Holland Partner Group, the developers of projects such as Union Denver and The Platform, recently purchased a large parcel in the Baker neighborhood that faces Broadway. Currently, this site is very underutilized with a single story credit union branch surrounded by a significant amount of surface parking. Holland Partner Group will develop the entire parcel with a mixed-use apartment and retail project. To orient yourself, below is an aerial with the project site outlined.
The Security Service Credit Union and all surface parking will be eradicated to make way for this new project. Here are a couple of photos of the existing building along Broadway. One great amenity of this project site is the abundance of mature street trees along the sidewalks.
From the back of the site, between West Bayaud Avenue and Archer Place, there is a large very surface parking lot that takes up around three quarters of the entire site.
The new 3-story building will feature 238 apartment units along with 13,200 square feet of retail space along Broadway. Not only does this help complete a great street-wall along Broadway, it contributes to the already abundant retail scene in this area, and nicely fits in the context of the neighborhood. The amount of parking is currently unknown but there will be 26 spaces dedicated for the retail portion. Below is a rendering courtesy of Holland Partner Group.
99 South Broadway is expected to start any day and should be complete by early next year. In addition to this project, Baker is experiencing an uptick in development which we will be covering over the next week or so.
I think this will be a great addition to the corridor—especially with a broken-up facade along Broadway, but I am a little sad that the design is so uninspired. It’s a shame the facade along the side streets was ignored. With this lot in the bag though, now it’ll be time to redevelop the Design District into a more cohesive part of the neighborhood (with far less surface parking).
For many years the businesses on Broadway depended on the parking lot at the Credit Union.
There is no parking for businesses on South Broadway in the area of this development.
Folks from the metro area visit S Broadway, or they used to.
There are plenty of other ways to get there besides driving. Broadway has some of the better bus service in Denver, light rail stops just across Alameda from this spot, there are B-cycle stations and bike parking nearby.
Plus, this building and others going up in this area will allow hundreds of people to live within walking distance of all the south Broadway businesses, far more people than the couple dozen parking spots.
More people, fewer cars will be better for business.
“light rail stop just across Alameda from this spot”? Sorry — that site is 8 blocks north of Alameda; the light rail station is an additional 3 blocks south, and 2 blocks west, at Cherokee and S. Alaska.
Your map-reading skills are a bit off. Alameda is 300 S and this location is at 99 S Broadway. That puts it 2 blocks north of Alameda. The light rail station is one more block south and 2 blocks west. A person is looking at walking 5 blocks or approximately 0.7 miles (according to Google). Someone could walk that in 10-13 minutes. Once a pedestrian gets onto Broadway (coming from the light rail), the walk would be somewhat pleasant.
Uh, 99 South Broadway is 2 blocks north of Alameda, not 8.
As a former resident of the Denizen, I can personally attest to this being an extremely easy and (if you take the tree-lined streets through Baker) pleasant jaunt. What those regional commuting customers who demand on-site parking might be forgetting is that, nationwide, regional drive-and-park retail is dying, while local retail focused on its community and those walking the sidewalks is thriving. There are a lot of empty storefronts on Broadway right now even with all this supposedly desirably parking available, and with the impending addition of ~5,000 residents between Broadway Park (DDD) and Broadway Station, who won’t need to drive anywhere on Broadway, I just don’t really understand the concern. Frankly, I think it’s embarrassing that this site is limited to 3 stories and requires any parking given its location and the desire for people to live in this area.
I know exactly where it is, I make the walk all the time. It’s a 10-15 minute walk. If you go through Baker, a very pleasant walk, less so on Broadway with all the traffic.
I’m quite happy this parking lot will be going away. Let’s have more people and fewer cars in the neighborhood.
The developer met with neighborhood groups to go over proposals that would have maintained parking for the local businesses that you’re talking about, even though they had no obligation to do so. Instead, people were unwilling to hear them out, so if you’re upset about the loss of public parking, you can thank the residents and BHNA members who don’t understand that development is going to happen whether they like it or not.
