Residential developer Lennar Multifamily Communities is going big in Downtown Denver’s Golden Triangle district. LMC is currently under construction with a 17-story residential tower at 10th and Acoma and has submitted plans for a 14-story tower at 10th and Bannock and a 19-story tower at 11th and Bannock. In this post we provide an overview of the last of Lennar’s active development proposals in the Golden Triangle, a 17-story tower at 12th and Acoma. The Google Earth aerial image and Google street view photo below show the location of the development site and its current status as a surface parking lot.
On March 9, 2020, a Concept Plan for the project was submitted to the Denver planning office by Davis Partnership Architects on behalf of Lennar. According to the Concept Plan document, the proposed residential building would include 300 homes, about 9,800 square feet of ground-floor retail/restaurant space, and parking for 373 automobiles and 160 bicycles.
The current zoning on the site requires a minimum 0.75 automobile parking spaces per residential unit, or 225 spaces (300×0.75), and 25 spaces for the retail uses, for a total minimum requirement of 250 spaces. As currently proposed, of the project’s 373 total automobile parking spaces, 344 are assigned to residential uses and the remaining 29 to retail uses. This results in 119 automobile parking spaces in excess of the minimum required (344–225) for a residential parking ratio of 1.53 (344/225)—a little more than double the minimum required ratio.
The images below, obtained from the Concept Plan, show the proposed buildings massing from various angles.
According to the Concept Plan, here’s the proposed stacking order for the tower:
- Ground Floor/Mezzanine: Lobby, two retail spaces, and building services wrapped around automobile/bike parking
- Floors 3 thru 5: Automobile parking wrapped on the Acoma and 12th Avenue sides by residential units
- Floor 6: Residential units with several indoor/outdoor amenity spaces
- Floors 7 thru 16: Residential units
- Floor 17: Residential units with indoor/outdoor amenity spaces
Disclaimer: The first step in the city’s development review process is the filing of a Concept Plan application with the planning office. City planning staff review the project concept and have a conversation with the developer about feasibility, zoning and design issues, and other factors the developer will have to take into consideration before the project can move on to the next step. Therefore, the project’s design and specifications at this Concept Plan stage are preliminary and may change significantly before formal plans are submitted to the city for review.
This isn’t the last of Lennar’s proposed development in the Golden Triangle. In our post on Lennar’s proposed 19-story tower at 11th and Bannock, we mentioned that Lennar recently purchased the surface parking lot north of the historic Evans School at the southwest corner of 12th and Acoma—across the street from this project. However, Lennar has not yet submitted any plans to the city for that site.
I am not completely familiar with the golden triangle area, so I think it would be super cool to see all of these LMC projects in a single post! Just an idea and thank you for all the great posts lately!
I always despised these two parking lots next to the art museum and I am thrilled to see them redeveloped. An excess amount of parking for this building doesn’t seem to be a problem if it is to be accessible for museum visitors and patrons of the local businesses on Broadway.
Is Denver any close to setting parking max rather than parking min? It’s amazing to see that prime downtown residential investors value parking more than additional units. rather than re
Whatever happened to the proposed rezoning of GT I was reading about last year? Did that fall through?
I suppose now that we’re in the beginning of what’s looking to be a very deep recession, none of this will actually get built. Nevertheless, it would be nice to see some taller, skinnier towers proposed rather than more of these behemoths.
In the works: https://www.denvergov.org/content/denvergov/en/community-planning-and-development/zoning/text-amendments/Golden_Triangle_Zoning_and_Design.html
Wow. Didn’t realize it was an 18-month process.
This coronavirus will leave a major impact to Denver’s economy.
A sudden halt to construction projects.
No more breaking ground for office towers or hotel projects in downtown denver.
Most, if not all, construction projects in Denver are proceeding. Whether it will stop future groundbreakings remains to be seen.