1401 Lawrence, a 22-story, 300,000 square foot office building, is starting to wrap up. As the ground level is getting its final touches, we can finally see how the building, as a whole, looks on the Denver skyline.
The glass curtain wall adds a whole new splash of color and luminance to this part of Denver. Here is a drone photo we took at dusk highlighting 1401 Lawrence.
We will swing by in a couple of weeks and post a final update!
this is a stunning picture! I now live in LA and miss the dynamism of Denver, its downtown core and its youthful energy. I would love to see a collage of many of your outstanding pictures of downtown from a variety of angles, streets, elevations. You have a lot of material to work with!
One thing still missing in the core…GREAT shopping. A fabulous department store with 80-100 specialty stores and restaurants that brings shoppers to the City on weekends and for multiple reasons tied to the fabric of a city that includes attractive shopping. Uniglo, H and M and similar stores are not the solution.
As inferior as Salt Lake City is to Denver, the LDS Church and Taubman forever changed their downtown with City Creek. There is no reason Denver could not create a worthy competitor to Cherry Creek…finally.
Agreed. Some of that may begin to change with the new Market Street development. I am still flabbergasted that there isn’t an Apple Store downtown. Union Station could have been that destination, but I don’t see that taking shape.
I’ve always felt that the old Cottrell’s site would be a good spot for an Apple flagship store: highly visible on the mall, adjacent to a light rail line, and very near the Pavilions. Even better, perhaps, would be the food court building next to it–perhaps part of a development stretching from 16th to 17th that would then have a high-profile presence at both busy corners. Does Makovsky still own the Cottrell’s parcel? Has anyone heard anything about his plans for the site? An Apple store in downtown Denver seems like a no-brainer. And perhaps an Amazon Pop-Up in Union Station….
A few things about downtown developing into an attractive shopping district to keep in mind are: a lot of retailers don’t like to have multiple stores within 3 miles of each other and based on all the retailers that are in Cherry Creek that you don’t see downtown has something to do with that. Yeah, there are a few examples, but not many. One of the tough things about downtown as great as downtown is, there’s a serious situation especially off of the Cherry Creek bike path & 16th St mall with “travelers” causing a lot of problems for people who live in condos downtown, their guests, tourists, etc and higher end retailers like Apple don’t want to be around that. Now, LoDo/Union Station is clearly being developed as the nicest/most upscale part of downtown could be a possibility for them and I think that if you took the example of the former market street station that will be redeveloped here soon enough, that may be the most glaring opportunity for a retailer like Apple and I believe it sits just outside of that 3 mile range from Cherry Creek Mall. If certain steps can be taken by the city to clean things up around the 16th St mall and Cherry Creek bike bath, then I think downtown has the potential to develop more of a shopping district feel even if the retailers vary from Cherry Creek.
The 3-mile radius rule is interesting. We can always hope for an exception to the rule. As for the problem with “travelers”, I truly feel that’s more a short-term issue in the big scheme of things and an issue that, in itself, won’t sway national retailers–high end or other end–from any part of downtown.
As for the new building at 1401 Lawrence, it adds a surprisingly strong presence to that end of downtown. What a nice change!
This looks awesome! I understand why some readers in previous posts may be disappointed that this building looks “stubby” compared to what could have been there initially (seemed to be a common gripe about this development), however I think this is a very welcome modern addition to the downtown skyline.
In response to Dana’s comment above, I agree downtown could be more of a shopping destination, though I believe we’re starting to slowly move in the right direction – Market Station will be a prime example once that development starts.
Great coverage as always Ryan!
The silver lining to the shorter height is that 1401 Lawrence will not obstruct the view of 1144 15th Street from what is quickly becoming one of the most popular angles to photograph Denver’s skyline. Both of these buildings, IMO, are exquisite.
Agreed Matt. I was one of those who criticized this development as too short and stubby. But when 1144 15th rises, this will not block the view and serve as a sort of “preamble.”
Denver so desperately needed this building in our skyline. It’s amazing what a clean, streamlined, glass-clad building can do in terms of providing our skyline a profound elegance through simplicity. The building is already reflecting the clouds and mirroring our orange sunsets, a surreal sight to see from any vantage point. 1401 Lawrence serves in completely stark contrast to the cheaply-built, over-thought, clunky earth-toned “Tetris” boxes that have all but become pandemic in our city and metro area. Buildings such as 1401 Lawrence and 1144 15th show us how a self-appointed “world-class city” should be presenting itself to the world – with grace and “sex appeal”.
It seems like almost all at once, were getting all these great new perspectives of cities and their skylines that we’ve never seen before, thanks to drones. I love it! I love this pic in particular. It’s the lighting I think. 20 minutes earlier or 20 minutes later and it wouldn’t have been the same. I like the way it’s framed too. It creates the illusion that this urban landscape might go on forever. Not that I’m pretending to know anything about photography. 🙂
It seems like most of the tall buildings built in the last 10 years are clustered in one area of downtown. This new building and all of its glass helps to balance the 70’s and 80’s buildings on the skyline.
I agree, I like the glass! I will get over not having the original plans for this sight to have a profound “sliver” condo skyscraper, but somewhere else someday please? What’s happening to the Gensler Bell Tower? It’s nice to see how the building butts up to the Four Seasons and the 1144 15th coming up but I wonder if Downtown Denver’s skyline outline form is pretty much at build out as far as the future is concerned. My calculations come from realizing there’s just a couple of parcels left within the unlimited height zoning within the central core, and the rest of the sub lying areas lay within those darn view plane controls. It’s just my forthought but I think valid to long term growth and expansion of the downtown area. Seems most of the development that’s happened since the heyday of oil boom 80’s has yet to push any of the current outline and all we’ll see is lower fill in. Any similar thoughts?