Just a few days after Hines unveiled plans for their new LoDo mixed-use project at 1515 Wynkoop, Opus Northwest just released details about their proposed mixed-use project at 1400 Wewatta. Like the Hines project, I’ve been tracking the 1400 Wewatta project as it has worked its way through the approval process with the Lower Downtown Design Review Board. Unlike the Hines project, 1400 Wewatta has met significant resistence from the neighborhood, primarily due to the project’s building heights and anticipated traffic impacts. I last wrote in detail about this project in my June 2 blog. Since then, a lot of negotiation has taken place behind the scenes. For a thorough explanation of what has happened over the past few months between the neighborhood and the developer, check out this informative article, Turning the Tide in LoDo, by Ellen Wilensky. The article is currently running on the LoDo District website under the September 2006 News section.
Details about the 1400 Wewatta project and a small rendering are in an article by John Rebchook in today’s Rocky Mountain News (Opus Northwest Unveils Mixed-Use LoDo Project). According to the article, the project will include about 300,000 SF of office space, 50,000 SF of residential, a restaurant, and additional retail. The project will feature three buildings of nine, ten, and seven floors, connected by a common parking structure. Groundbreaking is scheduled for January 2007.
Congratulations to the LoDo neighbors and Opus Northwest for working out a positive solution to their differences. Surface parking lots, like the one at 1400 Wewatta, are completely antithetical to what wonderful urban places like Lower Downtown are all about. I’m glad to see that, in the end, we can all work together to find ways to repair the damage to our Downtown caused by accommodating the private automobile. On that note, I’ll end with this quote by urban historian Lewis Mumford:
“The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possess such a vehicle is the right to destroy the city.”
