A major renovation is planned for 930 15th Street, the 12-story office building at the corner of 15th and Curtis that has housed telecom offices since the 1960s. The site is outlined on the Google Earth aerial image below.

Location of 930 15th Street, base aerial courtesy of Google Earth

Built in the early 1960s as a five-story addition to the historic Telephone building next door, an additional seven floors were added in 1966 to reach the current 12 stories. CenturyLink recently moved their offices out of the building and sold the structure in January 2019 to Rialto Capital and SteelWave, the firms planning the renovation. Here are some recent photos of the building.

930 15th Street current condition
930 15th Street view up 15th Street
930 15th Street view down Curtis

Generally we don’t track adaptive reuse or renovation projects on DenverInfill but every once in a while a prominent building is renovated to such a degree that it becomes like an entirely new building. This is one of those situations.

The existing building features a mostly opaque facade, not especially appealing to today’s office market. The proposed renovation will remove the existing facade from the entire building and reskin the structure with a new glass curtain wall. The interior will be fully remodeled with new building systems and technology, and new tenant amenities like a rooftop terrace, fitness center, and conference space will be added. A small number of vehicle parking stalls will be included on the ground floor near the alley that will utilize robotic lift parking infrastructure. The ground floor will also include an expanded lobby with a bar/lounge and café. The end result will be 223,000 square feet of space comparable to ground-up new construction.

Gensler, the architecture firm handling the redesign, has provided us with this newly updated rendering of what 930 15th Street will look like upon completion.

Proposed redesign of 930 15th Street, courtesy of Gensler

In addition to the positive visual impact this project will have on Downtown Denver’s rapidly improving 15th Street, the pedestrian experience along Curtis Street will also be significantly enhanced. The existing solid blank wall along Curtis Street will be replaced with a highly transparent ground-floor facade and a new secondary lobby entrance.

A Concept Plan for the project was submitted to the city last September. The project has advanced now to the Site Development Plan stage, which was filed with the city on January 29, 2019. The project is still under review and must receive additional approvals from the city before construction can begin. The developers hope to complete the project in 2020.