Since our last update in May, 250 Columbine has made significant progress, including the office portion of the project topping out! As a refresher, 250 Columbine is contributing 70,000 square feet of office space and 80 condo units to the Cherry Creek North neighborhood.
Topping out at 8-stories, this project is beginning to make its mark on the Cherry Creek skyline. The residential portion is still rising with two-stories to go.
250 Columbine occupies the entire eastern half of Columbine Street between Second and Third Avenue. While it looks like one long building from the corner, I was surprised to find out that the office and residential components are split with ample space between them.
Last but not least, I have a very special bonus for you. Back in early August, Shawn Murry of CloudBase Aerial Imaging gave us this spectacular aerial of Cherry Creek to use for this update. Shawn specializes in low altitude aerial photography and filming for land planning, real estate development, and other industries. For more information, please visit CloudBase at www.cloudbaseheli.com.
Not only can you see how large of an impact 250 Columbine has but also how dense the Cherry Creek neighborhood is with a great spine of density leading up to Colorado Boulevard. Seems like somewhere an enhanced transit corridor should belong!
250 Columbine, Denver’s only condo project in the works, is already very close to selling out and has an expected delivery of early next year. For pricing and more details about 250 Columbine including a webcam, head on over to the project’s website.
Great report, Ryan. If the aerial of Cherry Creek/Glendale/Southeast Denver doesn’t make the case for streetcars, I don’t know what does.
It would be great if transport decisions could be made in tandem with development and not after the streetcars have fled the barn.
Great update, Ryan. Thanks! Kinda surprising to hear the this is the only condo project under construction right now. Wow. That’s insane!
I love that image. You see Denver’s “other” two skylines in the background, and the emerging new skyline of CC in the foreground. Very cool.
I love how this neighborhood is growing. Now if that whole condo thing would just go the **** away!
Cherry Creek and Colorado Blvd need to be integrated with the rest of the city by light rail.
Jeffrey, light rail needs an independent track, which wouldn’t fit on the big boulevards like streetcars — which share the lane with crossing cars. The exception is the Downtown to Northeast light rail line, which may be converted to streetcars.
But you are so right — a central line should loop from Union Station at 19th and Winkoop, down/up 19/20th, down/up Broadway/Lincoln, southeast onto Speer, then First, to Colorado south to light rail at I-25.
The central diagonal through the most dense parts of the city. Which will attract the most riders, creating the same expectations for a line down Broadway to the light rail on Mississippi. Another extension north along Speer through Downtown passing near Union Station to Highland, and north along Federal to the commuter rail station.
And of course, east along Colfax from Auraria light rail, through Downtown and Capitol Hill to Anshutz/225 light rail. Real cross-town rail alternatives to cars, for the people of Denver, who deserve the same class of rail service that suburban commuters enjoy.
Which will cost billions and take 20 years to build out. So where is the political leadership to figure out the financing, and sell it to voters? Maybe bond issues?
However, sometimes I wonder if this blog is too “blue sky” — just urbanist day-dreaming, but not really possible in Denver. The vision thing.
Well, I’m expressing my support for more rail. I hope it happens.
Seems like most of the really good systems of the world and especially US were installed before big oil/auto manufacturer/rubber/highway construction+ contracting monopolies gained the power that they hold today.
I think the mall would have a vested interest in some sort of mass transit link to downtown. As downtown continues to grow, more retailers will move in downtown (some will have 2 locations- at the mall and downtown), and there will be some competition there, and cherry creek mall will have to work harder to maintain its pre-eminence as THE shopping destination.
If key groups, like the Denver Partnership, the Chamber, the planning board, the realtors’ groups and developers get behind streetcars, a financing system can be devised. Think what it took to turn Union Station into a reality. But it’s got to be supported by local politicians, who see the tremendous development potential in land along streetcar lines, and the economic boost it brings.
Union Station creates a whole new way of living and working in the Mile High City. Now we need to focus on our big streets, the living face of our city.
The pending decisions about a proposed cheaper BRT bus line along East Colfax — instead of streetcars — are a critical turning point in Denver’s transportation planning.
