The redevelopment of Downtown Denver’s Market Street Station took a major step forward today with the announcement of Market Station, a $150 million mixed-use project on the site of RTD’s former bus terminal.

Denver-based Continuum Partners has purchased the Market Street Station property from the City and County of Denver for $14.5 million, which had acquired the site from RTD in 2008 as part of the financing mechanism for the Union Station transit project. Continuum teamed with East West Partners to form the Union Station Neighborhood Company to lead the redevelopment efforts at Denver Union Station, where Continuum is currently working on the “Block A” Hotel/Office project next to the commuter rail/Amtrak platforms. Continuum’s other notable urban projects include Belmar in Lakewood, the redevelopment of the former CU Hospital at 9th and Colorado, and 16 Market Square, located directly across the street from Market Street Station.

For some context and orientation, we have a Google Earth aerial showing the site outlined in yellow, followed by a spectacular drone shot from DenverInfill’s own Ryan Dravitz. The historic RTD headquarters building on the block is not part of the project.

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Market Station will be comprised of three buildings ranging from 5 to 10 stories.

Building A will face the 16th Street Mall and most of the Market Street side of the block in an L-shaped configuration and will have three main sections: 10-story buildings at the 16th/Blake and 16th/Market corners, and a 5-story building occupying the middle of the Market Street frontage. Building B, at 5 stories, will anchor the 17th and Market Street corner; Building C will also have 5 floors and will occupy the corner of 17th and Blake. Together, the three buildings will include about 370,000 square feet of development, featuring 90,000 square feet of office space, 85,000 square feet of retail/restaurant, and the balance as 225 apartment units. Two underground parking levels will include 350 vehicle spaces for tenants and the public.

Some of the following diagrams are from the project’s development application to the Lower Downtown Design Review Board, which approved the project’s mass and scale at its December 10, 2015 meeting. Several more rounds of review and approval by the LDDRB are still to come, as well as other approvals by the Denver planning office. Consequently, these images represent conceptual designs only and are subject to further modifications and refinement. In addition to Continuum, the project team also includes architectural firms El Dorado and BOKA Powell, and Dig Studio for urban design and planning. The renderings and other exhibits are courtesy of Roger Pecsok at Continuum Partners and Alana Watkins at VOCA Public Relations. Thank you Roger and Alana!

Site massing (16th and Market corner in foreground):

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Building program (office=purple, retail=pink, restaurant=red, residential=blue):

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Architectural rendering (view of 16th and Market corner):

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One of the exciting aspects of the project is the amount of retail. Too often in Downtown Denver, ground-floor retail ends up as ground-floor restaurant. Restaurants are great, but we could really use more quality retail in Downtown and this project offers plenty, featuring over 20 retail spaces facing the 16th Street Mall, Market Street, an interior paseo along the alleyway, and an arcade off of Market Street. The project’s primary restaurant spaces front 17th Street. Here’s the ground-floor plan, followed by a rendering of the arcade from the interior paseo looking toward Market Street:

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Next, we have the four elevations:

16th Street Mall:

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Market Street:

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17th Street:

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Blake Street:

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Finally, here’s a diagram showing how the proposed underground parking levels will incorporate the volume of the existing RTD underground space (yellow):

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Again, these are all preliminary designs that are subject to change over the coming months, but it is great to see the redevelopment of Market Street Station getting started. If all goes as planned, Continuum will break ground on the project in the fall of 2016 with completion in late 2018.