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Buyer Found for Historic Hangar 61 in Stapleton

Posted by Jared on March 2, 2010
Hangar61-Pic

Hangar 61

It seems that a buyer may have been found for what is certainly the coolest remaining historic structure on the Stapleton redevelopment.

The Stapleton Fellowship Church has posted a blog announcing that its members have voted to move ahead with the purchase of the Hangar 61 building. According to the website, the Christian congregation has been eyeballing the the 9,000-square-foot structure, hyperbolic spaceship-looking shell of concrete and glass at 8800 East 21st Avenue more since December. Currently the church holds services a few hundred yards away at the Denver School of Science and Technology.

There is little that Hangar 61 is better suited for than an event space, with its streamlined roof arching like a clamshell toward an expansive wall of windows.  It’s hard to imagine that the building was ever intended as an airplane hanger. It’s even more impressive considering how deteriorated the structure was before state and local preservationists stepped in to save it.

Hangar 61 in 1959

Hangar 61 in 1959

In 2004, I remember sitting in on a meeting of the Denver Planning Board for a reason I can no longer remember. The subject of Hangar 61 came up on the agenda and this guy named David Walter stepped up to the microphone and started talking about why the building needed to be saved from demolition during the crusade to convert the old Stapleton Airport into an upscale, mixed-use dreamscape.  Walter is a local artist who co-founded Ironton Studios and Gallery. Walter described how Hangar 61 was built in 1959 by the Boettcher family-owned Ideal Cement Company to house its Fairchild F-27 turbo-prop airliner. The unique structure was designed by Fisher, Fisher, and Davis, and engineered by renowned concrete-shell engineer Milo Ketchum. Plus it just looked cool.

But it had also been vacant for more than a decade prior. It would cost hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to secure the 160-foot, diamond shape concrete arch (impressively engineered without center supports) and necessary environmental clean-up. Plus there was a complex tangle of ownership between the city and private development entities.

In 2004, Hangar 61 faced demolition

In 2004, Hangar 61 faced demolition

Board members voted to kick the issue to the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission. Eventually the statewide group Colorado Preservation, Inc. stepped up with a $200,000 grant to purchase the building and get the rehab process started. Then, last spring, developer Larry Nelson bought the building with the goal of taking it to market.

Nelson’s “620 Corp Inc. has spent about $1.3 million on the project, including constructing a parking lot and adding the frame for a new entryway,” arts critic Mary Voelz Chandler reported for the Rocky Mountain News in last January. “He estimates another $300,000 to $400,000 will be necessary to bring the hangar up to the point at which someone can lease or buy it to use as office space.”

I wasn’t able to get a hold of Nelson or the church, so no word yet on the sale price or if the deal has been finalized.

Filed under Architecture, Historic Preservation, Stapleton, Uncategorized, Urbanism.
5 Comments

Downtown Albuquerque

Posted by Ken on March 1, 2010

This past week I was in Albuquerque for a conference, so I took the opportunity to explore their downtown area and take a few photos.

Downtown Albuquerque basically has two areas that provide a sense of place:  Civic Plaza, a two-block public square, and Central Avenue, a four-block stretch of shops and restaurants. Here is a bird’s eye view of Downtown Albuquerque with 3D buildings from GoogleEarth (click to embiggen):

2010-03-01_abq_aerial

The Civic Plaza is just left of center with the Albuquerque Convention Center behind it. The two red-roof towers in the center are the Hyatt (where I stayed) and a companion office building. Central Avenue is a block to the right of the hotel/office complex.

Civic Plaza is a hardscaped public square that was noticeably lifeless (except for a few homeless people) during the five days I was there. Granted, it’s the middle of the winter and there were no programmed activities held during my visit, but I suspect Civic Plaza is usually like that even in the summer unless there’s a festival or a convention going on. The Plaza is ringed by the Albuquerque Convention Center, the Hyatt, some government buildings, and a surface parking lot. Looking over the Plaza from the hotel:

2010-03-01_abq_civic1 2010-03-01_abq_civic2 2010-03-01_abq_civic3

The Plaza does have some interesting elements. There’s a parking garage underneath the Plaza (note the ramps in the foreground of the photos above), as well as a large fountain (not operating when I was there), a performance stage, and various other urban design features. Here are a few shots from within the Plaza:

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I found that with all the hardscaped surfaces, the lack of vegetation, and the harsh modernist architecture of most of the buildings nearby, that Civic Plaza didn’t feel like it was a very comfortable place to hang out in. Perhaps when the fountain is on and there are street vendors and other activities going on, it becomes a lively public space. Does anyone have any experience with Albuquerque’s Civic Plaza in the warmer months?

