A new mixed-use office/hotel development is slated for the block bounded by Walnut, 36th, Blake, and Downing streets in Denver’s popular River North (RiNo) district. Known as The HUB, the 8-story project is being developed by Elevation Development Group with Jones Lang LaSalle handling the leasing. Here’s the location outlined on a Google Earth aerial:
The HUB project breaks down as follows: An L-shaped office building containing 250,000 square feet of space will cover the whole half-block along Walnut and part of the half-block along Blake closest to 36th Street. A 150-room boutique hotel will sit at the corner of Blake and Downing across the street from RTD’s 38th and Blake Station to complete the block. The HUB will also include 27,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor.
Automobile parking will be located on part of the ground floor as well as on levels 2 and 3, with a total of 437 spaces to serve both the office and hotel functions. Ample bicycle parking will also be provided. A large outdoor garden between the office and hotel towers will top the parking podium, with 50,000-square foot office floor plates located on levels 4 through 8. This site plan, courtesy of the development team, shows the basic layout of the project:
HomeAdvisor announced in July 2015 their plans to relocate their corporate headquarters from Golden to Downtown Denver. After a year-long search, they have chosen to move to The HUB as an anchor tenant, taking 58,000 square feet on the top two floors.
Here are several renderings of HUB, courtesy of Gensler, the project architect.
View of The HUB from the corner of 36th (left) and Walnut (right) looking north:
View of The HUB from Walnut (left) and Downing (right) looking west. On the right edge of the image is a glimpse of the hotel at Blake and Downing.
The design of the hotel is not as far along as the office component, but here is a conceptual rendering of the hotel looking south from the train station across Blake Street:
The outdoor garden space on the fourth floor between the hotel and office towers will include nice views of the mountains:
The site has been recently cleared of its former industrial uses and some utility work has already been completed. This is the site currently looking east from 36th and Blake:
The retail, parking, and office components will be built concurrently, with the opening planned for early 2018. Completion of the hotel component will lag by approximately 6 to 12 months.
Let’s see how quickly the adjacent neighborhood gentrifies.
Gentrification, also known as neighborhood improvement, has already been happening and is great to see in this previously undeserved neighborhood.
“Gentrification is a process of renovation and revival of deteriorated urban neighborhoods by means of influx of more affluent residents, which results in increased property values and the displacing of lower-income families and small businesses.”
Disingenuous neighborhood improvements to benefit future, more affluent residents just demonstrates systematic discrimination in action. Instead of helping a community, the current plan is just to raze it piece by piece and replace it with a more palatable bunch. Has the been underserved? Absolutely. But boutique hotels are not the answer.
http://gawker.com/study-building-luxury-housing-for-gentrifiers-helps-th-1758724083
If this development was happening in the middle of the Cole neighborhood, then I would say your assessment is sort on. However, this development is happening in an severely, undeveloped, industrial-only area that has been that way for decades. Now, could projects like this induce gentrification in those more stable, surrounding residential neighborhoods like Cole and Whittier? Very likely…and so now is the time for those residents to start to talking to their city representatives. However, leaving that plot of land as it was serves no one.
There’s an upside and a downside to gentrification, and we can debate about it all day, but there’s nothing sinister happening here; it’s just market forces doing what market forces naturally do. To describe this development as a disingenuous demonstration of systematic discrimination is hyperbolic and somewhat irrational IMO.
How much time do you spend in this part of town? My office is two blocks away. This is not a residential area, and there is a distinct divide between this block and Curtis Park, which is the closest residential area. Replacing under utilized industrial buildings with anything of use is improvement, not to mention that this site is across the street from a major new rail station on the airport line so having a business hotel is a great use.
Besides, the side right across Downing to the NE and right across from the rail station is owned by the Urban Land Conservancy and they had plans for a mixed use, mixed income development. So…affordable housing. I hope that is still in the works.
As a nearby resident, I am very happy about this development…a nice mix of uses and a decent looking building. A few disappointing aspects, thought: as a general rule, I am not fond of the “highlight-the-parking-garage” approach that seems to want to really call out what is podium and what is not. I don’t get it but it is a really popular design statement recently. Also, the 36th street frontage on the ground floor is brutal. Unfortunate…
It looks like that will be one of the entrances for the parking garage, based on the curb cut in the middle of the block.
Personally, I’m okay with the retail being focused on Walnut & Blake.
Totally agree with you on the location of the retail focus. My concern is that in areas where there is no retail focus, we will instead get a CMU blank wall facade. There is a middle ground in there and I would like to see it! That area is a parking garage, but landscape, public art, interesting brick/facade treatment and other interventions can help this not become a hostile and unpleasant environment.
I’m encouraging the hotel design team to spend some time with the Office / Parking team and share the concept of facade articulation and how to layer mass into a pedestrian-friendly ground level that embraces the neighborhood and its low-rise scale. This is exactly the harsh wall and lack of meaningful facade expression that the North Denver Cornerstone Collaborative promised the neighborhood would NOT happen. Hopefully this is just conceptual and the final solution for the Walnut elevation will have as much thought and passion put into it as the Blake elevation. I’m a fan of development but not at the expense of design. Let’s go Gensler… don’t let us down. You can do it!
Are you referring to the 36th street facade? The Walnut side looks to be pretty pedestrian friendly if I understand the renderings correctly?
Very excited about this project. Previously the site had some underused industrial warehouses. Bringing a mix use project so close to the train station will be a great addition to the neighborhood.