Have you seen Block 162‘s Steel/Fontius/Sage building lately? It’s looking great. The building facade on the upper floors has been cleaned, repaired, and restored, and the leaky old windows replaced. Now, work is progressing on the ground floor, where decades ago the original exterior had been removed and replaced with “modern” storefronts.
Developer Evan Makovsky and the architects at klipp researched old drawings and photos of the Steel Building to learn what the original storefronts looked like, and the new ground-floor exterior is being built to match the original as best as possible. Here’s a look at the new storefronts going in (photo courtesy of Brice):
There’s a new (and wider) sidewalk along the Welton side of the building too.
Speaking of new sidewalks, the Urban Enthusiast over at the LiveDowntownDenver Blog did a post recently about the completed streetscape project along California Street in front of the Denver Dry building. I checked it out myself the other day and it looks very nice. With this streetscape project and the additional planters recently installed by the Downtown Denver Parntership, the walk between the Convention Center and the 16th Street Mall is about as spruced up as it can get, considering the several undeveloped lots still along the way.
I don't know, this restoration business is just so nostalgic and historic. What they really should have done is just scrapped the terracotta and just left it concrete. Maybe add a couple of weird shapes in blue and orange, jutting out the side of it.
(/sarcasm)
The work they've been doing here is amazing. Especially from what the Fontius building looked like when you first started blogging on it!
Agreed, saint. It's been really cool to see this building's progress. I look forward to shopping there when it's an Apple Store.
*crosses fingers*
H&M!?!?! I'd really like to see some retailers that cannot be found elsewhere in the city. Apple would be cool too, but we need something to draw people back to the 16th street mall.
The Sage is probably the most beautiful building on the mall today, in my opinion. I love the new facade and the storefront windows are perfect. The groundfloor should be used for something other than a bank, though. But hey, if it's my bank, im fine with it! It's nice to see that so many people are enthusiastic about downtown, and whats been going on. Recently, I found a blog that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of this one. It's called "The Death of Johannesburg" (south africa) and it may be of some intense interest to some of you "urban enthusiasts". The author of the blog calls himself "The Real Realist" or something like that. Unlike Ken, who documents the growth and rejuvenation of Downtown Denver, The Realist documents the destruction of Downtown Johannesburg, caused by the massive number of illegal immigrants there. The pictures are startling. But whats more intriguing are the comments to the posts….
Anyways, I just thought that I should share that with you. It is sad though. Two cities founded on gold, that became prosperous, and important social and economic centers. But only one of the two is standing proudly today. The other one is, well, you should just check out the blog…
I saw the streetscape improvements along California today. They definitely add some much needed green to that portion of downtown. The trees are some kind of ash I think (much better than the sickly honey locusts planted everywhere, which in early August are already starting to turn yellow and drop their leaves). I really think these raised beds should be the focus for all plantings downtown. They are able to add some nice color and are so much healthier for the trees than those grates which focus heat and suck out moisture. Chicago has a lot of these downtown and they look great there. We should definitely continue with this.