Next is Central Avenue, which is part of the legendary Route 66 highway. The four-blocks of Central Avenue between 3rd and 7th streets offer a nice “main street” environment with a variety of retail and restaurant establishments. Unfortunately, all the photos below were taken on a Sunday morning when virtually nothing was open and no pedestrians were around… forgive me, but that’s the way it worked out.

First, the good: the historic KiMo Theatre and its Pueblo Deco architectural style (top left), a striking new retail/restaurant corner building (top right), a funky ultra-modern condo building under construction (bottom left) and a pretty cool streetscape and signage theme built upon the Route 66 mystique (bottom right):

2010-03-01_abq_central1 2010-03-01_abq_central2

2010-03-01_abq_central4 2010-03-01_abq_central3

Now, the not-so-good:

2010-03-01_abq_central8 2010-03-01_abq_central5

2010-03-01_abq_central7 2010-03-01_abq_central6

There were a lot of empty retail spaces, and all those barred-up storefronts just leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy, don’t they?! Apparently crime is an issue in Downtown Albuquerque. In fact, the hotel where I stayed gave me a map of the downtown area, and on it was this big note that said in so many words “DO NOT WALK AROUND DOWNTOWN ALBUQUERQUE AFTER SUNSET!”

While I was there I also went to Old Town and to Nob Hill—two areas outside of downtown with some interesting urban character—but I didn’t take any photos.

Overall, downtown Albuquerque has several examples of nice urbanism, but a few issues it needs to overcome as well. But then, what city doesn’t?

Filed under Public Spaces, Urbanism.
12 Comments

#1: Downtown Denver Infill Boom

Posted by Ken on February 9, 2010

We have finally reached #1 on the Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts countdown!  It came down to a toss up between Downtown Denver’s infill boom and the whole FasTracks/Union Station thing, but, in the end, I had to go with what had inspired my website and blog in the first place: urban infill development.

Over the span of a century, we built a city that was urban and dense and thriving.  Then, around our 100th birthday, we lost our way and started abandoning what we had built. We moved on to “greener” prairies beyond the city limits and left behind deteriorated buildings that were eagerly converted into weedy vacant parcels or barren surface parking lots. We were not the only big city in the country to do this, but we were particularly good at it.

Around our 130th birthday, we rediscovered the value of our original urban places. We started restoring and rehabilitating old buildings and renewing and revitalizing old neighborhoods. Old became the new new and places like Lower Downtown and the Highlands were getting hip again. By Birthday #140, we were running out of historic buildings to convert and yet the demand for being in or near Downtown Denver was stronger than ever, so “infill” became the the “in” thing. One by one, weedy vacant parcels and barren surface parking lots were transformed into condos and hotels and offices and apartments and shops and everything in between, and by the time our big Sesquicentennial rolled around, infill was everywhere. Recently the Great Recession has slowed Denver’s infill boom, but most political, demographic, and socio-economic indicators suggest that once the economy picks up again, Denver’s urban infill boom will continue.

So just how big was Downtown Denver’s urban infill boom from 2000 to 2009? As Thomas Jefferson would say, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

