Margaret Jackson at the Denver Post reports this morning that Kroenke Sports Enterprises and developer Jim Neenan are planning to build two, 5-story, 150,000-square foot office buildings in the southwest corner of the Pepsi Center parking lots across from the Invesco Field light rail station. The buildings will be constructed in two phases. Here’s the article: (Project to Begin Near Pepsi Center).

Here’s a rendering of the project (image courtesy of denverpost.com):

The general contractor will be M. A. Mortenson and Oz Architecture is doing the design.

In general, I’m quite disappointed with this proposal. I think it’s odd that the first thing the developer boasts about is the project’s “ample parking” instead of its location immediately adjacent to a light rail station. I also see nothing mentioned about any ground-floor retail or other uses incorporated into the project. It appears this project has not been conceived as a “transit-oriented development” which, in this current era in Denver, is unfathomable. The architecture, scale, and orientation of the two buildings strike me as too suburban for this site. They’d look right at home along Dry Creek Road in Centennial.

When I wrote my blog in September on urbanizing the Elitch Gardens/Pepsi Center area (Denver’s Elitch Gardens: Don’t Raze, Urbanize!), this isn’t what I had in mind. How about this instead: Take the second proposed office building and plop it down on top of the first, making a single 10-story office building. Then, on the site where the second office building was, build a 10-story (or so) residential building. Put ground-floor retail in both buildings including a restaurant with patio seating in the plaza facing the station. Now that would be an urban, transit-oriented development, and a great start to urbanizing the massive parking lots in this part of Downtown.

As was mentioned in the article, several years ago it was announced that Kroenke planned to build a retail, residential, and entertainment project at this site, including possibly an ice-skating rink. That’s the project currently described for this location on the CVP South/Auraria page. It’s too bad that project has been replaced with this one.

Where’s the grand vision for this area? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Kroenke should partner with Elitch Gardens and the city to create a master plan for the entire Elitch’s/Pepsi Center area that would eventually replace all surface parking with structured parking wrapped by high-density residential, office, retail, and entertainment uses. That’s what we should expect for Downtown Denver!