Just down the street from the Denargo Market project, Block 32 at RiNo, formally known as RiNo Center, on 32nd Street and Brighton Boulevard is complete and open for occupancy. As per my final update tradition, you can follow its progress here:
Standing four stories tall, the 205-unit apartment building has a very unique color scheme which comfortably fits the area it stands in. I was reminded of shipping containers when looking at this building which also is a reoccurring theme in the River North/Upper Ballpark neighborhoods.
Infill is a great thing, especially on streets like Brighton Boulevard which has some great potential. Urbanists and many other people agree that a key part of any major city is how the people interact with the city at the street level. With parking in the front, a dedicated driveway, and a water drainage ditch separating most of the property from the sidewalk, unfortunately, this project lost a huge opportunity of having a good street presence along Brighton Boulevard.
The River North neighborhood has a lot of potential and opportunity to become Denver’s next hip new neighborhood. It will be interesting to see what new projects come online along Brighton Boulevard in the future especially when the 38th and Blake commuter rail station opens!
Yeh keep in mind too that the Source down the block will also have a big parking lot in front. Although that building has been around for a very long time and it’s an adaptive reuse, it still won’t really add any pedestrian experience. It will be interesting to see what the city has planned for this corridor such as sidewalk lighting, trees, benches, etc in the future.
While I’m happy for the infill, I hate it when these projects look like they were built for Littleton or some other suburb. All apartments, semi off-set from the street, no retail.
Will the new zoning code discourage developments like this in the future?
I completely agree.. tooooooo much parking on these lots. There is no reason that anything built in this area should rely more heavily on street parking. Keeping these devs mixed use and built to sit on the street line is the only way these’ll be successful in my opinion.
A good example is all the new development in Uptown… thankfully all mixed use and pedestrian minded.
Love the color scheme, Not beige!!!!!
The street fronting parking lots are a bad joke. Clearly the developer had no knowledge (or concern) about the urban direction this neighborhood could be heading in. Brighton is the only opportunity for a vibrant retail strip in this area in the future. It is shortsighted, and such a shame.
What I found surprising is how this project got approved with this type of development plan. That area there is zoned C-MX-12, so the developers must of met just the barest minimum for street frontage. Given the distance to downtown, I can understand why there might have been a desire to provide t ample parking for residents and guests. However, why they did not put the parking at the back of the building next to the rail lines! In the future, that ‘land bank’ could have been developed into a higher density project with structured parking.
I will say that I like seeing this building from the 25/70 intersection, the color makes for a nice diversion. However, the project is pretty much a disaster on the street level. Hopefully Brighton will eventually realize its potential, but this project adds little to nothing other than a few bodies in the vicinity.
Hi everyone…The comparison of the apartment to shipping containers evokes laughter and I agree with that. Let us assume that the apartment has brought in a new trend.
My God.. another UGLY Square box…. It is all that is being built in Denver now. Big modern square boxes… nothing charming about that… nothing creative… masonry? brick work? no… concrete, stucco… square box, after square box, after square box Sad….