It’s official: Another ugly surface parking lot has been eradicated from Downtown Denver!
This time, it’s in the Golden Triangle district, where Eviva Cherokee, an 18-story, 274-unit apartment tower has recently broken ground on a parcel along Cherokee Street between W. 12th and W. 13th avenues. Here’s the site from this morning:
This project brings much-needed density to the interior of the Golden Triangle near the Museum District where an unfortunate concentration of surface lots has persisted for decades. Most new high-rise development in the Golden Triangle in the recent past has tended to be located around the neighborhood’s perimeter. Eviva Cherokee helps change that. Cherokee Street is turning into a pretty neat higher-density urban street with EnV Denver under construction, the Prado, and a string of mid-rise condo projects developed in the 1990s.
Eviva Cherokee is being developed by the Integral Group with The Beck Group‘s Denver office handling the architectural design and general contractor duties.
The tower includes two-story townhomes along a portion of the Cherokee Street frontage and a number of amenities on the 6th and 7th levels that include a fitness center, conference and business center, swimming pool, sun deck with barbecue grills, sports bar area, and interior/exterior lounge areas for socializing. The building will be skinned with high-performance floor-to-ceiling glass and is targeting a LEED-Gold certification.
Eviva Cherokee is expected to open in Fall 2016.
That building is Denver Fugly!! No respect for the neighborhood or the immediate neighbors, totally out of scale and context for the neighborhood!
Seriously? There’s a parking lot to the north. There’s a parking lot to the east. There’s a parking lot to the west. And there’s a mid-rise residential building to the south. The Golden Triangle is part of Downtown Denver and the recently completed Golden Triangle plan, prepared with full cooperation with the neighborhood, identifies 18 stories as the maximum building height for this area and strongly encourages high-density development, particularly where there are concentrations of parking lots! Apparently you have no idea what you are talking and must not understand the fundamentals of a big city.
A great looking project. Density will require light rail expansion to this part of town.
This is a good thing, Ken. This means that the trolls have arrived. When you’re blog is getting more traffic, this means you can expect a few trolls in the comment section. Welcome to the big time!
On a more serious note, I used to live in Golden Triangle on the corner of 9th and Bannock. When I would walk into work downtown, I always noticed all of the surface parking lots there. I think this building fits well with the the museums near by. Great addition to the neighborhood.
Having lived at 12th and Cherokee for a year – this is an awesome project. That area is a BARREN WASTELAND of parking lots and this will be an amazing addition. (And will also help bring more business to one of my favorite places – Cap City Tavern!)
This neighborhood is currently all parking lots, so whoever said it’s out of context for the neighborhood has clearly never been there. They need about 8 more places just like this to really get rid of that parking lot feel of the neighborhood.
I am all for it!
Go Ken!
Give ’em hell and educate them!
A riled up Ken, I can get on board with this!
Snarky comment Ken!! It is out of scale with the neighborhood take a walk around!! BTW I have lived in the neighborhood for 16 years! And the Parking lot to the east will be the Kirkland Museum, a better fit for the area!!
Sorry. Not buying it. I’ve lived in Denver for 30 years and I’m quite familiar with the Golden Triangle. Within the neighborhood are buildings of this scale all over and many more coming. The GT Neighborhood Plan envisions projects exactly like this; the existing zoning allows for a project of this scale; and the future new zoning for the GT will allow for a project of this scale. The Kirkland will be across the alley but to the south, leaving a large parking lot immediately to the east of this project that is another development site. Across Cherokee is another large parking lot that the GT Plan identifies as a “catalyst development site.”
Again, the GT is a DOWNTOWN district. 18 stories for the downtown of a major city is nothing. Frankly, it should probably be taller, but 18 stories is what this community has settled on for the maximum building height for this area, so that’s fine.
The City and County of Denver is about 155 square miles. Downtown Denver, which includes the GT, is about 4 square miles. That’s 2.5% of the city. If you don’t like living in an environment with tall buildings, then you’ve got the remaining 97.5% of the city you can live in.
Well said, Ken.
Ken,
What are the building height limits for Arapahoe Square and Uptown?
Great addition to the neighborhood. Contemporary design works well next to museum complex. Development replaces one of many fugly surface parking lots in the area and it adds a lot of needed density. Along with the Joule, the Golden Triangle is on the rise.
Fantastic contribution to the city! Beautiful building in a perfect area for development. Ken, do you have any insight as to the rumor that buildings like this are built to be apartments for seven years, then convert to condos to avoid liability issues? I keep hearing this, but am aware of no firm evidence, nor any major condo conversion project (though we’re not yet seven years from the beginning of the current apartment boom). Great job on this blog. So much fun to see major news like this.
Hi. That’s just all speculation. If we can resolve the construction defects issue locally, as the City is prepared to do (since the state legislature refuses to do so) then hopefully we’ll begin building condos from scratch and any rental-to-condo conversions will become unnecessary.
Thanks. Here’s hoping for a resolution. Downtown needs more condos!
When — not if — the city modifies the condo defects law back to reasonable, it will unleash an explosion of condo and townhouse development across Denver, especially Downtown, where millennials will be itching to buy an affordable home in an urban setting. Another layer of housing coming, on top of the apartment building boom.
So exciting to see more parking lots disappearing and more density in Golden Triangle, a greatly located area so close to the core of downtown but currently sparsely populated. I do hope we start seeing more high density condos in the future enabling people to find longer term residences in Downtown and invest in the core
I agree with your counter to “Me”, Ken, and I agree these could/should be taller. Welcome to the big city, Denver, and goodbye Cow town. I’ve been here 63 years, before Denver had any high rise other than May D&F Tower.
This project was fenced off long before work began, and even looked like it would be abandoned when they took the sign down. I wonder if the project was just a victim of a swamped Community Planning and Development department. I’ve heard of a 6 month backlog.
I love this project! Not only does it add some much needed density, but the townhomes facing Cherokee will give this area a neighborhood feel. I’m so excited for this project and the many more that will come to this area. Ken, you mentioned the parking lots to the North, East, and West, are there any projects in the pipeline for these sites? If so, I hope they get a variance to go even taller than 18 stories. Cheers!
This project will definitely bring the area a neighborhood feel. I’m interested to see how it turns out!
This project is terrific for this area. The views of the art museum, Civic Center, the skyline, and the mountains will be amazing! Not to mention the lovely shade it will provide my car when parked in one of the surrounding lots! Just kidding! I hope there are plans in the works for the lot just to the north. I hate seeing that parking lot from the art museums. Thanks for your posts Ken.
Looks great! Lived in CapHill, highlands, Jefferson Park and Uptown since 1971. I’m a skyscraper geek, always have been always will. Walked the whole central area daily without a car for 11 of those years before pedestrians were all the rage. I’m very opinionated but not aligned with group agreement, ‘group think.’ I don’t ‘subscribe’ to any of those lame ‘view plane’ ideals nor do I believe height limits create a solution for anything. Some review is necessary to alleviate certain Trumpness or hideous military flavor. Not into people pleasing like mindedness when it only stalls productivity. I say if they can finance it and get it done it’s for the betterment. Because too much restriction just hinders productivity. Cities that take chances come out ahead because it’s stimulating. Not to worry if it’s ‘friendly.’ That’s something that is the pedestrians core responsibility.
Heck yeah! Why is someone complaining about growth? Hahaha….what an idiot. Happy to see all the other comments from you folks in the neighborhood! Love it!