1127 Sherman, 1135 Broadway Residences, 1200 Delaware, 1200 Elati, 1400 Wewatta, 1515 Wynkoop, 16 Market Square, 1740 Franklin, 1755 Blake, 1800 Larimer, 1870 Vine Street Townhomes, 1890 Wynkoop, 1900 16th Street, 2100 Uptown Lofts, 2101 Market, 2245 Blake, 24 Walnut, 2428 Champa, 25th & Tremont Townhomes, 2999 Lawrence, 3040 Zuni, 450 E. 17th Avenue, 816 Acoma, 920 E. 17th Avenue, Adair Group Offices, Ajax Lofts, Alexan Prospect, Alfred A. Arraj US Courthouse, Antares Urban Townhomes, Argonaut Liquors, Art House Townhomes, Auraria Science Building, Ayr on 29th, Ballpark Lofts, Bank of Denver Headquarters, Blair-Caldwall Library, Blake 27 Brownstones, Blake Street Apartments, Boulder Street Townhomes, Broadway Plaza Lofts, Brownstones at Riverfront Park, Brunetti Lofts, Campus Village Apartments, Capital Grille, Capitol Heights Apartments, Central Court, Champa Square, Chroma Town Homes, City Park Residences, City View Townhomes, Cityscape Townhomes, Clay Street Residences, Colorado Convention Center, Confluence Heights, Corona Park, Creekside Lofts, Denver Art Museum Hamilton Building, Denver Art Museum Residences, Denver Justice Center, Denver Newspaper Agency Building, Denver Square, DHMC Pavilion, Diamond at Prospect, Diamond Lofts, DMHC Parking Garage, East Village Redevelopment, Embassy Suites Hotel, Emerson Uptown Lofts, EPA Region 8 Headquarters, Fire Clay Lofts, FirstBank at Colfax & Franklin, Flats 15, Flour Mill Lofts II, Four Seasons Hotel & Residences, Franklin Square, Frontview 40, Garden Factory Lofts, Gates Corporates Headquarters, Gilpin Grove, Glass House, Glenarm Place Condos, Golden Row, Grant Park, Hampton Inn Highland, Highland Bridge Lofts, Highland Court, Highland Crossing, Highland Lofts, Highland Square Lofts, Highland Terrace, Highlands Vista, Hilton Garden Inn, Humboldt Gardens, Hyatt Denver Convention Center Hotel, Inca 29 Urban Brownstones, Italianate Townhomes, Jack Kerouac Lofts, Jefferson at CityGate, La Villa de Barela, Lofts at Downing Street Station, Lombard Gate, Luxe Modern Row Homes, Marais Uptown, Merchant’s Row, Metro State Parking Garage, Metroview Urban Living, Monarch Mills, Museum of Contemporary Art, Off-Broadway Lofts, One Lincoln Park, One Riverfront Park, Park Avenue West Residences, Park Place Lofts, Pearl of the City, Pearl Street Victorianan, Piranesi, Portofino, Premier Lofts, Promenade Lofts, Quality Hill Townes, Rail Yark Marketplace, Renaissance Riverfront Lofts, Residence Inn by Marriott, Residences at 1882 Race, RiverClay, Riverfront Tower, Shoshone Heights, Shoshone Lofts, Speer Lofts, Spire, St. Joseph’s Medical Offices, St. Lukes Lofts, State Capitol Parking Garage, Steelbridge Lofts Annex, Strada Flats, SugarCube, Swallow Hill, TAXI, Tejon Square, The Bartholomew, The Beauvallon, The Dakota, The Delgany, The Edge at City Park, The Ellington Lofts, The Gathering Place, The Manhattan, The Mansion, The Metro, The Milan, The Park One Riverfront, The Point, The Proado, The Renaissance, The Station at Riverfront Park, Titanium Lofts, Tower on the Park, Townhomes at Riverfront Park, Umatilla Townhomes, Upper Larimer Lofts, Uptown Apartments, Uptown Lofts, Uptown Square, Urbans @ Curtis, Urbans @ Glenarm, Urbans @ Stout, Urology Center of Colorado, Villa Riva, Villages at Curtis Park, VOA Bob Magness, Walker’s Row, Washington Square, Waterside Lofts, Wellington Webb Municipal Building, Welton Place Townhomes, Wyandot Overlook, Zi Lofts, Zocalo Condos… and many more I’m sure I’ve missed.

Not too bad for a 1.5-mile radius of Downtown, huh?

The Aughts were a pretty darn good decade for urbanism in Denver. Let’s hope for an even better decade in the Tens… there are a lot of surface parking lots to go!

Filed under History, Infill, Urbanism.
9 Comments

#4: Progressive Plans and Policies

Posted by Ken on January 28, 2010

Number 4 in our list of Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts is the various progressive plans and policies the city has adopted in the past decade. OK, I know this one may not be as exciting as some of the others on the list, but it is just as important in the long run.