Streetcars are an up-grade, like rail into Union Station. Buses are a down-grade, along our big signature boulevards — Broadway, Colfax, Speer.
Transportation planning either raises, or lowers our expectations of what’s possible in the Mile High City. What gets built along the big streets depends a great deal on the level of the city’s transportation commitment. “Affordable” buses? Or First Class streetcars?
If planners seriously want to get half the cars off the streets of Denver, then they’ve got to start working on a truly alternative system, another way of getting around in the city that’s attractive and unique..
But again, is there really key support for streetcars? Or is it just a lot of talk, that results in more buses?
Amen. Well said. I was just in Portland and was amazed that a city that size had such a great transportation system. It CAN be done in a Denver with the right effort.
Dan, I have family in Portland, go there a lot, and agree with you — it all depends on what people expect from their city. Portlanders ride streetcars, along much narrower streets than Denver’s — streets that feel like a European city, with sidewalk life, pedestrians and lots of bikes.
So far, not a peep out of RTD about extending rail in the city of Denver with streetcars. I sense they’re afraid of the issue, afraid that the suburbs will insist that Denver pays for an intra-city streetcar system by itself — since the lines would probably just run within the city. And that could be deemed too costly for just Denver to pay for by itself.
Personally, since the streetcars would be used by huge numbers of suburban commuters, transferring at rail stations onto streetcars — to get to their jobs, homes in the city — I think the entire RTD region should pay for streetcars, since they’re an extension of commuters’ travel needs, to specific parts of Denver. And the fares should be overlapping with commuter and light rail train tickets, just like bus fares. And RTD should run it — even if they don’t think they want to, now. When the first line is successful, of course they’ll love it.
So what do you think? Who — and how — should we finance streetcars?
Did Denver city residents help pay for the “suburban” regional rail, which benefits a small percent of city residents? Who was this tax levied against? All Coloradans?
If so, then why would it be any different for suburban metro residents to help pay for intra-city rail, which they would undoubtedly also benefit from.
I believe that the current rail construction project is being funded by a sales-tax at the county level for all metro-area communities within the service area. This would indeed include Denver.
My understanding of the history of Denver’s rail transit system is that, when the central corridor LR line was first conceived, the idea was to create a hybrid system that would serve both as an inner-city on-street network (The central corridor/Welton/Downing), as well as a commuter line (The Southwest corridor to Englewood). Presumably, they thought that this way they could use suburban dollars to help supplement the inner-city system (kind of like how Chicago’s “Loop” of El trains works). The enormous success of this system as it expanded however, subsequently necessitated dedicated ROW for all new lines, longer light-rail trains, and a hub terminus at Union Station; essentially ending prospect of using suburban funds for further expansion of the on-street network.
Whether or not this arrangement “benefits a small percent of city residents” is really a matter of personal perspective. Our region’s system has certainly raised property values citywide, spurred the creation of the entire Union Station neighborhood, rejuvenated downtown as the premier office real-estate market in the region, and generally raised the stature of our city nationwide; so I would say Denver benefited more than you suggest, though perhaps not in the same way (it’s true that very few established neighborhoods are served by this transit service).
Unfortunately, it absolutely will be different the next time around. Suburban residents helped fund the existing system by popular referendum because it served them directly. I highly doubt anybody can convince these same residents that they should now help fund an inner-city, Denver-only network of streetcars unless that new network somehow benefits them directly as the light-rail system did. The state cannot simply force as tax increase on them.
That doesn’t mean that it’s game over by any means, simply that we’ve moved on to round 2 (or maybe round 3?). Denver proper is a lot wealthier now than it was when light-rail was first introduced, and we now have a robust commuter network to build on. We also now know that we can’t rely on metro-wide funding for an inner-city transit network. What is now needed is the political leadership at the civic level to rally the citizens, crunch the numbers, and figure out if Denver can afford to build its own on-street network (LR or Streetcar). My gut tells me that it can if it really tries.
Thanks for the history, Ted. Again, it’s about leadership. I guess we just forget about the current mayor taking on the task. No vision. So, is there a face, a personality in RTD that speaks for, directs the agency? Do any of those people — whoever they are — follow this blog? Or do they just hide in the weeds?
