A new 14-story hotel is eradicating a desolate surface parking lot in Central Downtown where the density is at its thickest. Some of you may have noticed that a red tower crane was getting erected at the corner of 18th and Champa without much too detail out there about the actual project.
Thanks to the public records filed with the city, we were able to gather enough information online to be able to formally announce this project on DenverInfill. A new Hyatt Centric, located at 1776 Champa Street, will provide Central Downtown Denver with 263 new hotel rooms contained in a 14-story building. To better orient you, below is a map with the project site outlined.
The site was busy with activity this weekend as a new red tower crane was getting erected. Here are a few photos of the project site and the tower crane. This will be a great infill project, on a fairly small parcel, to complete the block and corner.
Thanks to the construction permit filed with the City of Denver, we were able to obtain a preliminary color rending of the hotel. Over the next few weeks, I’m sure a higher quality rendering will be available. The architect on record is Johnson Nathan Strohe.
It’s great to see another Central Downtown surface parking lot bite the dust!
Nice! Not super inspired by the hotel design, but then again, it’s a 14-story project in a pretty dense part of the CBD so it will go mostly un-noticed from a skyline enhancement perspective. But… great to see a parking lot gone. I hope that the CBD area continues to slowly eat away at massive parking lot real estate over the coming years and into the next boom….
Nice!
Would it be ok if they erected a parking garage on one of the massive parking lots?
Thanks for doing the detective work! I’ve been wondering what’s going on there.
ANOTHER SMALL HOTEL
WILL Denver every build tall office towers in the CBD.
Spending millions of dollars to aquire parking lots then build small 10 story buildings
What ever happen to utilizing the investment in the property to make it stand out from others.
Denver will never be a Boston town
Afraid to build up.
Willing to bet that the two sides not visible in the rendering are going to be blank walls like the 15th & Stout hotel. Denver needs to do something about that in their design standards.
Eric, My guess is the side facing the building next door will have a set-back due to the windows on the existing building. That might allow for windows on that side of the new building. Ken or Ryan would know better. Sad one of the last remaining lots on 18th would result in this rather small and plain building, but we got that a couple of years ago on 17th with that small building (can’t think of the name but the one that is all glass). Perhaps we should see Denver enact a minimum height requirement for all remaining lots in the CBD? Say 30 stories or higher?
The building directly to the east is a historic property, so it’s not going anywhere. My guess is this hotel will have east facing windows. No idea about the south side but you’re probably right about a blank wall based on the risk of another highrise eventually getting built next to it.
“CBD” – in Denver it is called downtown
Downtown is a broader area than CBD. For example, LoDo and Union Station are part of downtown, but not part of the Central Business District.
I’m an advocate for development in the downtown core which eradicates surface parking lots, but this is such a missed opportunity.
Unlimited (maybe 400′?) zoning, smack dab in the middle of the CBD, and they end up with a 14-story building. Such a tragic under utilization of a prime site. Something three times this height would have a much greater impact on the skyline, it’s users would have added life to the street, and it would have been an economic driver. Instead, the site is destined to be under utilized for the next half-century or more.
Who knows, maybe in 30 years, when land value is even higher, developers will look at under utilized lots such as this one (and Alta City House) and target them for redevelopment which fully utilizes the site. Too bad today’s market and developers don’t have the foresight to make that happen.
This is a 12K sq foot lot. The maximum building envelope is 210K sq ft.per FAR regs. The most you could get out of this is a 22 story building (assuming a 10K floor plate) and such a large chunk of the floor plate would be eaten up by core that you’re probably left with 5K or so of usable space per floor. That’s not going to make for a realistic project.
14 stories is pretty damn realistic for this site given Denver’s zoning regs.
Thank you for doing the math and research for the zoning on this one. I was thinking it would be around what you calculated.
There isn’t a market for building a multitude of new, tall office towers in Denver. If they could even get the financing to build them, they would most likely be empty “see-through” buildings for many years. The city should focus on high-quality mid-story buildings in the CBD.
Don’t forget about future cycles with River Mile as well. Lots of opportunities for tall buildings!
Of course. But I think there’s a legitimate gripe here in that western U.S. cities are constantly building outward instead maximizing space where density is absolutely appropriate. Put me in the height minimums camp because four different Hyatt’s in downtown is evidence it’s necessary.
Let’s add in the Sherman Street rezoning and all of those parking lots in Upper Downtown. With our current zoning code, and the size of this lot, you wouldn’t be able to get that tall anyways. There are still many prime parking lots downtown for taller buildings. I see this as a great filler and win.
What objective are you trying to satisfy with taller buildings that can’t be achieved with multiple buildings in the 10 – 20 story category? I would assume that if you build only a fraction of the currently built-up space to a hight of 14 stories, you can get more than enough use out of the already used area and still have enough space to build parks and open space with out further sprawl. Also consistently building 14 stories and more should allow for enough density for public transit to work and small businesses and restaurants to have enough customers to thrive. At least to me, it doesn’t make sense to build a small cluster of super tall buildings in downtown with a density that not even mass-transit and pedestrian sidewalks can handle without massive overcrowding and congestion, and then surround it by miles and miles of single story homes and shops in a sea of parking lots. I don’t know where the sweat spot of density lies for a human scale sustainable city, but for the moment, I don’t see how it would be much above 14 or so stories.
I’m surprised that there is a market for more hotel space in Denver at the moment with how popular AirBnB is and how many hotels have opened in the last few years.
Overall, it’s nice to see another hotel going in (i mean it) although it is somewhat uninspiring and will simply be absorbed into the surrounding downtown buildings. We should probably get used to low & mid-rise projects like this. Based on the lack of new big project announcements over this past year and what appears to be yet another halt to the now infamous Two Tabor Tower project, it appears we’re in the beginning of the next building lull cycle. I’m preparing for the next few years to be slow with the big (tall) projects. But given Denver will undoubtedly continue to grow we’ll see many more mid-rise residential projects happening during this time. Hopefully more in the way of for-purchase.
And I agree that Denver needs to do something with these massive blank walls going up. I know there’s a reason for them but we also know there’s a fix to the eyesores.
Yesterday, I saw no “provisions for pedestrians” during construction. No scaffolding or barricades or anything. Sidewalks on 18th and Champa are closed for half a block on each side. Current policies must still be pretty loose.
I imagine once they start going vertical they will have a protected sidewalk.
Does Denver really need another hotel? How about more businesses outside of the 16th Street Mall and delis and coffee shops that stay open later than 4-6 pm?
I just don’t understand why building a 10 story hotel or office in that kinda prime location ??? Denver planners should really think about it. In 10 years what’s gonna happen ?