The reason why we find ourselves with urban development issues like buildings that are out-of-scale with their surrounding context or wide high-volume one-way streets or boring blank walls along whole blocks of Downtown is because the policies and plans we had in place at the time those things were constructed allowed, encouraged, or even required that those things occur. Change the policies, and you change the results you get.

For decades, Denver’s public rights-of-way have been under the control of the traffic engineers. The only purpose of a street, after all, is to move the maximum number of motor vehicles from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible, right? Denver was not alone in this viewpoint, of course. Pretty much the whole country went on a wild automobile orgy after World War II, ripping out historic neighborhoods to put in expressways, widening local streets in older areas to function as major arterials, tearing down buildings to put up parking lots, putting in double or even triple turn lanes at intersections and not bothering with cross-walks, designing new subdivisions with curvy and dead-end streets where nothing connects to anything and you have to drive everywhere to get anywhere, building new homes with a huge garage facing the street and with the dwelling hidden somewhere in the back… the list goes on. And then we wonder: why are we so alienated by our built environment?

Fortunately, the plans and policies that got us into this mess have been changing in Denver, and this past decade we made excellent progress on that front. The decade began with the completion of the new Denver Comprehensive Plan 2000 which established a broad vision and goals for the city. That was followed up in 2002 by Blueprint Denver, the city’s first-ever integrated land use and transportation plan that categorized all parts of the city into Areas of Change and Areas of Stability and focused on the mixing of land uses along with multi-modal streets. In 2005, the Downtown Multimodal Access Plan (DMAP) was adopted which identifies circulation patterns and routes in the Downtown area for all forms of transport and mobility, as well as cross-sections and streetscape designs for all of Downtown’s different street classifications.

The list goes on. Since 2005, the City of Denver has completed the Strategic Transportation Plan, Greenprint Denver, the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Strategic Plan, the Denver Living Streets initiative, and the Downtown Area Plan.  And then there’s the new Denver Zoning Code which, while not quite complete yet, has been a massive—Herculean—effort over the past five years that will align our zoning regulations with all of our new land use, transportation, and urban design goals and policies.

Are any or all of these new plans and policies perfect? Hmmm… no. But what is important to recognize is that they are all fundamentally based on the same philosophies and principles of urbanism that created Denver’s original urban districts and neighborhoods that we so treasure today, and 180-degrees opposite the automobile-oriented and modernist philosophies and principles that created most of the mess we’re trying to fix.  For that reason, Denver’s bundle of new “old urbanism” plans and policies ranks Number 4 on our Top 10 list.

Filed under Plans & Policies, Urbanism, Zoning & Regulation.
5 Comments

#5: Central Platte Valley Redevelopment

Posted by Ken on January 26, 2010

One of the most dramatic transformations in Downtown Denver that occurred during this past decade was the redevelopment of the Central Platte Valley, earning #5 in our Top 10 countdown of Denver’s Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts.

The Central Platte Valley began the decade as a mostly blank slate. By the end of the 1990s, the old viaducts that spanned the Valley had been removed or rebuilt, and the massive rail yard behind Union Station was history. Gone too were the big warehouses once found along Grinnell Court, a street hugging the edge of the Platte River that was also removed. The CPV Master Plan was ready for implementation. As the new decade dawned, construction was underway on Commons Park and Little Raven Street—their outlines can be seen in the first Google Earth image (October 1999) in the animation below.

Central Platte Valley redevelopment animation (1999 - 2007)

Progress came quickly. By April 2003 (second image in the sequence), Commons Park, the Millennium Bridge, the three Riverfront Park condo buildings clustered around the bridge, the Manhattan, and the Archstone Apartments (now The Station) were all completed.

December 2004 (third image), construction has started on the Delgany, the Denver SkatePark was finished, the realignment of Little Raven at 20th Street was complete, and work had started on the Confluence Park Plaza.

By May 2006 (fourth image), a lot had changed. Monarch Mills, Creekside Lofts, and the Townhomes at Riverfront Park were finished and the Glass House, One Riverfront, the Brownstones, and the ArtHouse Townhomes were under construction.