This ^
They wanted an exemption of the overlay to go 5 stories (limit is 3) to put in parking and landscaping. BHNA and the So Broadway businesses were against it. Think Irish Rover wants their rooftop bar to look at apartments and lose the mountain view? They’re still going to be plenty profitable. They just wanted to make millions more with an exemption.
The ‘view’ argument is tired, cliche, and frankly has no place in a growing city along an established commercial corridor. The fact that it was only ever three stories in the first place is a shame.
Guess what? Owning a house shouldn’t mean that you have a say in everything you can see from your porch, and had this been a better design (which it sounds like it would have in the 5-Story proposal) it would have been a heck of a lot better view than blank roof. Just look at the view from the Historian.
Sorry you hate historic districts! They’re important.
coming to this late, but in case people use these comments for reference, BHNA (distinct from the “Baker District” misnomer) did *not* oppose the proposed upzoning; BHNA never took a position because Holland dropped the proposal before formalizing it; BHNA did help organize an informal meeting for residents and business owners to talk with the developer; some residents were very vocal in opposition to the 5-story rezoning, but some supported it as well
also, regarding Tarrou’s comment that Holland had a proposal “that would have maintained parking for the local businesses” — at the above-described meeting, Holland proposed that, *if* the property were upzoned, they would overpark the rental units at 1.25:1 and add 70 spaces of paid public parking (around half of which would serve the retail in the same building); regardless of zoning, a few street parking spaces will be added because the development will close three curb cuts that fed the surface parking, and will also close the south end of the north-south alley at the west end of the property, which turns out not to be public right of way; a north south alley much closer to Broadway was vacated in 1956
all that aside, this is now another lot languishing in limbo — there’s no sign of demolition; weeds and graffiti are taking over
That’s right, development is going to happen whether we like it or not but then we don’t always realize who is running the controls in the planning and zoning departments who have the last say on heights and mass etc. In my opinion the whole idea of building scales in relation to the other ‘urban’ neighborhoods is like trying to put shoes on a cat. It seems to me the center city communities would be more stimulating if there wasn’t so much time wasted on trying to fit the developer with the zoning and there would already be twice as many downtown residents as there are now, maybe less people driving. Then this isn’t Kansas City or Portland either when you have many more people living ‘regionally’ the dynamic changes because there will always be people driving from an hour or two away to visit the dynamic city center. So there will always need to be parking to a degree. Everyone walking sounds idealist. Although it’s not unusual that the Denver region and all it parts has thought of each own part as uncooperative or preeminent in character to the rest of the region. I can’t think of too many inner city communities within metros of 3+ million people (4+ million in the entire front range) that can operate autonomous to a region. Although it seems neighborly to be disconnected or only identifying locally it’s still counter-intuitive to the benefits of the region as a whole.
I’m surprised that the number of units planned isn’t double or triple that amount. Is that because of zoning? The design has more of an office space look to it than residential. Glad to see the infill though.
Correct, it’s limited to 3-story development. The developers considered try and rezone to 5-story and were going to taper the height as it moved into the neighborhood, as well as not build to the property line. However, they decided to go ahead with the current zoning, most likely do to a mixed reception from the neighborhood association.
Awesome Great to see new developments on Broadway, Marketplace on Broadway the old Kmart redevelopment new apartment’s
Any news about the empty lot on the south west corner of Broadway and Bayaud?
Infill good, residential density good. But I really fear for the neighborhood when this type of structure inserts itself. We’re watch Five Points being stripped of its character right before our eyes. If the same thing starts happening on South Broadway (Baker), you might see a proper revolt.
They aimed to build bigger (5-Story) and with more victorian flare but the Baker District denied the rezoning from 3 to 5 story.
Has Denver’s zoning regressed, then? Two blocks north there’s a 6-story prewar building at First and Broadway…
Just seems like a missed opportunity to give this stretch of Broadway more enclosure.