A few weeks ago we announced a new 12-story, 353-unit apartment project going up in Arapahoe Square. As a project moves through the development review process, some of the first things that usually get refined are the design and massing.
Today I have a new, more refined rendering to share with you thanks to Sarah Van Severen of Kephart, the architect firm behind this project. One of the largest changes in this revision is the facade color. Instead of a solid color throughout the building’s facade, it is now broken up with lighter colors on the street level. According to Kephart, the colors for this project are not quite final and will be tweaked more in the coming weeks.
Here is the preliminary rendering for a comparison:
Project updates are always a good sign of a development moving forward. I’m sure we will have a groundbreaking date the next time we visit this project!
I really love seeing our urban core getting this type of dense development. However, it’s sad to see no ground floor retail built into this project. A great way to make this project of his magnitude be more human-scale would be to incorporate retail. This also makes for a more walk-able city.
I agree, real disappointment that there is no room for a corner coffee shop, or other small retail at the base of the building. Also, why curb to curb, can we not have a generous space of side walk with trees and landscaping?
I suppose it’s an improvement, but it’s still incredibly bland and generic looking. Some bright colors would do wonders to differentiate this from nearly every other development in the same size range.
No curves. Alll rctangular. Therefore, ugly.
Put a mural on it and it might be OK.
I am so excited to see development on this side of downtown. I’m also in favor of it being on the bland side and blending in. If there’s no ground floor retail and it’s not a community hub, I say let it do it’s duties adding housing, filling in the urban fabric, and providing good street-level architecture and leave it at that. If everybuilding stands out, none do. Let important civic buildings shine.
It’s hard to justify retail when you are surrounded by parking lots. The retail will sit vacant or perform poorly until the area receives more development. 2300 and 2460 Welton don’t have any retail either. TCR could have put some retail on the Alexan Uptown though because that would connect to other retail (One City Block on 19th street and {former} Jonsey’s, The Horseshoe, a convenient store on 20th).
We should all be excited they are maximizing the density of this site.
I’m encouraged to see something happening here as the Arapahoe Square area of downtown has been a rough stretch of downtown for awhile, so now that some development is moving that way, I’ll be very curious to see how this area transforms over the next 5 to 10 years for example. On the retail front, I can understand why they aren’t putting any at this moment. As development around this area progresses over time I can see that happening, but retail is a tough animal and I think businesses here would have a hard time compared to other more walkable areas of downtown.
We need a coffee shop over here. It reminds me of the cheap drag looking development going up across the street on Welton from Park to 24th. Why can’t these developers be more neighborhood friendly and add some sort of retail to pull the neighborhood together like Uptown is doing. Just one bland cheap looking building after another going up
Actually, 2460 Welton does have retail. It is the ground floor of the apartment portion of the development at the corner of Welton and 25th. In addition, the other two developments further NE on Welton (2560 Welton and Rossonian Hotel) both have significant retail. However, that also makes sense since thy are placed in the heart of Fiver Points and can connect with the existing retail. There are plenty of empty lots along Welton in the immediate vicinity of this development, so hopefully some of those will have retail. Nevertheless, a residential development of this scale is very much needed in this neighborhood.
The design changes are a nice improvement. I really hope that what looks to be detailing on the upper portion (above the 5th level) actually becomes part of the design. I think what was really lacking in the previous design was architectural details. Brick patterns are nice, but add some three dimensionality to the walls. That makes it far more interesting. A nice edge (cornice?) that marks the boundary between the lighter, lower portion and the darker, upper portion would make a huge difference.
Thanks for all the great work you do with this site. I have been following it for years. I have noticed that the map showing project locations does not show all of the projects featured on the site. I am happy to help with updating the map or take over responsibility for it entirely. I have a masters in GIS from DU and am familiar with how the mapping tools work.
Also, if you ever need help with photography let me know. It is my main hobby and I especially love photographing architecture at night.
Ryan Ferriman