I don’t think the RTD light rail investment was bad and I’m glad the network we have exists. However, we’ve definitely failed if part of the original goal was an “inner-city on-street network.” What we have is not a network. To even mention it in the same breath as Chicago’s El is comical. My point is that the Denver city resident does not directly benefit from the USE of the system for the most part, at least residents in the core neighborhoods.
Can we say RTD light rail has raised property values per se in the city of Denver? For instance, if that system did not exist at all, would property values in Denver not have gone up the same way they did? Would Denver have not seen a huge influx of residents, primarily millennials and empty-nesters?
The shift to downtown is happening in many cities, some of which do not have light rail.
The idea that commuter light-rail lines could terminate in an inner-city on-street network was indeed a failure. That’s exactly what I said before – that the system’s commuter success has morphed it into a commuter-only system, and that the goal of establishing an on-street network with suburban tax dollars simply cannot work. In fact, there is now discussion about severing the entire Welton/Downing corridor from the light-rail system altogether for that exact reason… the light-rail has become a commuter network, and it no longer makes sense to run additional light-rail lines onto the city streets, or to expand the on-street LR network for that matter.
OF COURSE it’s no Chicago El train – I never said that. But I think that was the original idea… run commuter lines into the suburbs, and then turn those lines into on-street routes once in the inner city. Again – I think this is what the planners originally envisioned, but certainly is not what has materialized.
I was mainly responding to your question “why would it be any different for suburban metro residents to help pay for intra-city rail”? And my point is that this is exactly what was attempted by the very first light-rail line, but ended up failing. Suburban residents will only tax themselves for commuter lines; not for a robust inner-city on-street network. The next time around, Denver is going to have to figure out their inner-city network on their own.
To address one last point… I can’t debate you on the suggestion that Denver would be just as hot of a residential real estate market with our without the light rail, this is extremely hard to say, and you’re right that nationwide trends may have caused this to happen anyway.
But the Union Station neighborhood and the sudden shift of office demand from the “edge cities” (Tech Center, Interlochen etc.) to downtown is ABSOLUTELY a result of the investment in commuter rail. I think it’s fairly obvious that residents of established Denver neighborhoods have gotten the short end of the stick on USE of the system (again – something I acknowledged in my first post), but that certainly doesn’t mean that they haven’t benefited in other ways.
To suggest that suburban residents somehow “owe” Denver money to pay for an inner-city network, just because planners 30+ years ago couldn’t fully predict the ultimate build-out of the system (something that we STILL cannot predict), is ludicrous. We can only ever make decisions in the present and make subsequent decisions based on the outcome of previous decisions. Denver has ABSOLUTELY benefited from the investment of metro residents in transit, probably more than any other local community. Just because the network doesn’t adequately serve neighborhoods like Cap-Hill doesn’t mean that it was a bad investment for Denver residents, it only means that we need to learn from the outcome and apply those lessons the next time around.
Thanks again, Ted, for your insights. You’re right, that decades ago planners didn’t foresee that RTD would morph into a mostly commuter system, serving only parts of Denver, and leaving the highest-density neighborhoods without on-street rail service. Definitely not the original concept. Not exactly bait-and-switch, but close to it.
And as much as neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Cherry Creek, Colorado Boulevard and Highland/North Denver may rightly feel short-changed now, it’s unrealistic to expect the suburbs to pay for streetcars in Denver. Their representatives on the RTD board will fight another regional financing plan — which is why I believe RTD wants to avoid the streetcar question, instead quietly continuing to plan for the much cheaper BRT bus lines on Colfax and Broadway, for starters.
Only an obvious public groundswell of demand for Denver streetcars will make them happen. Ted, “the next time around” is now — while RTD and city planners are moving on the BRT track, without admitting their bias. Simply put, cheaper (“affordable”) buses are more politically easy than more expensive streetcars, especially in their construction phase.
This is why I believe the mayor is keeping silent about streetcars, because he knows he’ll have to ask for a lot more money from Denver voters for on-street rail, which he thinks is a losing proposition. But I’ll bet any member of City Council whose district is along East Colfax, Broadway-Lincoln, Speer, First, South Colorado or North Federal recognizes the tremendous property development potential along a streetcar line — and the jobs potential.
