The other day while attending the Visioning Workshop for the Downtown Area Plan, I saw a photo of the new urban-style Target store recently constructed in Stamford, CT. Seeing it saddened me because it reminded me of the failed plan for an urban Target store (with affordable housing above, no less) on Block 162. You can thank the Cook family, owner of the blighted Fontius building, for that deal falling through. Anyway, in the DenverInfill archives I found a cool photo of that block I had taken, so I thought I’d share the two of them together.

Do a little mind exercise and picture the Target store covering all of the block except for the Fontius (left) and McClintock (right) buildings in the foreground, with a residential tower or two along 15th Street rising above. Wouldn’t that have been sweet? Funny, from that distance, the Fontius building doesn’t look all that bad. Hopefully, developer Evan Makovsky, who is planning a major project on the block with or without a renovated Fontius, will soon relieve us from the shame that is Block 162.