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.

A new Public Transit Center that will accommodate the end-of-line station for RTD’s East Line—a 23-mile rail transit connection between DIA and Union Station in Downtown Denver—currently under construction and scheduled to open for service in January 2016.

A new 500-room Westin Hotel & Conference Center that will be located immediately south of the existing Jeppeson Terminal and above the Public Transit Center.

A new 60,000 square foot Public Plaza that will connect the Jeppesen terminal with the new hotel.

Gensler is the principal architect of the entire South Terminal Redevelopment program at DIA, with Anderson Mason Dale working on the Public Transit Center. Here are some new renderings of the project, courtesy of my friends at Gensler’s Denver office. You have two options to view the renderings: click on an image to view a larger version of it, or use the link below an image to open a giant-sized version in a new window. Here we go:

View (looking north) at the Public Transit Center and Westin Hotel, with the existing terminal complex beyond:

(extra-large version)

View (looking northwest) of the Public Transit Center and Westin Hotel:

(extra-large version)

View (looking southeast) of the Public Plaza in between the existing Jeppesen Terminal and the new Westin Hotel:

(extra-large version)

View from the train platforms inside the Public Transit Center:

(extra-large version)

View of the entry to the hotel from the Public Transit Center:

(extra-large version)

View looking southwest from the Public Plaza, with the existing Jeppesen Terminal on the right and the Westin Hotel on the left:

(extra-large version)

For a few additional renderings, visit the project’s page on the Gensler website.

Today’s update is all about pavers! We have lots of progress on the walkways that lead away from the light rail station and surround the tear drop planters. The pavers not only look nice, but are also easier to maintain due to how they are installed. For the walkways, several colors of pavers (beige, grey, and red) are being used and will form a series of shapes and angles that will break up the space nicely.

It’s taken about 6 weeks to get to the progress shown in the picture above, so we can probably expect the pavers to continue to be laid down for another couple of months. How many pavers do you think it’s going to take to complete the entire walkway?

Andy Vuong is a management consultant who lives and works in the Union Station neighborhood and is an avid proponent of urban density. Andy will be providing updates on the Union Station project as a back-up to Rick, our regular Union Station project blogger. DenverInfill’s Andy Vuong is not the same person as the Denver Post writer of the same name.   

If you are new to this website or new to Denver, you need to know that there is a new bus terminal behind Union Station. Really! It’s there. And here’s the story of it so far.

The two photos below are from Update #48 on January 7, 2011. As you can see in the first one, much work on phase one of the bus terminal had been accomplished in 2010: the giant hole was excavated; the four-foot thick floor was laid; the walls were built; and the roof beams were being installed. Notice that three cranes were at work.

In the second photo above, the canopy over the light rail platform was completed, and finishing touches were in progress on the mall shuttle canopy.

So that’s the way it was at the beginning of 2011. The day after returning from a long road trip in late February, I met with Hunter Sydnor at Kiewit’s office to get an update on seven weeks of progress. And there was plenty for us to talk about.

By the end of February, the bus terminal roof was nearly complete (first photo below), the vertical walls of the skylights had been built (second photo), and the foundations for the three air inlet/outlet towers were in place.

Still in February, finishing touches were being made on the light rail tracks, and the Amtrak station had  moved to its temporary quarters on February 3.

By mid-March, the bus terminal was water-tight so the dewatering system was dismantled and the filtration system was hauled away. Work on the light rail overhead catenary system was underway (see photo below) and backfilling behind the bus terminal walls was nearly finished.

In Update #58 on April 10, I showed the following contrasting photos of the scene immediately behind Union Station. The span of time between the two photos was a mere five weeks. The tracks were gone, and the Amtrak passenger platforms had been demolished. However, the mall shuttle platforms remained for a while longer.

Backfilling on the roof of the bus terminal began in early April. In the photo below, you can see early backfilling and the waterproofing material being applied to the roof.

On April 26, excavation of the second half of the bus terminal began. It wasn’t long before the mail and baggage tunnels were revealed for the first time in many decades. Here’s a photo of the mail tunnel near 16th Street.

On April 28, I got my first tour inside of the bus terminal and wrote about it in Update #61. I remember being struck by the immensity of the space.

Moving along, the month of May saw the construction of streets. The mall shuttle loop was being built and Chestnut Place was being rebuilt, crossing over the bus terminal roof.