The final image (July 2007) shows everything mostly complete and the Park One Riverfront and the Museum of Contemporary Art under construction. Since that final image, 1900 16th Street has joined the scene on the Union Station side of the tracks.

Despite the remarkable transformation of the Central Platte Valley since 2000, there is still quite a bit of work to go to complete the Riverfront Park Master Plan. The Cosmopolitan Club site at 15th and Little Raven, as well as four other parcels by the Brownstones and the Manhattan, remain as future development sites.

It’s now hard to imagine Downtown Denver without the Central Platte Valley as it is, yet it was only a decade ago that the area was a vast expanse of vacant land. Looking across the tracks, it makes one wonder what the area behind Union Station will be like in 2020. I can’t wait to find out.

Filed under Central Platte Valley, Infill, Urbanism.
8 Comments

#6: T-REX

Posted by Ken on January 23, 2010

Counting down Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts… at number 6 is the TRansportation EXpansion project.

T-REX was the nickname given to the massive highway reconstruction/light rail project that was so successfully adopted by the public that even though the project has been finished for over three years now, people still refer to the southeast light rail line as the “T-REX line”. Construction on the 19-mile-long project began in 2002 and wrapped up four years later, with the grand opening ceremony taking place on November 17, 2006. The T-REX project rebuilt Interstate 25 from Broadway in Denver to Lincoln Avenue in Douglas County. Rebuilt, as in completely from the ground up, including new underground utilities, new storm water drainage, new roadbed, new bridges at every interchange, new sound walls, new lighting, new landscaping, and new signage. As part of the reconstruction, several new lanes were added in each direction, including braided on/off ramps and transition lanes at several interchanges to eliminate conflicts between vehicles merging on and off the highway. Interstate 225, from its interchange with I-25 to Parker Road in Aurora, also received a substantial reconstruction and widening. Along both I-25 and I-225, double-track light rail lines were laid with 13 stations along the way.

For those of you who are a friend of DenverInfill on Facebook, I’ve just uploaded two albums totaling 100 photos of T-REX construction and the grand opening. To become a DenverInfill Facebook friend, use the link on the right sidebar. Here’s a sampling:

T-REX construction 1 T-REX Construction 2

T-REX Construction 3 T-REX Construction 4

T-REX Opening 1 T-REX Opening 2

T-REX Opening 3 T-REX Opening 4

T-REX represents an excellent example of cooperation between CDOT and RTD, between Denver and its neighboring cities and counties, and a comprehensive multi-modal approach in making transportation investments.

Filed under Automobiles, Infrastructure, Transit, Urbanism.
6 Comments

#8: Stapleton Redevelopment

Posted by Ken on January 20, 2010

Number 8 in Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts is the redevelopment of the former Stapleton International Airport. The decade began with the seven-square-mile site mostly “de-airported” and a master developer and detailed redevelopment plan in place. Construction of Stapleton’s first streets and homes started in 2001 and its first residents moved in during 2002. Over the course of the rest of the decade, it was full-steam ahead for the project, as Stapleton closed out the Aughts with over 3,000 homes, more than 8,000 residents, two major retail centers, offices, schools, hundreds of acres of parks… and it’s not even close to being built out yet.

Everyone has an opinion about the Stapleton development. For some, the lots are too small and the homes too close together and too pricey for their size—it’s just a little too urban. For many others, the project isn’t urban enough, with insufficient density and diversity for a project so close to the region’s urban core. On the urbanity spectrum, Stapleton falls somewhere between suburban and urban at a point that differs depending upon who you talk to and which aspect of the project you discuss.

Every time I go to Stapleton, I find myself intrigued, impressed, disappointed, amazed, conflicted. On one hand, I think the quality of the development—the streets, parks, plazas, bridges, and the buildings in general—is quite high, with a clear design intent and attention to detail that permeates the project. On the other hand, some of the neighborhoods give off a bit of a Truman Show vibe, and the residential architecture strikes me as perhaps more of a caricature of Denver’s historic neighborhoods than a modern interpretation of them. Yet, after spending a fair amount of time in Stapleton, I find its neighborhoods more interesting and appealing than just about any suburban development I’ve been to.

