In addition to its 16 Chestnut project, East West Partners is also working on another office development in the Union Station area: 16 Wewatta.
16 Wewatta will occupy the “triangle” parcel at 16th and Wewatta, across the street from the Gates HQ building. For the past several years, the grassy property has served as a temporary sculpture garden/dog-walking park, but its long-term fate has always been as a development site. That time has arrived, with East West currently marketing an 11-story office building for the parcel. Here’s a GoogleEarth aerial image with the site outlined, and a street-level view:
16 Wewatta would include underground parking, ground-floor lobby and retail spaces facing 16th Street, two levels of parking, and eight floors of office space totaling roughly 200,000 square feet. Like its cousin at 16th and Chestnut, 16 Wewatta is currently in the concept design stage. Consequently, the following images, provided courtesy of East-West Partners and their design partner klipp architecture, are very preliminary in nature and subject to change.
The first image is the ground-floor site plan and the second image is the view of the 16th and Wewatta corner of the building:
East West Partners will continue to refine the building program and design while marketing the project to prospective tenants. We’ll post more on this project as it develops.
Am I the only one that feels that it is a little strange how the “pedestrian plaza” between the triangle building and the EPA building is treated more like an alley by the surrounding buildings? I remember when the old Postal Annex site was redeveloped, it was held up as an example of how the service space on the site could be efficiently designed to take up less space. It seems however that it was a huge oversight by the EPA building’s designers to assume there would never be a pedestrian space back there. And now this building seems to be following the same pattern (however I will concede when looking at the floor plan that this building is working with far less space than the EPA was). I just hope that the bicycle facility slated to be located along that plaza will be enough to activate the space, because the cold walls on either side won’t be doing much.
Ted, the space in between EPA and Triangle will be a pedestrian plaza with the bicycle facility, so while the ground-floor uses of the adjacent buildings may not be the best, overall I think the space will do just fine. With Wynkoop Plaza and the 17th Street Gardens as high-profile public spaces lined with active ground-floor uses just a block away, this space doesn’t have to be a star. Nevertheless, I think the bicycle facility will give the space a definite urban vibe to it. Thanks for the comment.
Although I am a huge fan of infill buildings, the proposed office buildings that E/W has planned for the Union Station area reminds me of one of Ken’s earlier blog-posts, CBD sprawl. I am not arguing for or against these buildings, but I thought this was supposed to be a neighborhood, you know, packed with residences. I guess that I thought Union Stations was going to have a lot more residential buildings than what is being proposed. In fact I thought it was going to be one the most densely populated parts of the city. Did anybody else have this impression?
John, thanks for the comment. The master plan covering the Central Platte Valley envisioned the west side of the CML tracks to be mostly residential with some ground-floor retail (that’s the Riverfront Park neighborhood today) and the east side of the CML tracks to be mostly commercial (office and retail) with some residential and hotel uses. The exact mix of uses on the Union Station side of the tracks will be dictated by the market, but certainly, it was always envisioned that the area around Union Station would have a fair amount of commercial. However, due to the strength of the rental market, there are already over 1,000 residential units proposed near the station with the potential for more.
And, importantly, within four blocks of this site, there are eight new multi-familiy residential projects.
Chris
EWP
Eight??? I was only aware of three residential projects in the US neighborhood. But Eight that is Great!!!
Manhattan II, AMLI Riverfront Park, Balfour Riverfront Park, City House, Nichols, Zocolo, Opus by the Art Museum, and, possibly, Kennedy’s site on top of the garage.
I’ve always thought this was a prime location for a 300-500 room hotel. Very convenient access to light rail, bus, highways, LoDo Restaurants, pro sports venues, performing arts complex and a few large businesses like DaVita, a big 4 accounting firm, EPA, and so on……. A hotel may also reduce the car parking requirement. Granted it would be competition for the Union Station hotel, but that looks to be more of a boutique hotel that may not fit many travelers needs. Plus this end of down town needs more that 250 hotel rooms, plus some meeting space. Imagine getting off the DIA train and walking across the street to a nice hotel. That’s the way it should be in a good size city. At least one of the yet-to-be-developed sites adjacent to Union Station needs to be put to that purpose.
Regarding the pedestrian plaza, I wonder if RTD requested that the city keep this open as it would be so easy to connect through there (either above or below ground) the tracks behind the Pepsi Center to the west end of the tracks to be built at Union station to handle more load and flexibility.
I agree completely–I think this is the best possible site for a hotel in the Union Station neighborhood. It has good auto access and visibility on a four-lane road, it’s on 16th Street, it’s next to LoDo, it’s next to the train station–what’s not to love? If E-W wants to put an office building here, fine, but a hotel would animate this part of their development better than a 9-5 M-F building would. And given that most of its immediate neighborhoods (on that side of 16th Street anyway) are office buildings, a hotel would break up that monotonous use.
There is a right of way through the plaza for a possible train track. Hopefully for high-speed rail from Fort Collins to Pueblo!