Steel builds are, personally, one of the most exciting to watch. Instead of the core and structure going up together, the core rises first and the steel structure follows. These kind of builds also give us great insight to the height of the building early on in the construction process.
The Triangle Building is a steel build where the core is almost topped out at 10-stories with the steel structure starting to climb. With this, we now have a decent idea on the height of this project.
Due to the larger floor-to-ceiling heights in office buildings, the 10-story Triangle Building will be roughly the same height as Cadence, which is 13-stories or 140 feet tall.
The Union Station Neighborhood is starting to sport a skyline of its own and The Triangle Building will be a significant part of it!
Given the quick nature of steel construction, the structure will only take a couple months to top out. By then, we will truly be able to see the triangular shape of this building. Stay tuned!
Great update. Thanks!
This building is going up so fast! You can already feel how big of an impact it will make to have a connected street wall from Millennium Bridge all the way up 16th street toward the Capitol.
My only worry is that the area needs a much stronger pedestrian crossing across 16th Street from the new plaza between the EPA building and the Triangle building and the alley behind the wing building at Union Station. Many of the city’s buses (e.g. the 10 from Capitol Hill) arriving at Union Station on 15th and Wewatta, and you already see hundreds of people per day jaywalk across 16th Street, trampling over plants and feeling silly just to make a very common bus connection. It’s befuddling. At very least there should be a crosswalk there once the Triangle Building is finished. Does anyone know if there are plans in the works to make improvements to this pedestrian crossing?
I really hope so. The building that will be adjacent to the station and across the street from the Triangle Building (TB) (on the North side of 16th) is supposed to open up to the train station, so a cross walk between it and the TB, not to mention the bike station East of the TB, would make lot of sense.
Ryan, any word on when the pedestrian bridge over the train tracks is going to open?
At this moment, I am not sure when the bridge is going to open.
mckillio and Ryan Nee, you bring up the perennial problem around Union Station — which is the lack of attention to pedestrian needs. Whether it’s bridges over — and to — train tracks, the freeway, across streets, the walker is apparently less important to planners than how trains, streets, buses interconnect. And escalators are still not even under consideration, anywhere, except in the bus barn. (Think DIA.) So much for so-called “multi-modal.” In our city, the walker is still an afterthought. A core planning flaw.
I just have three comments. First, the alley behind the wing building was not intended to be the pedestrian pathway to 16th St from the train shed. The preferred pathway is the one that will be between the Kimpton hotel and the small office building, which is why the crosswalk is there (it would be nice if it was also signalized). However, I am sure that some people will still use the alley. Second, the Union Station neighborhood is not a facility like DIA or the bus barn. It is appropriate to have escalators in facilities; not in neighborhoods. You should not expect to see them in Lower Highland, Uptown or Capitol Hill, so why should they be in a downtown neighborhood. Third, as soon as you start building bridges over streets, then you have already conceded that pedestrians do not belong at the street level and that the streets belong only to cars. If the streets are too busy for pedestrians, then change them. Do not give them up. Highways are a different story.
JerryG, the Union Station pedestrian bridge to the tracks is a core element of the facility, and escalators on it are absolutely appropriate, to serve thousands of rush hour commuters.
The Millenium Bridge is a lot more than part of a neighborhood street, because it carries thousands of walkers day and night. It’s the 16th Street pedestrian connector between Highland and Downtown. Crossing the tracks to Chestnut, pedestrians are just steps away from shuttles, light rail, buses downstairs and commuter trains two blocks away. In reality, the bridge is a critical part of the Union Station facility, and it deserves a full upgrade.
We remember when the developer of the proposed office building on that corner released renderings last year, which raised a lot of concerns for the safety of pedestrians stepping off the bridge, with wide-turning shuttles on a blind corner — and pedestrians without a safe crossing. So the whole bridge should be re-designed, with high-volume DIA standards applied, including escalators.
I walk miles every day, but I still deeply appreciate a pedestrian-friendly path, especially when I see so many others who have difficulty with long flights of stairs. Not all pedestrians are buff.
I just want to point out that there IS a new pedestrian crossing here that simply isn’t open yet. You can sorta see it in Ryan’s first picture where the planted median appears to have a break in it currently obstructed by large traffic cones. The construction webcam for Triangle shows this even more clearly http://oxblue.com/open/Triangle. This crossing is located so as to connect with the pedestrian passage to be included in the new Kimpton hotel project, and will lead directly across the street to a mall shuttle stop.
Granted, it does NOT align with the bicycle plaza and the wing building’s alley, which I understand may have been a more intuitive location for some people; and this design aspect is certainly worth discussing. But the crossing IS there, so I just want to clear that up before this discussion moves forward assuming there is no pedestrian crossing.
Ah, I see, thanks for the helpful images Ted. I suppose what is more concerning to me is the short-term crossing problem since the Kimpton hotel presumably will not be finished for years. 17th and 15th are massive busways through the city, yet it seems like the connection between the stops at 15th Street and the bus/train station itself is too tenuous at the moment.
Even when all of the construction is finished, I’m still skeptical that daily bus commuters will go to the trouble of walking a total of an extra block out of their way not to simply jaywalk across 16th Street. I recognize the alley behind 1st Bank in the wing building was not intended for pedestrian use at a large scale, but the locations of where the bus stops are situated strongly encourages that behavior.
There’s a two-block straight line between 15th and Wynkoop and the entrance to the bus terminal behind Union Station, and that’s the path people are bound to take. The only pedestrian-unfriendly moment in the whole stretch is the crossing on 16th Street. Perhaps crossings in both areas would be appropriate, but I don’t know what other impacts that might cause.
Agreed. The city should conceed that the majority of people walking NW up 16th from Wynkoop are going to take the alley to access Union Station. It’s not a normal alley, you only need to travel past one small building and it opens up into a plaza. It’s too inviting not to take. I don’t necessarily think it needs to be turned into a full ped crossing, since on this section of 16th you only have NW-bound auto traffic. I imagine it’ll only be slightly worse than crossing the mall portion. Maybe just grind down the raised portion of the median to have it begin after this spot.
I guess I don’t see where anybody will end up having to walk a full extra block just to cross 16th here. If you’re coming down 16th Street from LoDo and need to access the commuter platforms, you’re likely to just cross to the correct side of the street at Wynkoop. If you are coming from 15th Street via the bicycle plaza, then the new crossing is only a few extra steps to the NW; certainly not an entire extra block, because a full block would take you to Wewatta and there is yet ANOTHER (3rd in two blocks) pedestrian crosswalk here as well.
Don’t forget that daily commuters will certainly learn where these crossings are and will begin to aim for them subliminally. When I walk during my commute, I anticipate things like which side of the street I need to be on and where I can cross a street with the least hassle WELL ahead of time, and then make the appropriate moves in advance. 4 years of watching pedestrian patterns on the CU Campus taught me that others anticipate these kinds of things as well.
I like the tracks shot. Nice perspective and shot of both the Triangle and The Platform buildings.
Nice to see this rising so quickly, unlike
CityHouse and 20th & Chestnut, which
Are not only vertically challenged but
Taking forever to rise!