Great news, Downtown Denver fans! Construction on the Nichols Partnership’s 41-story Spire project on Block 131 will resume, starting tomorrow. Here’s the press release just minutes old:
SPIRE RESUMES CONSTRUCTION WITH NEW CAPITAL STRUCTURE
Denver’s Signature High-Rise Residential Community Back on Track
Denver, CO January 23rd, 2008 – Spire Denver, LLC announced today that it closed on financing for Spire, a $175 million mixed-use 41-story high-rise residential community, located at 891 14th Street. The project’s general contractor JE Dunn will re-commence construction on January 24th with a projected delivery in December 2009. Spire will include 503 attainably priced one and two bedroom homes and 7,633 square feet of street-level retail space. Randy Nichols, President of the Nichols Partnership and the Developer of Spire remarked, “In light of the current state of the capital markets, this financing is a significant accomplishment for the entire Spire team and is further affirmation that downtown Denver continues to be among the select markets that attract nationwide attention from major lending institutions for investment in urban housing.”
Steve Hamline, President and CEO of JE Dunn Construction added, “In my 28 years of experience I have never seen such extraordinary commitment and team collaboration. To keep the project moving forward during such turbulent financial markets is truly amazing. JE Dunn has an unwavering belief in the Nichols Partnership and with the cooperation of our subcontractors we are proud to restart construction of this signature project for our city.”
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper applauded the announcement, “Spire is an important project for Denver – adding hundreds of new downtown residents, further enhancing the 14th Street corridor’s urban vibrancy, and taking green building to new heights. This exciting development bodes well for the future of Downtown Denver’s residential housing market.” Tami Door, President and CEO of The Downtown Denver Partnership remarked, “We have always had a high level of confidence in the developer’s ability to complete this project and the marketability of the units. This is a transformational addition to Downtown and to 14th Street in particular. We are absolutely thrilled to see the project moving forward and are excited about the added housing choices it will provide to individuals considering living Downtown.”
The senior construction loan was provided by Corus Bank, with Colonnade Properties and Madison Capital Company providing mezzanine debt, along with Fisher Capital providing key subordinate debt for the project. Corus has worked closely with Nichols Partnership to close this loan. “Corus is proud to continue lending to experienced developers on well-positioned condominium developments throughout the country. We look forward to working with Randy and the rest of his team on this exciting project,” said Seth Hewitt, Corus Bank Vice President.
When complete, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) registered project will combine exceptional views, amenities and location with sustainable design. Spire residents will be steps away from the commerce, culture, sporting events and nightlife of Denver. Homeowners will take advantage of abundant amenities such as a resort style pool deck with outdoor living room, spas and fire pit as well as poolside clubroom with high definition televisions and pool tables. Residents will also enjoy the convenience of a first-class fitness center, 24/7 concierge, grocery and dry-cleaning storage, private dog walk, controlled access and secure reserved parking.
Homes at Spire will enhance the urban living experience with modern design including floor-to-ceiling windows with mountain and city views, balconies, soaring 10-foot ceilings, contemporary kitchens with granite slab countertops, stainless steel appliances and extensive high-tech features. “With residences priced from $200,000, Spire is ideally positioned to provide our owners with a unique opportunity to live in a sustainably-designed, amenity-rich project at an attainable price,” said Randy Nichols, president of Nichols Partnership. “Downtown Denver is a vibrant, exciting place to work, live and play… Spire will enable many more people to experience this dynamic urban lifestyle.”
Spire is located at 891 14th Street adjacent to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Denver Convention Center, a RTD light rail station and a few blocks from Larimer Square, Lower Downtown, The Pepsi Center, the Cherry Creek Bike Path and the 16th Street Mall. Spire’s distinctive location provides residents with prime access to Denver’s compelling lifestyle and places homeowners at the epicenter of over 1.6 billion dollars of public and private investment that is taking place on 14th Street. Additional information about Spire is available on the project website www.spiredenver.com
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=31894631&postID=7176876899689999102&isPopup=true
I called it! (anon 10:03am) and you all doubted me- tsk,tsk.
Congratulations to the Nichols Partnership. We're almost as relieved with this news as they are. I hope they sell it out quickly.
