Staying in the Curtis Park-Five Points neighborhood, let’s head over to Park Avenue West and Welton Street to check in on the 2300 Welton project. As a refresher, this is a 223-unit apartment project contained in a four-story building.
Framing for the building is complete with the facade nearing completion. Here are two photos looking from both Park Avenue West and 24th Avenue along Welton Street.
2300 Welton features a neat entrance to the courtyard, which tunnels through part of the building. It’s pretty hard to spot until you are close to it.
The Park Avenue West side of the larger structure is nearly complete with landscaping and some minor facade work that still needs to be done.
The smaller building that sits across the alley, along Park Avenue West, is also part of the 2300 Welton project. It can be seen in this rendering.
2300 Welton started leasing this month and should be open by the Fall, which is when we will visit it for a final update.
Park Avenue is really shaping up to be an ugly drive.
Pretty poor context in relation to the neighborhood if you ask me, unless they were shooting to match the bottled water warehouse up the block. This looks essentially to be a light industrial building with windows pasted all over it and zero street level purpose in one of Denver’s most historically significant commercial corridors. There may be a place in Denver for this quality of affordable housing, but I really don’t think this is it…Another bar set incredibly low.
Massive and cheap.
That looks like a plywood warehouse with windows!
Does one require an “architect” to design a box of crap or does something like that self-assemble?
The architecture doesn’t appeal to me, but I do like the courtyard concept. I am glad it is nearly finished and it is better than a parking lot.
I hope they plant some trees on that block. Quickly.
In the words of Michael Kors. Double Ugly. Hopefully at some point Denver gets an overall architectural review process so we don’t completely destroy this city with horrible monsters like this and Hartley Flats. Yikes. But hey…as long as the developer is putting cash in their pocket no harm done right?!
Whoa that thing is ugly. I hate to say, but I’d rather have the surface lot than that box.
Go ahead and burn it down then you can have your blighted lot back.
I like the density, but it is absolutely hideous. I’m guessing that the reason these concepts are implemented is because the ugly abstract modernist style and the “thinking outside the box” is preached so heavily in architecture school. It’s one of the main reasons I dropped my architecture studies.
I have never met a person who thinks these buildings are attractive, yet they still sell because of the seemingly insatiable demand. Once that wanes, these will should become the affordable housing of the future. My only question is, when will this style of architecture die?
I don’t understand how this happens. How does a building like this go from concept to construction without the developer stopping at any point to do something about the hideous design? Is it intentional? “We need to get this done as cheaply as possible to maximize profit. Of course we’ll probably end up with a building that’s pretty darn ugly, but that’s no concern of ours; let’s just get this done.”
I know this comment probably makes me look really ignorant about commercial real estate development – and I am ignorant, certainly – but that’s what it really feels like to me. It really feels like some out-of-state developer with no ties to, or concern about the local community, is coming along and taking a dump on my city for their own financial gain. I can’t drive down park avenue anymore without getting a little angry about what’s happening to that part of the city.
On the bright side, it seems (to me) like a fairly large proportion of Denver’s most recent building proposals are attractive and unique. I’m wondering if the precedent for Denver is starting to change now that we’ve got big-city real estate costs.
Gross. Some brick would’ve been nice. This is textbook new Denver fugly. I preferred the parking lot.
It is really ugly. I don’t blame the architect who is just making the paycheck. I blame the cheap developer who is out of state. And our administration for not having design standards.
Please implement design standards.
I don’t really understand the hate for this project. I think it looks perfectly nice with some interesting post-modern touches and some great splashes of color (so glad its not brown, beige and boring). I also like the irregular angles and the cool, hidden courtyard entrance. The fact that it’s workforce housing is so important. And also should be noted that the “developer” is not out of state, but is in fact the Denver Urban Renewal Authority and the architects are local guys, Humphries Poli, who have done lots of great work around town.
Maybe it’s not to everyone’s taste, but this is thoughtful, smart and truly designed.