to Denver about 15 years ago when we lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We were searching for a big-city downtown to which we could retire when the time came several years later. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt on Welton Street for several days, during which we strolled around downtown. When we came upon Union Station, we wandered in, sat on one of the big benches, and gawked around the train room which was occupied only by a couple of Amtrak employees. We pondered the day when we could live here and ride the train.

Fast forwarded to about 2005 when my retirement was approaching. We chose Denver as the place to live, having rejecting places like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Phoenix, and many other big cities. In anticipation of our move, I wanted to learned more about the city that would become home. I don’t remember how it happened, but I found DenverInfill. After watching the blog for several months, I contacted Ken via email, and he responded. A year or so later, we moved to the 19th floor of Glass House. We had a bird’s eye view of the station and an intense interest in the goings-on in our new hometown. When I joined the board of Union Station Advocates, I finally met Ken.  One thing led to another, and I accepted his offer to write the Union Station blog.

And lastly, I think we like this project because of our collective personal involvement. I am impressed with the rigorous process through which dreamers go to get big things done, and done right. Among the long list of tasks, they seek input from anyone willing to provide it, and they negotiate differences of opinion. In the end, we all become owners of the result, even if it’s a tiny piece of ownership. The process isn’t easy, and it isn’t quick. But when it’s done, it can be magnificent.

So, there you have it. According to your resident blogger, that’s why we like this bus station.

Both photos below show progress of the newest section of the bus terminal.  I took the first one from inside Union Station. Atop the shorter columns with lower beams will be tracks commuter rail and Amtrak.  The taller columns with higher beams are the bases for passenger platforms. As you may recall from earlier posts, there will be eight sets of tracks: one Amtrak, five commuter rail, and two spares.

The next photo is looking down the entrance/exit ramp.  Buses will access this ramp from 18th Street and from the I-25 HOV lane. Recall that there is another ramp at the other end of the terminal with access to 20th Street and 15th Street via another section of 18th Street and Chestnut Place.

Andy posed for the photo below to give scale to the height of the structure. He is standing next to one of the bus terminal walls. From every angle, this bus terminal is big.

In related news, the public plaza surrounding the Chestnut Pavilion will open on May 18. Trees are being planted and lighting is being installed. It will be impressive, especially at night, with lights under the edges of the planter seats, lights shining up through the trees, spot lights on the three ventilation towers, and decorative lighting throughout the area. Andy plans to cover the opening event on the 18th.

Backfilling on the south side of the terminal is nearly complete.  The huge pile dirt is still pretty huge so there may be enough on-site dirt to finish the job.

Andy Vuong and I got an inside look at the project last week. I will provide details of the tour over the next couple of days before I leave on another extended trip.

Today, we’ll start with a peek inside the bus terminal. Here is a series of photos taken of the covered portion of the terminal. The first photo was taken from the end of the terminal looking down one of the two bus lanes toward Union Station.  The bright light at the end of the tunnel is the uncovered, newest section of the terminal. The second photo was taken of the passenger waiting area looking in the opposite direction.  The overhead, natural light comes from the five skylights.

The first photo below is looking up through the air intake tower.  The second is one of three mechanical rooms.

I’ve uploaded 18 photos of the tour to our Denver Union Station page at JobSiteVistor.com.  I will write more about them in this blog tomorrow.

Earth-moving equipment has been moved onto the property and site prep and utility work will begin later this week. Here’s the rendering we showed you last time:

Also, here’s a GoogleEarth aerial image where I’ve marked the project location:

Cadence will be a LEED-Gold certified building and is scheduled to be completed by Fall 2013.

16 Wewatta will occupy the “triangle” parcel at 16th and Wewatta, across the street from the Gates HQ building. For the past several years, the grassy property has served as a temporary sculpture garden/dog-walking park, but its long-term fate has always been as a development site. That time has arrived, with East West currently marketing an 11-story office building for the parcel. Here’s a GoogleEarth aerial image with the site outlined, and a street-level view:

16 Wewatta would include underground parking, ground-floor lobby and retail spaces facing 16th Street, two levels of parking, and eight floors of office space totaling roughly 200,000 square feet. Like its cousin at 16th and Chestnut, 16 Wewatta is currently in the concept design stage. Consequently, the following images, provided courtesy of East-West Partners and their design partner klipp architecture, are very preliminary in nature and subject to change.

The first image is the ground-floor site plan and the second image is the view of the 16th and Wewatta corner of the building:

East West Partners will continue to refine the building program and design while marketing the project to prospective tenants. We’ll post more on this project as it develops.

We’ve had some great turnouts lately! Thank you to everyone for your interest and enthusiasm in this project that will transform Downtown Denver and the region.

Here’s how it works: Head on down to the LoDo side of the historic station at 17th & Wynkoop at about 9:50 AM. Whoever shows up, that will be our tour group. We’ll start promptly at 10:00 AM and conclude around 11:00 AM at the new light rail station by the Millennium Bridge. The suggested donation for the tour is $10 per person and all proceeds go to the non-profit Student Chapter of the American Planning Association at the University of Colorado Denver, but you’re welcome to attend regardless of what you can donate.

