Speaking of podcasts, I had the opportunity to be the guest on the Denver Diatribe podcast back in January. The Denver Diatribe, according to producers Joel Warner, Jared Jacang Maher and John Dicker, is a weekly podcast about “culture, politics and stuff as it pertains to Denver, Colorado and its environs.  The show was created in the summer of 2010 to fill a void in the local media landscape between hyper-partisan political talk on commercial radio and the agonizing stodginess of public radio.”

For my first (and, hopefully, not last) appearance on the Denver Diatribe, we talked about fun stuff like the Denver mayoral race, FasTracks, and that proposed Walmart in Lakeside. To listen to that particular podcast, click here.

If you haven’t joined us yet for one of our Union Station tours, that’s OK. The project won’t be complete until 2014. But time has a way of flying, so please don’t forget to squeeze us in sometime over the next couple of years. The Union Station redevelopment is a project that will forever transform the way people arrive in, perceive, and experience Denver. At some point, I hope you’ll join us on a sunny Denver Saturday morning. The tours run on the first and third Saturdays of each month at 10 AM. Check this blog on the Thursday or Friday before for confirmation that the scheduled Saturday tour will take place (holidays, weather, and other factors occasionally interrupt the schedule).

Any mention of DenverInfill’s focus on Union Station would not be complete without mentioning Rick Anstey and Union Station Advocates. Rick is our expert on Union Station construction activites and the author of 56 (and counting) Union Station project update blog posts. I’m guessing that when the whole project is finished, Rick will have around 200 posts on Union Station and will have uploaded some 5,000 construction photos to our project page at JobSiteVisitor.com, a great construction-photo-hosting website operated by my friend Brian Sweeney. Union Station Advocates is the non-profit community organization we’ve partnered with (donations from our tours go to Union Station Advocates) that is dedicated to making sure the historic station and the project’s public spaces are the best that they can be.

Thank you, Westword, for the “Best of Denver” award honor, and thank you, DenverInill readers, for your interest in making Denver better than ever!

To increase the frequency of our construction-photo-updating efforts here at DenverInfill, I’m happy to announce that we’re adding a new contributor, Ryan Dravitz, who will be focusing specifically on that task. Ryan is a bicycle-wielding urban photographer and planning student who will be making the rounds with camera in hand to help keep us up-to-date on the physical transformation of our Downtown area. Thank you, Ryan!

I’ll still be posting photos when I can (including a bunch of pictures of a Better Denver bond project I took this weekend that I’ll be posting soon over at DenverUrbanism), and Rick will continue to focus on the big Denver Union Station project. If you’ve got a great urban infill photo you’d like to share, please don’t hesitate to submit it. The 2000s boom may be over, but there’s still a fair amount of urban infill investment going on in Denver, and we’re happy to cover it!

DenverInfill will go back to focusing primarily on infill projects and sustainable development in Denver’s urban core (including Rick’s exceptional Union Station updates). Meanwhile, DenverUrbanism will push a decidedly pro-urban agenda for Denver and feature content from a broad coalition of urbanists.

DenverInfill = urban infill projects. DenverUrbanism = progressive urban agenda.

Say hello to DenverUrbanism!

This is the first of a few changes coming to DenverInfill in the near future, including something entirely new relating to urbanism in Denver… stay tuned.

Also, thank you for the great turnout at Saturday’s DenverInfill Tour of the Union Station project!  The next tour is scheduled for Saturday, November 6.

A bit of history: I started working on the DenverInfill website in the spring of 2004. It took me a little over a year to complete all of the various downtown and center city district pages and the other major sections of the website. It was early July 2005 when I found myself with a finished website but with one of the ten menu tabs at the top still unused. Hmmm… what to do? Then it hit me: “What about a blog!” So on July 5, I named the final unused tab at the top the “DenverInfill Blog” and wrote my first post about rumors of a new condo tower called One Lincoln Park planned for somewhere along Lincoln Street. Back then I didn’t use any blogging software but wrote the posts on static webpages. You can access those original entries here. I did that for about a year before switching to the Blogger format on August 1, 2006. On December 20, 2009, the new (current) WordPress version of the DenverInfill Blog was launched, which was also the beginning of a new era for DenverInfill focusing on urbanism and not just infill.