The heavy investment in park space has its pros and cons in my opinion. The parks are very well done and the natural areas along Westerly Creek are incredible. Central Park is a great public space and it will mature and be mentioned one day in the same breath as our city’s other great urban parks like City, Sloans, Washington, and Cheesman. However, there may be too much open space at Stapleton. One-third of the project’s land area is planned as parks and open space, which seems too high of a percentage to me, and that there’s some good urban land there that should be developed to capitalize on Stapleton’s central location.

Most disappointing are the commercial areas. The Stapleton master plan completely lacks any of the easy-to-walk-to, intimate, commercial corners tucked within a neighborhood like we have in our historic Denver districts. If Stapleton is supposed to be old Denver urbanism that’s new, then where is Stapleton’s Old South Gaylord, 32nd & Zuni, 11th & Ogden, or 12th & Elizabeth? The 29th Avenue Town Center is nice, but Quebec Square and Northfield are wasted opportunities. Both rely on the same big-box-power-center-that-could-be-anywhere-in-suburban-America design. Where is the mixed use? Where is the structured parking? Where are the apartments above the retail? At a minimum, Northfield and Quebec Square should have been a Belmar, but instead, we got an Aspen Grove.

One thing is certain, however, about the Stapleton project: it has been hugely popular and it has had a major impact on Denver’s growth and development. It has provided landlocked Denver with a type of development that it hasn’t had much of a chance to offer in many years. As the largest urban infill and New Urbanist project in the country, Denverites and urbanites across the country have watched Stapleton grow over the past decade and will continue to view it with interest as it matures, as Stapleton represents a notable experiment in how we build our cities in the new century.

Filed under Stapleton, Urbanism.
21 Comments

#9: Convention Center Expansion and Hotel

Posted by Ken on January 17, 2010

Next in line at #9 in our countdown of “Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts” is the expansion of the Colorado Convention Center and the construction of the Hyatt Denver Convention Center Hotel next door.

First, a quick history of Denver’s convention centers. The city’s first convention center was the Denver Auditorium at 14th between Curtis and Champa, which opened just in time to host the 1908 Democratic National Convention. That handsome facility today has been incorporated into the Denver Performing Arts Complex and is the home of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Eventually, the Auditorium became insufficient for a city Denver’s size, so in 1964 Denver voters approved a bond issue to build a new convention center. Currigan Hall was completed in 1969 at a cost of $13 million. It covered two full city blocks between Champa and Stout and from 14th to 12th Streets and was connected to the Auditorium with a skybridge. Currigan Hall featured a 100,000 sf exhibit hall on the ground floor, 40,000 sf of exhibit space in the basement, and another 30,000 sf of meeting space in the mezzanine.

By the 1980s, Denver again desired a bigger and better convention center. Finally, in June 1990, Phase 1 of the Colorado Convention Center opened to great fanfare. The new $126 million convention center was 940,000 square feet in total size and featured a 300,000 sf main exhibit hall, 65,000 sf of meeting rooms, and a 35,000 sf ballroom. Phase 1 covered the blocks between Welton and Stout and from 14th Street past 12th Street to almost Speer Boulevard.

As soon as the new Colorado Convention Center opened, city leaders began discussing the need for a convention headquarters hotel, as well as the future Phase 2 expansion of the new center. Planning for the Phase 2 expansion occurred throughout the late 1990s, and in November 1999, Denver voters approved a $310 million bond issue to pay for the center’s expansion. Construction began in January 2001 and opened in December 2004. The expansion added another 300,000 square feet to the main exhibit hall, another 35,000 sf of meeting rooms, an additional 50,000 sf ballroom, a 5,000-seat auditorium, and a 1,000-space parking garage, taking the entire facility up to 2.4 million sf in total size. To accommodate the expansion, Currigan Hall, as well as TerraCenter, an office tower at Speer and Stout, were demolished, and Stout Street and the Light Rail tracks were rerouted to curve through the facility. Here’s an animation I’ve created using GoogleEarth archive images, starting with a black and white 1999 image before construction began, and ending with a 2006 image after the hotel was completed:

2010-01-17_ccc_animation2

Meanwhile, several convention center hotel proposals were advanced by the private sector, but none could get off the ground. Finally, with expansion of the convention center underway, the Webb Administration, fed up with the lack of progress on the hotel project, decided that the city should build the hotel itself. Construction on the new Hyatt Denver Convention Center hotel began in June 2003 and opened in December 2005, one year after the expanded convention center opened. The new hotel covers the entire block bounded by 14th, 15th, Welton, and California, and includes 1,100 rooms in a 37-story tower.

