Back in January, we announced one of the first projects, 600 Park Avenue, going through the new Arapahoe Square Design Advisory Board. Head on over to that announcement post for more details on the advisory board. In just over a month, 600 Park Avenue is back up for design review. The new 71-page submittal contains a lot of information, and provides a lot of detailed information about every aspect of the project. To access the report, follow this link.
As a quick refresher, 600 Park Avenue is a 13-story, 238-unit apartment project going up at Park Avenue West and Welton Street.
For this update, we are going to be skimming the surface of the submittal documents and comparing the first renderings to the new renderings. One of the most noticeable changes is the setback from the top floor to the roof-line.
The old rendering is on the left (first image on mobile), the new on the right (second image on mobile).
The two white columns, that run along the entire height of the building, have gone from a solid color to something more defined and textured. The white paneling on the rest of the building also appears to have been darkened to more of a light grey color.
The old rendering is on the left (first image on mobile), the new on the right (second image on mobile).
Here is one last perspective of 600 Park Avenue when viewed from Lawson Park along Park Avenue West. The most notable changes, in this comparison, are the color scheme and the facade setback at the top.
The old rendering is on the left (first image on mobile), the new on the right (second image on mobile).
What’s next for 600 Park Avenue? According to the submittal documents: “The proposed project nearly conforms to all the Design Standards and Guidelines. With the approval of the presented modifications, Staff recommends Approval with Conditions to incorporate additional modifications to the street-level planters and the top-of-building brick detailing.” Once we have information in regards to the final design review and / or construction, we will revisit this project.
The new design seems to have lost some of the “freshness” of the original…it’s hard to tell from the renderings if that’s a good thing, or not. The revised plan looks more institutional…like it could be a hospital vs. residence building. that said, I think it’ll be a nice addition to that area….and thankfully, it’s not another of those stucco, plywood, 5 story boxes that have become a blight on the city.
Something important to note about this project is that, while the podium of the building still contains several levels of parking, the parking levels on both the Park Av. and Welton sides of the building are covered by residential units. That is a huge improvement over other nearby projects, like 21st and Welton (https://denverinfill.com/tag/21st-and-welton-apartments), where the parking levels are visible from the street.
Iffy aesthetics and lack of mixed use are both good reasons to dislike this development, but another one just occurred to me. 21st & Welton et. al. at least respond to being in the midst of a city, in that they are designed to provide desirable lines-of-sight from tenant windows and balconies. 600 Park Ave’s shape turns the tenants’ gaze in on other tenants and the building itself. Would anyone else feel odd using a balcony where they were being observed by most of the other tenants in the building? Why not just move the balconies to create better lines-of-sight?
Why should the project be mixed use? Park Ave is not a high street in the slightest sense, it’s primarily a residential corridor (see Central Park West in NYC) where the retail is located on an adjacent street. In this portion of AS the retail node is along 22nd where there is existing and under development retail. The parcels at 22nd and Welton and 22nd and California are where we need push for significant mixed-used projects.
Actually, Park Ave is somewhat of a significant street since it is the outbound couplet to 22nd St and it does directly connect to Colfax through the Uptown & City Park West neighborhoods. Also, further east from this location on Park Ave, a good portion of the street is zoned mixed-use. However, even if you could say that Park Ave is mostly residentially here, Welton Street is not suppose to be strictly residential. It is where the light rail (future streetcar, hopefully) runs. The fact that none of the projects (current/under construction/proposed) at this intersection has any kind of ground floor retail/commercial space is a failure. All of the plans that include Welton, it is proposed to be a mixed-use, high pedestrian corridor. Fortunately, this project does not take up the entire block, so there is some hope. Not so on the other side of the street: two blocks will just be residential.