Like a big Christmas present, 1515 Wynkoop is slowly being unwrapped of the scaffolding that has covered the new building for most of this past summer and fall. Being developed by Hines, 1515 Wynkoop is the new 8-story, 300,000 SF office building located next to the EPA Building on Block 013 in Lower Downtown.

1515 Wynkoop is both a companion and counterpoint to SugarCube. Both projects have a scale and form that not only relate to their neighbors, but elevate their entire neighborhood by so successfully providing what had been missing for decades; yet they do so with completely opposite architectural styles.

For SugarCube, it’s all about that 16th Street facade. With the completion in 2001 of the highly regarded 16 Market Square project on Block 042, the corner of 16th and Blake on Block 019—a surface parking lot since at least the early 1970s—left a gap that cried out to be filled. KPMB nailed it the way SugarCube joins 16 Market Square and the historic Sugar Building in completing one of Downtown Denver’s best street walls: the west side of 16th Street from Market Street down into the Central Platte Valley, all the while doing so with a retro-modern design that playfully defies its neighbors’ traditional looks.

Meanwhile, 1515 Wynkoop on Block 013 reconstructs one of LoDo’s best corners that had been marred since the 1950s by the old Postal Annex building, with its massive blank walls and pedestrian-defying loading docks. The other three buildings at the corner: the Steelbridge Lofts (originally, another Great Western “Sugar Building”), the Colorado Saddlery Building, and the Edbrooke Lofts (originally, Spratlen-Anderson Grocers), all contribute a no-nonsense, traditional early 1900s Denver warehouse/mercantile presence to the corner. Hartman Cox Architects came through with the perfect complement to the three corner neighbors in 1515 Wynkoop’s traditional design. 1515 Wynkoop’s look is stately and reserved (but not stuffy or boring) and features brick detailing that honors the trademark element of Lower Downtown’s historic structures. But while it may treat the corner seriously, 1515 Wynkoop still has a little bit of modern fun with its recessed glass curtain wall entry mid-block along 15th Street.

So far, 1515 Wynkoop is looking good and I’m eager for it to be complete; plus, won’t it be nice to be able to walk to 15th along Wynkoop on a sidewalk?