After over a year of uncertainty, we here at DenverInfill have finally come across renderings of the Speer Boulevard Apartments going up at the 6th Avenue / Grant Street / Speer Boulevard intersection.
The Speer Boulevard Apartments will provide the Speer neighborhood, just south of Capitol Hill, with 211 apartment units in a six-story building with the ground floor dedicated to retail. Here are two renderings of the building, courtesy of Gables Residential.
I think we can all agree this is much better use of land than what was there before, a gas station!
What a completely unimaginative design for such a cool site. MAJOR dissappointment for Denver. Ugh.
Really? Huh, I think it looks great.
If you’d like, you can contact Gables Residential HQ which at 3399 Peachtree Road in Atlanta GA 30326?
I think it’s a sharp looking building and it appears they did a great job fitting it on that triangle piece of land. Every building will have its critics.
I think this building is pretty decent. It’s an apartment so I can’t imagine the developers putting too much money into it – but might expect a little more from a condo building..
I think it’ll be a nice wall along Speer and will definitely be better than the gas station.
Wow. Entire ground floor is retail! That is s lot of frontage for an island of a building. Hopefully some good ones go in as I live a few blocks from it. Should be an interesting space for the pointy end retail spot.
This is a great design for the shape of the lot.
The most important aspect is that it has retail all around.
The entire area of 6th/7th/Grant is now one of the most exciting spots in town.
The only thing I would change about the design is the stucco material.
Brick is great but stucco gets old and ugly fast. I would change it to stone or metal.
Yeah I have to sharply disagree with the first commenter. This is a very sharp looking building. Classical division of the building into three parts: bottom, middle and top; check. Ground floor retail all around with good pedestrian-scaled improvements to the sidewalk; check. Good materials; check. Sensitive corner treatment; check.
What more do you want? Some giant tower saying “look at me!”? Sometimes I think people just want to dislike every new building they see, or simply refuse to absorb the arguments about “background buildings” that really don’t need to be stated again.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeaah. I don’t see entrances or exits for parking on a lot that’s locked in on three sides by one-ways. With retail, apartments, and minimal parking, these intersections are going to become a shit-show.
According to the elevations posted on denvercityscape, looks like the parking entrances will be on Grant St.
On the first rendering, there are at least two entrances/exits for parking.
I also have to disagree with the first poster. As much as I wish the developers had use more of their zoning-allowed height (8 stories would have been nice), this is a nice addition to the neighborhood. The fact that they went with retail on the ground floor makes a big difference.
If you want to complain about a real waste of space ‘Lil Jimmy’, then look no further than triangle parcel of 6th Ave, Broadway and Speer. I have no idea how that got approved. That one is a real shame.
Looks like a sunset rendition. Rush hour without cars. Srsly? I’ve worked in that area. It’s not ped friendly as it is. At rush hour, it’s all cars. If I’m retail, no way I’m going there. And just because the facade of the building plays off of a un/finished look does not make it hip. It makes the building look like a cheap imitation of what passes for modern cleverness that aspires to be urban classic but just fails. Looks like a motel.
For starters, where have you ever seen a motel that looks like that? Additionally, how can you say that retail will not be attacked to that area? There is a bunch of retail/restaurants on two corners of that site. Further, part of the reason that site was not prehistorian friends was because there was nothing there but a gas station- people had not reason to be walking there. It seems also certain that along with this construction will come improved sidewalks and street lamps. Lastly, all of downtown is packed with cars during rush hour. Based on your argument, no parts of Speer or downtown should have retail. However, a simple drive down Speer shows that it is able to sustain retail. Lastly, your critique of the design makes no sense. How does it “makes the building look like a cheap imitation of what passes for modern cleverness that aspires to be urban classic but just fail”?
I don’t mind the building one bit and it is replacing a gas station so much better use of land.
I give them credit for ground floor retail. Who would want to live ground floor right next to Speer, 6th, or even Grant which is a busy street?
The retail fronting Grant might do alright but it is still really insular. At least you have parking that blocks the sidewalk. That and the trees will provide for a nice buffer on the Grant side. I think the commercial spaces fronting Speer and 6th will be a tough sell (or lease). You’ve got few pedestrians on this block and parking won’t be easy- those are not good characteristics for a commodity business. Maybe for a destination, service, business like a tailor or a CPA.
I think the retail here will be only marginally more successful than the spaces at One Lincoln Park. Just too isolated and insular. In a way, as much as it pains me to say this, this site made a great gas station.
I think that may have been the classic “armchair architecture critique” masquerading as a critique of of this individual project. The urban design here is spot on; the idea that retail can’t survive along a busy street is just anti-urbanist BS.
The word jumble “cheap imitation of what passes for modern cleverness that aspires to be urban classic but just fails” strikes me more as a critique of Postmodern Architecture in general; which brings back classical architectural forms, but uses them in a “playful” or “ironic” way. I think this is what he meant by “un/finished.” https://knoji.com/images/user/Picture1%2877%29.jpg is a classic example, as is the Michael Graves Denver Library addition… some may argue that the corner treatment on this building, or the recreation of classical shapes with modern materials like colored concrete, is a take on postmodern principles.
But it just strikes me as counter productive, and frankly a bit crotchety, to sit in judgement of an entire architectural style from outside the establishment. If people think their aesthetic judgements are so far superior to the way architecture is currently being practiced, then by all means, become an architect and show us all “how it’s done”! But to simply come online and rail against constructive attempts by developers to repair our urban fabric… simply because you don’t like certain nuances of the facade… is unproductive at its best, and feels a bit like trolling at its worst.
I work right across the street from this building and I think it’s a great add! I literally get to watch it being built out the window each day. I’m excited about the ground floor retail and the possibility of some new lunch spots.
That being said, there are some definite pedestrian improvements that need to made to the surroundings. Specifically, cars making wide, fast turns from lincoln onto 6th make it very dangerous for pedestrians. I take the long way around that intersection because when you have a walk signal and you STILL almost get hit and then get honked at…it’s frustrating. I don’t know the solution. Some sort of traffic calming and/or a pedestrian only signal and/or a lower speed limit would all help.
All in all though, great building.
This will be a huge improvement at this corner. As it stands it’s very auto-oriented with a drive-thru Wendy’s and a few other restaurants across 6th and then the strip mall across Grant. Any idea what kind of retail or restaurants they’re targeting? Will there be any kind of street parking along Speer (like what exists around 11th/12th) or just on 6th and Grant?
I have spoken directly with the developer, The Hanover Company, and they have reconfirmed that there is NO plan to include retail on the first floor of this property. In previous discussions they explained that the reason they decided early on not to include retail, and not build to the full height that Zoning allows, was their inability to provide what they considered to be adequate off-street parking to support either.
Unlike many other developers, they’re not simply providing the absolute minimum of off-street parking spaces required by the City and pushing the parking issue off on the surrounding neighborhood. Instead, they’re using their own calculations of how much parking is truly needed to support the long term pro forma for the property.
Oh hey, is that brick and paneling? BLAH.