One of the largest surface parking lots in the Golden Triangle may be developed in the near future.
Legacy Partners, developers of the recently completed Point 21 project on Lawrence Street, has announced plans for a 322-unit apartment project, Legacy on Speer, located on the five-sided block bounded by 14th Avenue, Fox Street, 13th Avenue, Speer, and Galapago Street. Here’s the site outlined on a Google Earth aerial plus a special drone-view perspective from Ryan:
The Legacy on Speer apartments will consist of a seven-story building, with five levels of residential units on top of a two-story podium that contains about 445 parking spaces for a residential unit/parking space ratio of approximately 1.40. Ground-floor residential units will wrap the parking around the building perimeter to provide an attractive pedestrian-oriented presence along the sidewalk. The project also features two interior outdoor courtyards and a pool/outdoor amenity area on the third level for residents, along with a clubhouse and fitness center.
The following images are courtesy of KTGY, the project architect.
Corner of Speer (left) and West 13th Avenue (right):
Speer frontage with Galapago Street at far left:
Corner of 14th Avenue (left) and Galapago Street (right):
Site plan:
DenverInfill has been tracking this project since early 2014 when the project was first submitted to the city. At that time, the development excluded several parcels at the Fox/14th corner, resulting in an awkward L-shaped building configuration. Since then, the project’s footprint has expanded to include the entire block, resulting in a better project. Currently, the site is an ugly mishmash of parking lots, as this Google Street View photo shows:
Construction is expected to begin later in 2016.
I LOVE this….. with one concern (for the residents along Speer): how to greatly mitigate what must be very loud noise from the 4 or 5 lanes of adjacent Speer traffic. Can we believe that quadruple-pane window glass exists ? Or what can be done?
That is one beautiful looking building! I hope that it gets built, as there are a ton of parking lots there!
I understand Speer is a large road, but to have so little consideration given to the design of the first floor / street presence is a shame. The city should have learned this lesson from all of the horribly designed high rises and parking structures downtown. Sidewalks / ground floors should be celebrated, not disregarded. It’s the only way to get people out of their cars and on the sidewalk.
I had a little chuckle to myself as well when I looked at the Speer/13th Ave renderings included above given that there is nothing on the ground floor of the building that would encourage anyone to walk along it. Add in the speeding traffic along Speer and I can’t see the sidewalk getting any use. I think it’s unfortunate how many of the half block monsters around town don’t take the pedestrian experience into account and make it a bit more interesting for us to increase the walkability of our city. Most more closely resemble light industrial boxes than interesting places for people to live.
This has been largely my thought as well. Far too many people today take for granted the fact that buildings act upon the street at least as much as the street acts on the building. To treat Speer like some kind of ugly sewer or highway that we wish weren’t there… no active ground floor uses AT ALL along the Speer facade, kind of creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m pretty sure Mayor Speer envisioned this as something of a Parisian Boulevard. It’s a bit unfortunate that the city seems to have forgotten about this. This street should be looking toward a future of wider sidewalks, cafes, and transit. Instead what I see is the auto-dominated development mentality of “nobody wants to live next to a busy street… we’d better just turn our back to it”; which just reinforces the problem and won’t help make Speer a more beautiful boulevard.
I don’t get why you’re saying this. There’s a nice sidewalk, street trees, and the building has plenty of windows facing Speer. Now maybe you could argue that it might be nice to have some ground-floor retail here, but I’m not sure whether or not the developer feels that’s viable in this case.
I agree with you Jason. I personally think there is zero chance of Speer ever having an active pedestrian presence. When I walk along there, the first thing I try and do is get off of that street because of the noise and fast cars.
On second thought, it might not be entirely fair for me to blame a private developer for reacting to the street in this way. I completely agree that Speer is a terrible place for pedestrians – in fact this was where I was coming from when I first made the point.
But its discouraging either way. Speer seems to me like a street that is WAY overbuilt. If it were taken from 4 down to 3 lanes, narrower lanes, and much wider sidewalks, it would go a long way to rectify the situation. I’m not convinced that the inner sidewalks are needed either – not with sidewalks on both street faces AND a multi-use path down by the creek. I envision it as a 3 lane road, with extra wide sidewalks, bike facilities by the creek, and HOPEFULLY someday a light-rail running to Cherry Creek.
That said, I worry about the timing. If the entire GT street-wall of Speer develops similar to this parcel before the city will consider making changes to the street itself, then it’s pretty much dooming the street to be a bad place for pedestrians for a very long time. If done the right way, there’s no reason that a high-volume boulevard can’t be pleasant and well designed… Speer’s just not that street. Many people I talk to are prepared to essentially throw in the towel and declare Speer a lost cause, and I guess I just refuse to take that kind of pessimistic stance.
