The Uptown Apartments project, located on the block bounded by Washington, 19th, Clarkson, and Park Avenue, has changed its name to Park Avenue Lofts. Construction on the Uptown district project is coming along nicely. Check it out:
Photo credit to Vicki H.
Not to mention that the Safeway refronting looks nice. I was by there the other day.
There's nothing like giving your store a small facelift, jacking up the prices, and firing several checkers and baggers to installing those horrid self-checkers. I live right by that Safeway, and I'm looking for a new place to shop.
Okay, I know these apartments are rentals … but the new apartment buildings in this neighborhood are kind of phoney, what with false peaked fascades and a general lack of attention to detail (I'm thinking crap brick work). Really, will these buildings be here in 30 years? Or will they just take them down? We need high-quality construction, something that will withstand the test of time … I don't see it here in these apartments. Just me and my opinions.
i LOVE the new Safeway…. They now have Deli Olives! Goooooo Gentrification!
Hey David – gas stations used to pump gas for their clients, too. Do you miss that extra service now that you have to pump gas yourself? As for me, I actually prefer the self-checkers. And they're not jacking prices because of the facelift – food prices everywhere are rising, but it has more to do with oil than anything else..
I like what the Safeway has done.
they *did not* jack up the prices. the cost of like items is the same across every safeway in town. likewise for king soopers.
food in general is on the rise, but don't assume it's gentrification.
Anon 8:31 – I couldn't agree more with your concerns. I think the general trend in everything, including in urban infill, is for products of a disposable nature.
When looking for a rental, I toured a certain nameless apartment complex in the Commons Park area, west of downtown, and parts of that building were already crumbling. I have family that live in Stapleton, and only five years in, they're having terrible problems with their construction. It's sad, since the goal of infill is to create a beautiful urban environment, the poor quality of construction seems to ensure that 30 yrs down the road, Denver will have anything but…
David, I hate to break it to you, but you'll find that EVERYWHERE prices are on the rise. Petroleum is getting too expensive. That effects things both on the transportation and production sides of most products you find in the grocery store.
Dow Jones sent out a notice that their entire product line will rise in price by 22% this year due to oil cost. That includes things from makeup to shampoo and soap to soda to medicine.
I'm very aware of across the board price increases. However, before my current move to downtown Denver and before this current upturn in general pricing, I lived out in Aurora and shopped at the Safeway on Havana and Mexico. While I lived out there, that Safeway underwent the same "transformation" – some flagstone pavers, a new sign, and self-checker installation. Come the Grand Re-Opening, they'd stopped carrying several of their lower priced items. Dairy Glen milk and the much cheaper (and much better) garbanzo beans they use to stock in the Mexican food isle were two things I regularly purchased that disappeared from the shelves. I also noticed that the prices for quite a few items increased 20-30% overnight. For instance, the yogurt I'd been buying there for years went from $0.79 to $1.29 in the matter of one day.
Just saying. I've never lived out of downtown. I shop at the King Soopers on 13th and Speer, the Queen Soopers, the Unsafeway and sometimes I venture to Whole Foods if I'm feeling particularly organic. My receipt is always highest at Whole Foods, and is on average similar at the other shops. The only place people aren't complaining about price increases is at Whole Foods, since they know it's expensive.
It could be some conspiracy by the grocery elite to squeeze the blood of the working classes. Which is, of course, the goal of evil and leery eyed capitalists everywhere. You can always recognize those dirty conivers by their never dying thirst for efficiency.
Peace and solidarity, brothers.
I just wish we had a Sunflower Market or a Trader Joe's (I really miss them from when I lived in Portland) downtown. Those stores have a decent selection plus some unique items that Safeway and KS don't carry. They have reasonable, everyday prices rather than a pricing scheme with loyalty cards that make it seem half the store is on sale when really you're getting gouged. I'm resigned to shop at either Safeway or King Soopers (does anyone else miss the days when King Soopers was a locally owned company and not a division of Kroger?) because they're the only options near me.
Oh, I'm with you on those retarded little "loyalty cards". Albertson's discontinued that. There's one at Broadway and Alameda, next to the train stop, but they're slightly more expensive than the Soopers at 13th and Speer.
I'd be down for a Trader Joe's all right. But I think the liquor licensing is what is keeping them from moving in. I could be wrong though.
EYEEeieieieieieieieieie FOOLS nothing compares to the power of cow COW POWER HURRAH! cows can pull things, they make milk and der tasty as hell, MOOOOOOO!!!!
When Uptown Apartments were first built, they had trouble renting them. I worked from a studio in the now-scraped Machbeuf school and the mailman said a woman had lived in an apartment for two months and complained of an increasingly horrid stench coming from the vacant apartment below. Someone had neglected to attach a sewage pipe, so she had been flushing into the apartment beneath for two months. The new buildings are absolute crap. I can't believe they can build 4 and 5 story rentals from stick. And where's the set-back? C'mon Denver City Council, let's get that master plan done before the next boom.
As for Safeway, that parking lot is always an obstacle course. And whomever striped it was on crack. I drive a subcompact and many of the spaces are too narrow. The store? Greatly improved and much cleaner and more attractive.