Every once in a while, there are projects just outside of our usual ‘DenverInfill territory’ that catch our attention and are worthy of a mention. In the past we covered projects such as Aria Denver, and One Observatory Park, which break the mold of their surroundings adding quality, urban development to the area.

Today, we are going to head on over to the Colorado Center, located on Colorado Boulevard and Buchtel. The Colorado Center is the southernmost dense pocket on the Colorado Boulevard corridor and has been ripe for more density ever since the light rail station opened just south of it. At an occupancy of 96%, the Colorado Center has a third phase now under construction.

I’ve had this post drafted since August, but it got buried with all of the crazy infill that’s been going on around Downtown Denver. As I visited this project a couple of weeks ago, I decided that it’s time to finally dig up this post and update you on what’s going on.

Let’s start off with an aerial with the site in question outlined. I zoomed out a little bit to show the pattern of density in this area. Colorado Boulevard is a fairly large and dense commercial corridor with low-density/single family homes surrounding it on both sides.

2015-08-24_ColoradoCenterSiteFixed

The third phase of this project will consist of a retail, residential and office component. Here is an overview rendering of the third phase, courtesy of Tryba Architects. We will break down the details of each project element below, with additional renderings.

2015-08-24_ColoradoCenterRendering-01

The residential and retail component will be on the south side of the project, closest to the transit station. These buildings will consist of 269 apartment units and 40,000 square feet of new retail space.

2015-08-24_ColoradoCenterRendering-04

Here is an additional rendering of the planned 15-story residential tower.

2015-08-24_ColoradoCenterRendering-03

The second 15-story tower will contain 210,000 square feet of class AA office space over a 7-story parking structure.

2015-08-24_ColoradoCenterRendering-02

So what is going on today? Back in August, there was an official groundbreaking ceremony for the office portion of this project. Since then, excavation, foundation, and the cores have been completed with the main structure starting to go up. Here are some photos from two weekends ago.

2016-03-27_ColoradoCenter-05 2016-03-27_ColoradoCenter-06

The cores for the office building have topped out at 15 stories, which gives us a good gauge on how tall this building is going to be. This will definitely add some significant height to this already dense area.

2016-03-27_ColoradoCenter-03 2016-03-27_ColoradoCenter-04

I’m sure we can all agree that this is much better than the surface parking lot that’s been on this site for many years!

2016-03-27_ColoradoCenter-02 2016-03-27_ColoradoCenter-01

This is only the beginning of the Colorado Center expansion. With office and residential components so close to the Colorado Boulevard light-rail station, this project is a great TOD win for Denver!