SWEET!! That is great news.
YESSSSSSSSS!!!
WHERE DEM HATERS ET NOW?
WOW! Randy, Chris and Bill of the Nichols Partnership deserve a heap of praise for pulling through such adversity.
hallalejua… halleluja… haleluja, haleluja, haleluuuueeeaaa
This project is an example of how diligence, patience, and hard work can pay off in real estate. I have no doubt that it will be a tremendous success.
nice now i dont have to stare at the same 3 floors of ugly concrete and mess out of my window anymore….maybe the crane will actually start moving because of someone operating it, not because of the wind…
Thrilled to here it! How many stories will be they be at by the DNC?
Also – The base for the tower crane for the Four Seasons has been put in…
Here's to Nichols and those lenders! I've been watching them swing that crane every morning for the past week, hoping they were warming that thing up for some action, and it looks like they were!
CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT – WAY TO GO !
Denver went 2 decades without a skyscraper being built. Now there will be 2 40+ buildings going up at the same time. Way to go Denver!
Congrats Randy, Way to go. Love your building,it will make the Convention Center Area a lot nicer and more exciting. Thank You.
How come they are not offering pre-construction unit sales?
I too am thrilled to see the Denver Spire moving upward…just sort of wish it were going to be a bit more like this…not to rain on anyone's parade…but…
http://www.thechicagospire.com/
Why is it that the architects of our buildings seem to know only one shape: the box? Or the box with a sort of an outcropping they are all calling a spire? This design repeats in the Hyatt Convention hotel, the 1600, and now the Denver Spire. Maybe the Chicago Spire is even to wild for Chicago's daring sky line, but there's no reason we cannot get some buildings above 40-50 stories. Why can't we get some developers with (a) imagination, (b) bigger bucks, and (c) mixed use concepts. What ever happened to the Trango Tower people–now that was a cool and unique signature tower for our city. I appreciate all of the excitement over the three 14th Ave projects, I just wish two had gotten together for a truly outstanding double the height project (imagine if Spire people and 4 Seasons people had merged projects for an 80-story project, for example. Our developers need to go to Chicago and spend some time there. Where's our Hancock building? Where's our Water Tower Place? Forget Cherry Creek Mall, we need a replica of Water Tower Place to bring real retail to 16th street–as much as everyone is so terribly excited about the Fontius make-over, I'd have preferred that site (façade intact) to have been the base of a new 75-story mixed use project that would have been 8 stories of underground parking, 12-stories of indoor (this is Colorado and it's cold in the winter to the geniuses that thought the outdoor pavilions was a brilliant idea) mall, with a 20-story hotel above the mall, with 43 stories of luxury apartments and condos above that. Maybe if our mayor had been as much into great use of our downtown land resources for stunning mixed use towers as he was into restaurants and brew pubs, things would be different.
Anon 3:51: Height is not everything. I would prefer to see more downtown parking lots disappear under 40-50 story buildings than a few 80 story building constructed. Have you ever worked or lived in an 80 story building? I worked on the 72nd floor and hated it. Taking the long elevator ride down just for a breath of fresh air really sucked.
Anon 3:51: Constructing a 75 story building on the south side of 16th street would cast a shadow completely across the street at all times of year and seriously hurt the pedestrian activity of that part of the mall. Also, I hope nothing like Chicago Spire ever gets built in Denver. It is the ugliest, most phallic building I have ever seen. I cant believe the people of Chicago are allowing that giant dildo to be constructed on their waterfront.
Anything above 60 stories would be too high for our skyline and might the demand might not meet its need, hence all the 40-50 story towers being built. Anyways, Chicago first started as a sprawl of 30 story buildings before the bigger ones got started.
Also, the Hancock building is plain fugly. So is the Sears Tower. If tall building have to look like that, no thanks. I'd prefer a Chrysler or a Empire State Building, myself.
I'm with anon:3:51 we do need a new NICE sig tower! That would look nice in denver & also put us on the map a little bit more. But the chrysler or empire state buildings NO! They are fugly to.
I want a building just like the Bank of China Building in Hong Kong…if you want some pretty fantastic models of tall buildings check out that skyline!