And a coalition of council members from those districts could form a pro-streetcar majority, based on support in their districts for rail. But first, to give the politicians the courage to support streetcars, we need a poll, then a referendum from voters, approving at least a streetcar “concept” — and that includes a map, showing those rail lines along the big streets. Which is RTD’s responsibility, one the agency is hiding from.
Each of those three main lines — Broadway, Colfax and Speer, intersecting around the Golden Triangle, should extend on both ends to a light or commuter rail station, or Union Station. A web of cris-crossing lines, linking most important parts of the city.
Which gets back to the need for leadership from the Denver Partnership, Chamber, Convention and Visitors Authority, and so-on, to get people thinking and talking about streetcars. And there’s a huge economic boost that will come from them: Fun!
People love to ride trains. In a little more than a year, travelers from everywhere will be riding a train from DIA to Union Station. Business travelers, tourists, skiers and conventioners. How much more fun will it be to jump on a streetcar Downtown and go shopping or out to restaurants in Cherry Creek or along South Broadway or East Colfax or in old North Denver?
The Convention and Visitors Authority will be tracking visitor trips, all over the city — which will expand quickly with streetcars. Think how streetcars “promote” the city of New Orleans. And the world-famous cable cars of San Francisco. The tourism-business travel potential from Denver streetcars is almost unlimited. Eventually, make almost every Denver neighborhood reachable on streetcars or light rail — WITHOUT A CAR.
Currently, the label, The Mile High City, brings a chuckle from most Angelenos, who live in a city with the Hollywood sign on a mountainside, attracting millions of tourists every year. The smirk that goes with “the Mile High City” of course derives from daily news features about Cannabis Tourism — which I believe has enormous potential for Denver, supporting the city’s image as the Amsterdam of America. That image includes bike riders, too — and streetcars can put some real meat on the bones of the Mile High City image, to all visitors — as a place where you can take a fun ride on a streetcar, to places all over the city!
The Mile High City image becomes more than a bumper sticker phrase. It connotes a Fun City, with fun streetcar rides. So, inner city commuters, think of sharing streetcars with visitors from everywhere — who help pay for the rail line with their fares! Think of the Mile High City being known world-wide, as a place where you can ride fun streetcars — all over town! Ask the Convention and Visitors Authority what that’s worth to Denver, in dollars?
So again, LEADERSHIP. Let’s think bigger for Denver. Let’s recognize this opportunity to UPGRADE the city of Denver. Let’s get smart, about making a wise investment in our city, to make the Mile High City the urban envy of the world. Come on, politicians, find some courage! Come on, city planners and promoters, open your eyes to the opportunity in front of us. Build it, and they WILL come.
Thanks Jim Nash for your comments. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I really hope some of the players you mention in your post read this forum and hear this point of view. Denver absolutely already has the architectural bones to support the streetcar system you are describing, I completely agree. And I think it’s a plan that Denver citizens can get behind, even if they are asked to fund it without the support of the suburbs.
I am reminded of Frederico Pena’s campaign slogan “Imagine a Great City!” What we need are political leaders who aren’t afraid of having some VISION. We have made so much progress since Pena’s days, now is not the time to get lazy and comfortable and afraid of thinking even bigger than before; or to allow other cities to pass us up with more visionary proposals.
Gentlemen,
I enjoy reading your comments! Having lived in Portland for nearly a decade, one can see just how far Denver still needs to go regarding public transport. While we wish and hope for betterment in transportation along with development, visit CDOTs website regarding the widening of I-70 to find out where the politicians and planners are interested in spending the states citizens money for transportation.
What Denver city planners and CDOT plan to do with any funds they can get their hands on; widen I-70 for the tune of 1.8 billion. For more dissapointment concerning Denver’s next step to destroying any improvement to the city and the state please visit http://www.unitenorthmetrodenver.com and the city auditors site http://www.stop10.org/www.stopten.org
Please check these groups out and let your thoughts of improvement be heard! Stop the 10.
Thanks for listening