Let’s check in on another project that will be providing homeless transition and affordable housing to Downtown Denver. The 101-unit, Renaissance Downtown Lofts, located at Broadway and Stout Street, have made significant progress as you would expect since our last update in January.
The main structure has been topped out for some time and the facade is also nearing completion. In the first photo below, you can see a protruding concrete podium, which will house the ramps for the 29 vehicle spaces and feature a residential deck on top. The historic Carson Press building is still intact and looks just as it did when construction commenced. The alley side of the project has no notable features, but as development keeps on trekking throughout Downtown Denver, this will never be a permanent sight from the street.
Because of how the project site is configured, and how the diagonal of Broadway creates unique intersections, the building comes to a point at the corner of Broadway and 21st Street. Needless to say, it looks great.
The Renaissance Downtown Lofts are expected to open in the next few months. Not only does this provide the much-needed housing for Denver’s homeless, it also enlivens a block that has suffered from the surface parking lot sickness we like to call parkinglotitis.
Good god that is one ugly building……
In what way? No, it is not an eye-catching, iconic design, but it doesn’t need to, and shouldn’t, have one. Instead, it is a relatively plain, simple filler-building design, which works well here. It’s too bad that it wasn’t 10 or 12 stories, which is the minimum density that Arapahoe Square needs to have, but I think it works well. This building’s design is far better than 2300 Welton, which is just an excessive conglomeration of unnecessarily bold colors and blocky design that stretches for an entire block. That one could have used some taming down or simplification for at least part of the block.