The most popular DenverInfill Blog post? It’s not even close. On September 1, 2006, I wrote a silly piece called Guide to Suburban Denver Subdivision Names.  That day I had about 500 visits to the blog, which was about average at the time. Then on October 9, over a month later, my post on subdivision names got picked up by Curbed LA and then the next day by Boing Boing and my site traffic went through the roof with more than 10,000 visits over a three-day period. Since then, Guide to Suburban Denver Subdivision Names has thrived in cyberspace and continues to be viewed about 600 times every month, almost four years later. Overall, DenverInfill is viewed about about 60,000 times a month on average.

The most commented on DenverInfill Blog post? That would also be the briefest DenverInfill Blog post ever, at just eight words in length. Sixty-three people had something to say about The Shortest Path.

Over the next five years, the DenverInfill Blog will continue to evolve, but our mission will remain the same:

• To inspire Denver citizens to envision and strive for exceptional urbanism in their city and region
• To inform and educate on topics relating to urban planning and city-building
• To serve as an online resource of notable urban projects, plans, policies, and programs throughout Denver
• To promote and showcase Denver and its opportunities to the world
• To advocate for positive changes to Denver’s existing and future built environment

To conclude, a big THANK YOU to all of you out there who visit this blog on a regular basis and for your kind words of support, and to the DenverInfill Blog contributors who are helping me expand the discussion about urbanism in Denver.

This is DenverInfill Blog post #884. Cheers!

According to Law Week Colorado, efforts are underway to find a new home for the mural.  Potential destinations being kicked around in what is described as “information gathering at this point” include DIA and the law schools at both the University of Colorado and the University of Denver.  There is even a suggestion that the space-intensive mural may be divided and placed at multiple locations.

The executive director of the Colorado Bar Association, Chuck Turner, is collecting suggestions for the ultimate home of the mural via email (cturner@cobar.org) and will pass them on to those in charge of the decision.  Something tells me DenverInfill readers may have some thoughts…

JobSiteVisitor.com is a photo-hosting website specifically designed for the construction industry. The service helps construction projects organize, manage, and share progress photos. Brian has created a special page at JobSiteVisitor for all of DenverInfill’s Union Station project photos—and it’s totally free and accessible to the general public.

The photos are organized by week and include shots taken from about a dozen fixed locations throughout the Union Station project site, as well close-up and other special photos. With JobSiteVisitor, you’ll be able to conveniently browse through the thousands of photos that Rick and others will be taking over the next four years to watch the transformation of the Union Station project from a big hole in the ground to a finished transit hub.

We’ve got two week’s worth of photos uploaded now, so here we go!!  Click here to visit our DenverInfill Union Station page at JobSiteVisitor.com.

At Union Station Advocates, we’ve been working for over a year to help raise funds for the film’s production. Along with many other community groups and contributors, we are thrilled that this feature-length movie on Denver’s Union Station is now ready for its big debut. General Admission tickets are $15 and available at 6:00 PM. Patron Level tickets are $100 and include a hosted bar and hors d’oeuvres reception at 5:30 PM. To purchase tickets in advance or to check out a trailer of the move, click here.

Denver’s Union Station redevelopment has been a long time in the making. First, Lower Downtown blossomed in the 1990s. Then, the Central Platte Valley emerged in the 2000. Waiting patiently in between those two vibrant districts has been our historic Union Station and its neighboring parcels, which is now poised to be the star of the 2010s.

The excitement about this project is palpable. This past fall, 800 people packed Union Station for a party the likes of which the old station hasn’t seen in generations. Fundraising is underway to bring back the Welcome/Mizpah Arch to the Union Station site. New projects like the relocation of IMA Financial’s headquarters to the Union Station site are being announced. Design work for the massive project is nearing completion and the project authority, DUSPA, has a new website with all the latest renderings, plans, and diagrams. And now… Denver Union Station-The Movie… is set to premiere. Please join us this Friday to celebrate not only a movie, but the launch of Denver’s most important civic project since Denver International Airport.