I totally agree that an 80 story building would stick out like a sore thumb if it were placed in the middle of our skyline today…let's just let Denver grow, and whent the density is great enough to support such a structure, then I think we should build it…
To paraphrase all of the above:
I want it all, and I want it now!
The Chrysler and Empire State Buildings are fugly??? OMG I think that comment takes the cake!
Its interesting because we were all biting our nails practically at every post asking what's going on with the Spire. Now on the actual page that reassures us that the Spire will go up, you losers start taking about a signature building. There are plenty of surface parking lots that will provide that. In the meantime let Denver's core grow.
The cash register building isn't Denver's most distinctive – 1999 Broadway is. Building tall is all about economics. If you want Chicago I'd suggest you move back. You're not going to turn Denver into Chicago with governmental gimmicks. When the population and economics warrant Denver will grow tall.
Anonymous 3:51/4:15:
It's fine to be able to ride the Light Rail to Park Meadows Mall, but what if I simply want travel between the DAM and the MCA-Denver?
You can get within three blocks of each of these on either end of the 16th street mall shuttle. Plus, when the downtown circulator bus is finished, you'll be able to get between the two without walking more than two blocks total. Is that not good enough for you?
How exactly do you get there on foot?
I'd assume you'd walk if you wanted to get there by foot. It's not very far.
If we don't want our downtown to become like that of Paris …. we need to urge the concept of lank banking and multi-use sites.
Are you kidding me? First of all, Paris is both more walkable and more mixed-use than Denver. If Denver was more like Paris — that is, built on a human scale, I think we'd be a lot better off. I'd take the scale of Paris over that of Chicago any day.
Second, big buildings do not necessarily make a city more walkable. Just look at 17th street for an example of that, which is the least pedestrian friendly area of downtown Denver, yet has the highest buildings. The key is to get strong enough density to make an area walkable, which, if done right, can be buildings of around 5 stories. It could even be lower than that.
If you go Chicago, why not just go New York? Chicago is just a shadow city of everything New York does. Its lame and overrated. It has clearly been marginalized by the existence of Los Angeles.
More to my point and in the spirit of providing evidence that I'm not alone in hoping for better city planning, here's an interesting story regarding a lack of vision for Civic Center (which I mentioned in my post before seeing this article just now).
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/26/temple-vision-for-civic-center-blurry/
People chicago is not a shadow of NY nor marginalized by LA. It is itself a Great city such as the rest of our cities and has hosted the worlds tallest building for years and will cont. to do so when the 2000'ft spire is done being built. But I am a Denverite just wanting denver to stand out, with its skyline, in much this has nothing to do with the economy, gov, investors, architects, engineers or contracters(such as mr. trump) that build tall buildings. Just from this blog alone I have learned how hard it is to build a building by getting funds, gov, eco. stimulus, land, or the right architect for the job. If the multi billionaire Trump can not build in denver then damn! he even had a clearance from the city gov. the land, funds, and his own architect. It is hard.
But lets not hate on each others cities for what ever reasons. denver will be denver chi will be chi, ny will be ny, and la will be la.
L.A sucks, talk about srawl and a pathetic downtown center, I'm glad Denver is nothing like L.A!
Hey Ken,
I apologize if you already have a link to this page. If not, you might enjoy considering it, and, perhaps inviting conversation about how our fair city stacks up. It's pretty compelling to have quick access to the graphical images of all the tall buildings built, proposed, or under construction all over the world. They seem to have a number of missing buildings for our city, though.
Cheers, and keep up the excellent work on your most informative and useful blog. Other than my own, yours is the only blog I visit weekly.
http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?c129
When will pre-sale begin? Shouldn't it have started by now?
Totally agree. The new Spire is another boring Denver shoebox. 1999 Broadway is the most distinct example of modern contemporary architecture we have in this cowtown. The Qwest (1801 California) tower wouldn't be so bad if it weren't butt fugly earthtone brown. I always thought if it sported a whitish facade with blue glass (think LA's Library Tower) it might look pretty decent. I saw the renderings of the 4 Seasons. Once again, prominent use of earthtone colors. Common Denver, look at pictures of Singapore or Hong Kong for some killer skyscraper designs. Where is IM Pei when we need him?!?