From roughly the 1950s through the 1980s, when Downtown Denver’s skyline blossomed with skyscrapers, many property owners on the periphery of the Central Business District cleared their land of buildings to provide parking for all those new office workers and to have a “clean site” to entice developers to buy their land for the next high-rise project. This phenomenon occurred in the Golden Triangle, Uptown, Arapahoe Square, and Ballpark districts, leaving us with a four- to five-block wide “no man’s land” zone of surface parking lots separating Downtown from these adjacent urban neighborhoods. These rips in our city’s urban fabric are still evident today, but we have made great strides over the past two decades in knitting back together our city center districts with Downtown.
One area where that progress is quite obvious is along Market/Walnut Street through the Ballpark district, where 2300 Walnut by Mill Creek Residential Trust is ready to begin construction. Recent infill projects such as 2101 Market, Premier Lofts, 24 Walnut, and Ballpark Lofts have significantly helped transform the blocks along Market (which becomes Walnut Street past Park Avenue) from a sea of asphalt to a vibrant mixed-use corridor. But there was one big gap remaining: the full city block parking lot bounded by Park Avenue, Walnut, 24th Street, and Larimer. Now, thanks to Mill Creek’s 2300 Walnut project, that big hole in the urban fabric will be repaired. Here’s a GoogleEarth aerial where I’ve marked the project location (for all images, click/zoom to embiggen):
2300 Walnut is a 5-story, 310-unit apartment building wrapped around a 446-space parking garage. Here’s an axonometric perspective of the 24th/Larimer corner looking west back towards Lower Downtown:
The project features a multi-hued brick facade with an interior courtyard, a swimming pool and fitness center, and leasing office. Thanks to Scott Johnson and Marie McClellan at Mill Creek, here are two high-resolution project renderings. These are views of the Park Avenue/Walnut corner and the Walnut Street side of the project:
Mill Creek Residential Trust just closed on the property, so now they are ready to get the project underway. Utility relocations and other site work should begin soon, with full project construction by this summer. If all goes as planned, 2300 Walnut will open late 2013/early 2014.
