John Rebchook at the Rocky Mountain News has the details right here.
Good luck Buzz!
Archive of posts filed under the Zoning & Regulation category.
Geller’s Bell Park Project Moves On To Option B
Buzz Geller’s 34-story “Bell Tower” was dismissed as “too massive” by the Lower Downtown Design Review Board at their meeting last week.
You may recall the controversy over the proposed tower, located at the corner of Speer and Market on Block 242 in Lower Downtown. Geller obtained the property in a swap with the city for land Geller owned where the city wanted to build (and is currently building) the new Denver Justice Center. After acquiring the creekside property, Geller lobbied for and ultimately received the right, via the creation of a new Special Review District, to construct one of two project designs: “Option A” being a thin 400-foot signature tower with expanded public open space along the creek and a 55-foot high LoDo-esque companion building on the 14th Street side of the creek, or, “Option B” being two LoDo-esque buildings on both sides of the creek that would cover more of the site. Either plan’s final design was dependent upon the approval of the Lower Downtown Design Review Board.
Option A (left) – Option B (right)
Persuing Option A, Geller teamed with Fentress Architects and eventually arrived at this signature design:
This design was panned by the Board as not being “feather-like” enough so, in response, the design was “pinstriped” by Fentress in an attempt to appear a bit thinner:
Personally, I think the original non-pinstriped version was a cleaner and better design. But anyway, the LDDRB still wasn’t sure if the tower met the Special Review District’s guidelines, so they asked the city for a clarification. The city’s response in late September was that even the pinstriped version of the tower wasn’t “vertical and slender” enough and that “minor tweaks” to the building’s design would not meet with approval.
So, as John Rebchook at the Rocky Mountain News reports in his articles of November 4 and November 7, Buzz Geller let his Option A tower go through the LDDRB process one last time, knowing it would get rejected, which is exactly what happened last Thursday. The board found the tower to be too “massive.” For comparison purposes, the rejected Geller tower design had a footprint less than half that of One Lincoln Park.
With the rejection, Geller is now planning on persuing Option B, the two shorter blockish buildings covering more of the site. That in itself isn’t a bad thing. While I would have preferred Option A, two low-rise buildings with active ground-floor uses at that location will still be far superior to the ugly surface parking lots that exist there now.
But, I have to wonder: A developer is willing to build a $300 million archtecturally striking tower in our urban core that has a footprint smaller than just about any residential tower in this city and a site plan that maximizes views and public access to the creek, but it is rejected over what could be described, at best, as a subjective design nuance. Meanwhile, the city allows another developer to slap up not one, but three cheap beige monstrosities in the Golden Triangle that are architecturally offensive and derided by almost everyone. Does this make any sense?
City Park View Plane: Too Close to Downtown
With all the discussion about the City Park View Plane and its impact on development in Upper Downtown, I thought I would elaborate my position on this further.
I am not opposed to the City Park View Plane. I am not opposed to the height restrictions it imposes. What I am opposed to is the view plane’s western boundary. Here is a map (courtesy of DenverGov.org) of the City Park View Plane:
The view plane extends all the way to the alley between Lincoln and Sherman, yet the view plane is intended to protect the view of the mountains and the skyline from City Park. If that is the case, then I argue that Sherman Street is way too close to the skyline to be the western edge of the view plane. In fact, Lincoln and Sherman streets are located within the skyline! With our most iconic tower, the Wells Fargo (Cash Register) building located between those two streets, how could anyone argue otherwise?
Here’s a graphic I put together to show the view plane’s western boundary from a different perspective:
A more reasonable western boundary to the view plane would be Pennsylvania Street, or perhaps Washington Street. That would allow high-rise development to occur along Lincoln, Sherman, Grant, and Logan, which is appropriate given the location and existing conditions, with the view plane then taking effect to allow the skyline to taper down as it heads east into the Uptown district.
The point of the City Park View Plane is to prevent a building from blocking the view of the Downtown skyline with the mountain backdrop, as viewed from the Museum of Nature and Science. Certainly, a tall building built along, say, York Street would block that view and should be prohibited for that reason. But how close to Downtown do you get before a building no longer blocks the view of the skyline, but becomes part of it? Sherman Street is definitely too close; plus, given all the nasty surface parking lots in that area, the last thing we need to do is to discourage development.
I urge the City planning office, Planning Board, and City Council to consider shifting the City Park View Plane’s western boundary to the east by at least two or three blocks.
18th and Sherman Project Denied View Plane Variance
In the latest issue of Life on Capitol Hill, Vanessa Martin reports that the condo project planned for the corner of E. 18th Avenue and Sherman Street was denied a variance from the City Park View Plane by the Denver Planning Board. Back on March 10, I opined about this proposed project and the requested view plane variance.
According to the developers, as a consequence of the denial, the site will not be developed and will remain a surface parking lot. For all the details, here’s the full article by Vanessa: 18th & Sherman Project Denied View Plane Variance.