The combination of the expanded convention center and the Hyatt hotel has allowed Denver to stay competitive in the convention-hosting business by keeping the city in the top tier of convention cities and able to host all but the biggest conventions. Together, the Colorado Convention Center and Hyatt Denver Convention Center Hotel projects have spurred substantial private-sector investment in the area and, along with the investments made next door at the Performing Arts Complex, have greatly contributed to the overall revitalization of Downtown Denver.

Filed under Central Downtown, Government & Civic, Hospitality, Urbanism.
6 Comments

#10: Democratic National Convention

Posted by Ken on January 15, 2010

Number 10 in our countdown of “Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts” is Denver’s hosting of the Democratic National Convention. As events go, hosting a national political convention is pretty big. Certainly not Olympic big, but bigger than, say, hosting the Superbowl. Add in the historic significance of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee, and for one week in August 2008, Denver was in the national and, sort of, international spotlight. Hosting an event like the DNC had its risks. Bad weather, terrorist attacks, rioting protesters, poor planning and/or logistical execution, technical failures… the list is long of the things that could have gone wrong that would have, at a minimum, tarnished the city’s reputation. Instead, a week of perfect weather, a sparkling downtown dotted by construction cranes, and a virtually flawless execution of the entire event sent our guests off with a positive perception of Denver as a beautiful, modern, can-do city, and gave us, hopefully, the inspiration and confidence to continue pursuing big goals.

Additionally, the DNC give us a glimpse of what it will be like when we have another 100,000 people living and working in the Downtown area. The DNC demonstrated that what makes for a great city is not just clean streets and handsome buildings but people, lots of them, and the energy they create through their assembly and interaction. Downtown Denver was teeming with people. I’m sure many of you who spent time Downtown during the DNC contemplated the same thing I did: What if it was like this all the time? The DNC gave us the opportunity to experience Downtown’s future and to understand the benefits and challenges that come along with having such a density of people and activity.

The other thing the DNC illuminated for us about Downtown Denver is the blessing and the curse of the 16th Street Mall. Yes, Downtown was teeming with people, but about 95% of them were concentrated along the Mall. The Mall functions as a mile-long public space that extends its positive attributes across Downtown as a linear path rather than focusing it in one location as a node. That can be a good thing, as it puts all of Downtown Denver within just a few blocks of the Mall’s positive influence. But the 16th Street Mall also hogs most of the attention (and people) from the rest of Downtown. During that busy week, as I walked within the stream of humanity along the Mall, I observed the empty sidewalks of the cross streets and thought to myself: Why would I want to walk down there? There were a few exceptions where the sidewalks off the 16th Street Mall were busy, like in Lower Downtown and around the Convention Center and Performing Arts Complex, but we really must focus our attention over the next 20 years on “spreading the wealth” among all of Downtown Denver when it comes to attractive sidewalks and interesting ground-floor uses that draw and engage people. Fortunately, that is exactly the thrust of the 2007 Downtown Area Plan and other initiatives like Denver Living Streets and the Pedestrian Priority Zone. And when the next wave of development happens, replacing Downtown’s surface parking lots with people-attracting buildings and activities will bring us even closer to the day when we can say: It’s like this all the time.

Filed under Events & Meetings, Urbanism.
6 Comments

Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts

Posted by Ken on January 14, 2010

Last January, I started the new year off with a Top 10 list. It was fun to do and it generated a lot of interesting comments, so I thought I’d do it again. Since we just finished the first decade of the new century, this year’s Top 10 topic is…  Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts!

As was the case last year, my Top 10 list is not exactly (or, rather, isn’t at all) the result of comprehensive research and analysis on the subject. I’m winging it. So, don’t fret if you find the ranking or the items in the list not to your liking. Just enjoy the discussion. Also, I reserve the right to interrupt this Top 10 countdown if something pops up in the interim that I want to blog about.

On with the countdown in my next post!

Filed under Urbanism.
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