I should also clarify that I don’t blame the developer for structuring the Speer frontage this way, just thought it was funny they put all those pedestrians out there where most of agree they will never exist. I think most of us are hoping that Speer becomes less of a monster in the future, with wider sidewalks and some form of rail to Cherry Creek, as others have mentioned above. However, the city has shown minimal initiative on this change insofar as I can tell. A feasibility study or some master plan might give developers comfort to make areas convertible to retail/cafes along the Speer that might be used in the future.
I used to live near the convention center, and walking to the King Soopers on Speer/13th to get groceries was not only uncomfortable due to speeding cars, but completely uninteresting along one of the cities only waterways…not ideal for one of a central city’s main thoroughfares.
Fortunately, the people who crafted the ‘Golden Triangle Neighborhood Plan’ agree with you. Their recommendation for Speer calls for altering just in ways that you described. Furthermore, the city council approved of the plan, which provides some hope for changes. However, if people both outside and inside the city government keep saying that nothing can be done for Speer, it can’t be changed, then nothing will be done and it will stay the same.
The design looks very nice but it seems like it is still in flux, given the differences between the 1st and 2nd renderings. Hopefully, they will stick with the dark bricks like in the first rendering. One piece of advice for any company developing a building with ground floor residential units that front the property line: elevate them by at least 2 or preferably 3 feet. Who wants pedestrian to be able to look directly into your home?
Really nice looking building, with very cool features (specifically the pool layout, that looks fantastic) but a few things struck me = will the sun even hit the surface in any of those interior outdoor terraces most of the year? I’m guessing the “cheap” units will be the numerous units in perpetual darkness. Speaking of darkness = I surprised that Mayor Hancock doesn’t have an issue with his dream project, the Rose Andom Center on Fox, being plunged into shadow for all but a couple hours a day at most due to the height of this project (it also appears that this building is taller than the solar panels on the roof of the parking garage next door, which is odd.) I guess the city knocking some feet off the height could help both situations but I’m guessing it’s too late for that. Also, in the image showing 13th and Speer – that car on 13th is going the wrong way! Look out!!!
You can’t trust preliminary renderings to accurately represent how a building will sit in context to its surroundings. Besides, this is the heart of a city: no building, or their residents/occupiers should expect to be exposed to direct sunlight all day long, every day of the year.
All true Jerry G – but the east-west orientation of this parcel, plus the fact that Fox St is much narrower then most if not all of the streets in the CBD, and considering that the Rose Andom Center has been such a high priority for the Mayor (its the building the city received in the widely derided DPS swap and is currently undergoing an extensive renovation) – I’m surprised the city didn’t cut the height down a little. Maybe they still will.
I’m a bit confused by this… Solar panels get the majority of their sunlight from the southern sun. This building will be due to the west (western sunlight usually comes from a low angle – the majority of the afternoon sun falls on the western wall of a building – not on its rooftop). Are we really prepared to start knocking down the height of buildings just because they might hypothetically shade somebody else’ solar panels? This is only 7 stories tall!
As far as people’s windows go, ambient light is the kind that most people get out of most windows, most of the day. In fact, in a hot dry climate like ours, shady streets and courtyards are useful to us for much more of the year than the 2-3 months in the winter that we wish we had more sun. Shade is the ideal cooling mechanism in a dry climate, both for outdoor spaces and for energy efficiency on openings like windows. AC in the summer is a much larger energy user than heating in the winter. If people need sunshine, they can go just about anywhere to get it… we live in one of the sunniest places in America.
Glad to read so many thoughtful insights into what’s arguably Denver’s best big street. Potentially, a grand diagonal boulevard like those in Paris, London and Washington, lined with mostly mid-rise buildings and big trees, busy and noisy with traffic, of course, but hopefully lined with cafes and bars and boutiques in neighborhoods like the Triangle.
Because Speer goes through so many different neighborhoods — North Denver-Highland, the Platte Valley, Auraria and Downtown, the Triangle and the barrio and Baker, the media-artsy core, South Capitol Hill, Denver Country Club and Cherry Creek (on First) — this grand concourse is still evolving.
Streetcar lines along the right-hand edges of Speer will help make the sidewalks more friendly to the kind of café life we’d all like to see. In time, it’ll happen, but the pedestrian transformation won’t really work until street rail owns the right lanes.
Bikes already rule the stream bed, a step in the right direction, but Speer is still too fast and noisy for fun walking and shopping. Eventually, the City will have to stop just pandering to “neighborhood plans,” and start thinking about its big streets, as the core of the urban experience.
Interesting discussion about the height – according to Denver’s height restriction map, this project is in the protected view plane of Civic Center Park, meaning it can’t be a highrise of any sort. I haven’t seen any information about the actual height, only that it’s seven stories.
Actually, the max height for this plot would be about 117ft (or 8 stories) when accounting for the view plan restriction and the adjustments due to the distance from the viewpoint. According to Denver’s development map, this building has a height of 85 ft and so it falls well within the view plane restriction. Furthermore, 7 stories does not make a high-rise of any sort.