On the tour, we’ll see and talk about all four aspects of this major project: the transit elements, the public spaces, the renovation of the historic station, and—as you know from following this blog over the past week or so—lots of private-sector developments!

See you Saturday morning!

15th Street extends exactly 1.75 miles from W. Colfax Avenue in Civic Center to the grid-transitioning intersection at W. 29th Avenue, Boulder, and Umatilla streets in Lower Highland. Along its southern half from Colfax to Lawrence, 15th Street suffers from a severe case of parkinglotitis. But its northern half, from Lawrence to its terminus in Lower Highland, is one of the city’s best urban streets with few vacant parcels, a great mix of historic and contemporary structures, and good street vibe.

The view today down 15th Street from LoDo towards the Highlands, with Asbury Methodist Church centered above the street at the top of the hill, is one I never tire of taking in. Speaking of which, here is one of my favorite photographs from the fantastic Western History and Genealogy Department at the Denver Public Library. It’s of the same view down 15th Street, from the corner at Larimer Street looking northwest towards Highlands, in 1865. As the photograph shows, six years after the city was founded, development along 15th Street petered out around Wazee Street. Off in the distance, two shacks sit along the banks of the South Platte River. Beyond that, a whole lotta nothing.

I mention all of this because one of the few underdeveloped sites along this important stretch of 15th Street is about to get a nice big dose of urban infill. Here’s a GoogleEarth aerial where I’ve identified the site:

The L-shaped site currently includes a small one-story brick building at the corner of 15th and Delgany, an even smaller cinder-block building, a large surface parking lot, and a run-down brick building fronting Wewatta Street mid-block. The rest of the block contains the historic Wewatta Transfer and Daniels & Fisher Warehouse buildings and the 13-story Waterside Lofts. The 15th and Delgany corner has been on the cusp of redevelopment for a decade. Back in the early 2000s, a 5-story office building, 1490 Delgany, was slated for the site, followed later in the decade by the proposed 7-story Komorebi condominiums. Now, with the recovering economy and the strength of Denver’s apartment market, it looks like 15th and Delgany will finally be getting its long-awaited urban upgrade. Here’s a street-level photo of the site, with chain-link fence already in place:

The Opus Group, along with Amstar and Urban Market Partners, is planning to break ground this summer on the Delgany Apartments, a 10-story, 284-unit residential building. Here’s a preliminary rendering from the Opus Group’s project website.

On the ground floor, the project will feature four townhomes facing Delgany, along with approximately 4,000 SF of space at the corner that may be used by the Museum of Contemporary Art|Denver (located across the street) for gallery or other museum functions. The rest of the ground floor would include the residential lobby on the Wewatta side, a bike parking facility, and vehicle parking in the interior of the block. The townhomes continue on the second floor, along with more interior vehicle parking. Floors 3 through 10 include the apartment units plus a 2-level club, pool, and fitness center. Two levels of underground parking cover the entire site.

If all goes as planned, demolition of the three small buildings on the site, along with relocation of utilities and general site prep, will occur this spring/summer. That will be followed by excavation for the underground parking during the fall and winter, with completion scheduled for early 2014.

Not only does this project finish the redevelopment and revitalization of the block bounded by 15th, Wewatta, Delgany, and Cherry Creek but, from an urban form perspective, it intensifies and completes the street wall along 15th from LoDo into the Central Platte Valley, and it signifies that Denver’s historic 15th Street will continue to thrive into its second century.

The Alta City House project at 18th and Chestnut Place will be conveniently located next to the new Union Station light rail platforms and the 18th Street Pedestrian Bridge. Here’s a GoogleEarth view with the site identified:

If all goes as planned, the project will break ground later this summer and be completed by Fall 2013. For a lot more detail on the project, I’ll direct you to John Rebchook’s Inside Real Estate News blog, where he recently did a nice report on the project.

Finally, we love big color renderings here at DenverInfill, so here’s a view of the project’s 18th & Chestnut corner. While the design has been tweaked since this image was produced, it’s close enough for now to give you an idea of the project’s overall character (image courtesy of East West Partners). As always, click/zoom to embiggen.

This is an exciting project that will add more people living in Downtown, which leads to more and better retail in Downtown, which leads to more people living in Downtown, which leads to…

The first image is a view of the project’s 20th and Chestnut corner; the second image, the 19th and Chestnut corner:

The development’s groundbreaking was rescheduled from March to June, due to some final tweaks to the building design. Now, the project’s entire ground floor will have 28-foot ceiling heights. The consequence of this is quite exciting. The interior ground-floor parking area reserved for grocery store customers will now feel much more spacious with a ceiling that high. Also—and this is the really cool part—with a 28-foot floor-to-ceiling height, this has allowed the Nichols Partnership to add an L-shaped mezzanine level to the grocery store, increasing the store’s overall size. Sweet!