As the title states, Arapahoe Square recently gained two tower cranes! One for Alexan Arapahoe Square and the other for Alexan 20th Street Station. Combined, these two projects will eradicate a full city block of parking and add over 700 residential units to Arapahoe Square.
We love tower cranes here on DenverInfill, so we have a few photos of them. Let’s start out with Alexan Arapahoe Square. Work on the site is making good progress, and foundation work should begin soon.
Alexan 20th Street Station is also making good progress. Foundation work should also start very soon.
Both of these projects will rise pretty close to the same time, making a huge impact to Arapahoe Square. There is, however, a lot of open land to fill.
Rumor has it that the 21st and Welton Apartments will also be kicking off soon. This view will change dramatically in the next couple of years.
Maybe the city can think about giving Arapahoe Square a more accurate given the exciting architectural changes underway. How about, The Dockyards?
I guess I’ll be the first to say it… We need the Alexan brand to stop putting up this same half-block land barge EVERYWHERE. This will now be 3 of them with the same general design, within a small land area (if you count the monstrosity of Alexan Uptown). I’m hoping for more thoughtful, less repetitive development that can actually contribute to the uniqueness of this neighborhood in the years to come – I’d very much like to see this be one of the last developments of this style/nature, then again never count against corporate greed…
Fortunately, I think that the Arapahoe Square Design Guidelines addresses the worst aspects of these landscrapers although it won’t eliminate the actual construction of landscrapers when a full half-block is being infilled. That is an unforeseen consequence of the urban renewal land clearing that took place in the 70’s, 80’s: large portions of city blocks replaced with huge parking lots that would eventually be filled with developments with large footprints.
Hopefully you’re right about the “guidelines” making a difference. Arapahoe Square is on course to be a more pedestrian part of downtown which is probably a good thing on the whole. Certainly a good variety of rental price points should provide for more diversity.
This neighborhood is really developing in a depressing direction.
What is the value of a landscraper? The “landscraper” form is a device to leverage capacity against risk. It is 100% greed, but that’s what corporations specialize in. There were a lot of risks that needed to be hedged here:
1. Cost of land. Alexan paid a premium in this market, probably to a bunch of families who have been clinging to it forever. But they also have to reckon with:
2. Current (un)-desirability of the area. Aside from the Mercury Cafe or Yazoo BBQ, there are few reasons to be in Arapahoe Square. It’s hard to be among the first residential developments in an area because you can’t get the premium prices you want tenants to pay for new units and your ground-floor retail space won’t be occupied for another decade. Thus you need:
3. Economies of scale. This neighborhood has been nearly all parking lot since DURA finished strafing it 30ish years ago, so developers aim low. This isn’t LoHi. Any smart financial analyst knows that Denver has a boom/bust history with a lot of peak to trough.
I’m glad that Arapahoe Square has a design review document now, and can hopefully move the needle further in the right direction for future projects. While landscrapers are ugly, at the very least their high capacity means that people will be in the area to provide impetus for retail to move in. I also want to believe that this is the first step in closing the parking craters at 19th and Broadway that make this part of the city feel so “off limits” to begin with.