If there is a sad part of this story, it’s the loss of the beloved, historic passenger tunnel. In several posts throughout 2011, I gushed about the historic significance of that tunnel and my personal attachment to it: my Dad’s passing through that tunnel upon his return from the war in the Pacific in 1946 en route home to Medina, New York, to see his four month old son (me) for the first time. Here’s a photo of the beginning of the tunnel’s demolition in May 2011.

I like the following photo. It’s a wide shot of the area behind the station at mid-year. Phase 2 excavation was well underway; the mall shuttle station was still in operation, all three of the tunnels were gone; Wewatta Street was still open.

It’s exciting when a project gets to the finishing-touches stage. Lots of highly visible stuff happens. In mid-July, the Chestnut Pavilion started to take shape, and the new light rail station passenger platforms were completed (first photo below). Also, streets were completed, and the three air intake/outlet towers were built. The second photo is a good reminder of the appearance of the towers since they have been wrapped in blue plastic for the past several months. They are due to be unwrapped soon.

The Central Platte Valley Light Rail Line was shut down on July 22 in preparation of connecting the tracks at the new light rail station to the main line. Also in late-July, 16th Street and the light rail tracks embedded in it were torn up.

The lights were turned on for the first time on August 2 at the newly completed light rail station. This is another of my favorite shots.

The month of August was huge. Everything to do with the new light rail station was coming together: tracks, lighting, sidewalks, signage, railings, even light rail tests rides. The place was ready for action.

Then it finally happened. The new light rail and mall shuttle stations opened on August 15, 2011. This photo is from 5:50 that morning. I think it was the arrival of the first train. A VIP train following a couple of hours later. Go to Update #82 to see several videos of the celebration.

The first photo below is the scene at 8:00AM on August 22. The second one is 2:00pm on August 25. Nuff said.

By mid-September,the Chestnut Pavilion canopy was finished, the tear-drop planters started to show up, and a new pile of dirt was growing.

After a delay of several weeks due to a water contamination problem that was difficult to remedy, phase two excavation resumed by late-October. At the same time, there was plenty of activity constructing the tear-drop planters near the new light rail station.

Phase two excavation was nearly complete in November. Work began and continued into December on foundations for the eight sets of tracks (commuter rail, Amtrak, and Ski Train) that will be place over the roof of the bus terminal immediately behind Union Station.

As most big construction projects near completion, they rise up to highly visible structures that can be admired from near or far.  Not so with the Union Station project; progress results in its disappearance. I can’t wait for that first bus ride from the shining, new terminal that is someplace underground.

At the end of almost every blog, I remind you to take a look at JobSiteVistor.com for a more thorough visual tour of the project. By now, I have posted hundreds of photos on that site. You may enjoy a complete tour as I have done while writing this year’s retrospective.

It appears that the excavation work is nearly completed. Foundations are being built for the second set of elevators, stairs, escalators, and for the train tracks that will lay on the roof of the bus station. In the center of the background of the photo just below and slightly to the left of Glass House, notice the large sheet of vertical plastic with bright lights behind. You are looking at the lights inside of the first portion of the bus terminal. The vertical steel beams in the foreground support the shoring wall that is immediately behind Union Station.

It’s difficult to get a perspective from the photo. I’ll try to help. The scale of the hole is similar the first section: the same dept (about 28 feet), the same width, but a little shorter. I’m guessing that the first section is about 75% of the total length of the bus terminal.

The pieces of equipment in the photo above are building caissons for the train bridges that will be part of the roof of the bus terminal.  (I had to look up the definition of a caisson.) There will be eight sets of tracks (Amtrak, Ski Train, commuter rail) requiring four bridges. As we know, trains can be pretty heavy so the bridges will require deep, sturdy foundations. Therefore, the caissons.

There is good news to report. The hole is drained and excavation work on the bus terminal has resumed. A variety of factors caused long delays in getting the pumping and filtering systems in place. The ground water is contaminated with substances in addition to those found in the first phase, the clean water standards have gotten more stringent, and very few labs in the country are equipped to perform the required testing. The delays are not expected to impact the Spring 2014 completion of the project. Here is a shot that I took on Tuesday before the snowstorm.

The walls/seats are being installed around the planters near the light rail station. Here’s another photo from Tuesday. It appears that the walls are being installed along the inside edges of the foundations to maximize clearance between the planters, as suggested in some DenverInfill comments.