Back in April 2012, we reported on the new mixed-use office/apartment project, known then as 1350 16th Street, proposed for the corner of 16th and Market in Lower Downtown Denver, site of the downtown Office Depot for many years. Since then, the project has received its approvals from the city and the Office Depot has moved to its new home in the EPA Building at 16th and Wynkoop. Today, demolition began on the former Office Depot building, perhaps one of the ugliest buildings in Downtown Denver and infamous for its nearly block-long blank wall along Market Street. Here are two photos from this morning:
In its place will be 16M, the new name for the project being developed by Integrated Properties, Sage Hospitality, Elevation Development Group, and designed by Gensler. 16M will include 130,000 square feet of office space (floors 2-6), about 47 apartment units on floors 7-10, ground-floor retail, and three levels of underground parking.
Here are the final renderings of this project:
Click here to watch a video about the project.
16M should be completed in 2014. What an exceptional improvement for Lower Downtown and the 16th Street Mall!
All I can say is ” It’s about time!”. That being said, the renderings clearly reveal that the building is responding to the Lower Downtown design guidelines. With its form-based component that pre-dates Denver’s form-based code, it will likely serve as a real-scale laboratory on how form based codes affect the urban context. As I see pressure to maximize economic return, I suspect we’ll see more buildings more precisely reflect the massing limits, with less variation in massing that enriches the urban fabric. Time will tell.
hmm. Looks just like Sugar Cube down one block.
That block being the link between Writers Square
and Lodo deserves better. A bland building on such
a prominent corner is a complete disappointment.
At least with Office Depot there, there is potential –
Denver deserves, and should demand, better buildings
than this on the 16th street mall.
Agreed!
Thank goodness. I’ve despised that building since I first laid eyes on it.
Finally, one hideous building gone from the mall! Now we just need to get rid of the Cottrell’s and Federal Reserve buildings and renovate the Colorado Building. I hope the redevelopment of Market Street Station lives up to it’s potential. I would love to see 16th Street as vibrant as Barcelona’s Las Ramblas and Chicago’s Michigan Ave.
Any idea on what the demolition process is going to look like? Are they going to do an implosion? This is one building I’d love to see go.
I think they’re just going to peck away at it until it’s gone.
Meh. 1990 called and it wants its urban Denver architecture back. I’m with Chad on this one. In thirty years, those folks may consider 16M to be just another early century new modernist knock-off.
Yes! Seems like all firms and architects are in a design rut – heaven forbid someone design something that stands out a bit. Soon you won’t be able to tell one block from the next!
Oh, so lovely! It was indeed one of the ugliest. Now if we could only do the same with the King of all Eye Sores on 16th Street Mall – The hideous dilapidated Cottrell Building. <>
You know, I really don’t mind the Federal Reserve Building at all. I think it’s tasteful enough. But that Cottrell’s Building??? Lord.
There’s nothing wrong with the way the Federal Reserve Building looks, and it would be perfectly appropriate up by the Post Office and other federal buildings on the north side of downtown. In its current site it has two problems:
1. It’s a hostile, fenced off, non-public building on one of the best blocks in the middle of a pedestrian mall. And its back side is a fenced off parking lot taking up a full block on 15th as well.
2. They tore down one of the finest performance spaces in the country, the Tabor Grand Opera house, to build it. That building would be the crown jewel of downtown today if they had left it in place.
Speaking of tearing things down, I seem to recall that the Office Depot building, formerly Dave Cook’s, replaced a gorgeous historic building, and there was a sad story about the failed efforts to save it.
Agree on all fronts re bland design. Spent a few days down there on foot for work and got a real up close look at some of the unique and not so unique projects all around there including stuff in LoHi. I’ve said it before and will repeat it:
I wish we’d stop cheering infill just for infill’s sake. There needs to be much more criticism in the city among its architects to raise the bar. Someone needs to say “Hey, AG Spanos, that’s really UGLY”, not “oooh yipeeeeeeeeee we get more infill!”
Not worth it if it’s ugly.
+1 to that. Quality over quantity.