This is our third roundup post looking at projects under development in the River North district, this time covering the East quadrant (southeast of the railroad tracks and above 33rd Street). Recently, we covered the West and North quadrants of RiNo. We’ll begin with a couple of projects that have just finished or are nearly finished, then we’ll check in on several developments that are still under construction, and then we’ll conclude with a bunch of proposed projects. All of our photos were taken over the past month or so. Let’s get started!

HUB North. The HUB is a two-phase office development on the block bounded by Blake, Walnut, 36th, and Downing. The L-shaped first phase, HUB South, is an eight-story 250,000 square foot office building that broke ground in the fall of 2017 and wrapped up construction in April 2019. We did a final update on HUB South in April and introduced the second phase, HUB North, which had just started construction at that time. HUB North, which sits at the corner of Blake and Downing and is wrapped on two sides by HUB South, adds about 100,000 square feet of additional office space and some ground-floor retail.

HUB North is now complete. In the photos below, HUB North has the gray brick while HUB South has the reddish-brown brick. The HUB sits across the street from the 38th & Blake transit station.

Walnut Street Lofts. One block over from the HUB is the Walnut Street Lofts, situated at the corner of Walnut and 38th. This five-story project brings 66 income-restricted apartment homes to the RiNo district. Construction got underway in the spring of 2019 and the project is now mostly complete.

3770 Walnut. A new 165-room hybrid “apartment hotel” is under construction at the southwest corner of Walnut and Marion on a very pointy triangular site due to the way Walnut intersects with Marion at an angle. The seven-story development will feature hotel rooms with residential-like features and rental options, a ground-floor restaurant and lobby space, and a rooftop deck. Three automobile parking spaces and 47 bicycle parking spaces are included. Additionally, a small two-story brick house on the lot will be retained and incorporated as part of the project. Peak Development Group is the developer, the architect is Shears Adkins Rockmore, and the property will be managed by Sage Hospitality. Below are some renderings, courtesy of Peak Development and SAR, along with photos from a couple of weeks ago of the construction progress.

Here’s an aerial shot of HUB, the Walnut Street Lofts, and 3770 Walnut with the 38th and Blake transit station behind. Beyond the tracks is the North quadrant of RiNo that we covered earlier this month.

3701 Marion. A new five-story residential development is under construction at the northwest corner of Marion and E. 37th Avenue, just a few lots south of the 3770 Walnut apartment/hotel project shown above. This project brings a mix of 48 rental apartments in a five-story building and six for-sale live/work townhomes fronting the street. The project is being developed by Zakhem Real Estate Group and the architect is Kephart. Also included are 34 automobile parking spaces and 32 bicycle stalls. Below we have a rendering, courtesy of Kephart, and a few construction photos.

This drone photo shows 3701 Marion with 3770 Walnut and the Walnut Street Lofts beyond and HUB on the left. The large dirt lot in the foreground is where a new residential development with a ground-floor grocery store is planned. We’ll cover that project in a future post when details and a rendering are available.

3463 Walnut. The project under construction at 3463 Walnut by Zocalo Development now has name—Edit at River North—according to the developer’s website. Edit is a 13-story building with ground-floor retail that will provide 366 new homes to the RiNo district. The building has just about topped-off and is scheduled to open in the spring of 2021.

3501 Blake. The project under construction right next to the 35th Street Pedestrian Bridge, 3501 Blake, is a three-story building with approximately 37,000 square feet of office space and about 4,500 square feet of ground-floor restaurant/retail space. The project sits on a shallow lot between Blake Street and the railroad tracks between 35th and 36th streets and includes 21 automobile parking spaces and 12 bicycle spaces. Blake Street Mine LLC is the owner/developer and the architect is Sprocket. The project has topped off and facade elements are starting to go up. Here’s a rendering, courtesy of Sprocket, and some recent photos.

Here’s a drone view of 3463 Walnut and 3501 Blake looking west from above Larimer Street.

Before we get to the proposed projects, a quick mention of two projects in this East quadrant of RiNo that we’ve already reported on that are very close to getting under construction.

T3 RiNo. Located at 3500 Blake, T3 RiNo is a 240,000 square foot office building planned by Hines, McCaffery, and Ivanhoe Cambridge, which held a ceremonial ground-breaking in late February but then decided to wait a few months before starting actual construction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully construction will get started later this year; but for now, here’s a new rendering of the T3 project (courtesy of Pickard Chilton).

World Trade Center Denver. The other development that may be on the cusp of construction is World Trade Center Denver. This ambitious project by Formativ has been in the works for several years, with the developer reaching a major milestone last summer by bringing on a new partner and closing on the land. Even though COVID-19 has delayed the start of construction, in April 2020, the project’s general contractor, Swinerton, started working at the property doing demolition and site prep.

The 14-story WTC Denver is planned to include 320,000 square feet of office space, a 7,000 square foot conference center, a 240-room hotel, 20,000+ square feet of restaurant/retail space, outdoor public spaces, and a parking garage. Numerous building permit documents were filed with the city in April and May 2020, so it does appear the project is pushing forward. Below we have an aerial view of the freshly cleared site and a short video fly-through of the development, courtesy of Formativ and Ebb+Flow Creative.

PROPOSED PROJECTS

Next we have five projects that are new to DenverInfill that are in various stages of the development review process.

Foundry. At 3750 Blake, directly across the street from the 38th and Blake transit station and across the alley from the Walnut Street Lofts, is the site for Foundry, a proposed 17-story residential building with 348 apartment homes, about 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and office space, and parking for 282 automobiles and 207 bicycles. The developer is McWhinney and the architect is Craine Architecture.

The project has been under development review with the city since late 2017, and by the summer of 2019 had advanced to the building permit stage. According to the city’s records, there hasn’t been much development review activity on the project lately, but the Foundry is still listed on McWhinney’s website so hopefully the project is still active. Here’s a rendering, courtesy of McWhinney and Craine Architecture.

Novel RiNo. At 40th and Walnut, just down the street from the World Trade Center Denver site, is the location for Novel RiNo, a proposed residential development by Crescent Communities. The project consists of a 12-story tower and an 5-story wing that include 483 homes and around 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The site is currently occupied by a warehouse.

The project was submitted to the city for review in early 2019 and has steadily worked its way through the development review process, with it now at the building permit stage and documents filed as recently as May 2020, a good sign the project is marching forward. Below is a rendering of the development, courtesy of Crescent Communities and the architect, Davis Partnership.

Train Denver. Next door to Novel RiNo’s site is the location for a large mixed-use development called Train Denver. Proposed by Invent Development Partners and Halpern Real Estate Ventures, Train Denver would cover two blocks: a triangle-shaped block bounded by 40th Street, Blake, and Walnut, and to its southeast a triangle-shaped block bounded by Walnut, Franklin, and 40th.

On the northern block, currently occupied by a vacant industrial building and open land, the Train Denver development would include a 14-story, 275,000 square foot office tower, a 16-story, 200-room hotel, ground-floor restaurant/retail, and underground parking. On the southern block, currently occupied by a vacant warehouse and open land, the proposed project would include residential and hotel uses in an 11-story tower, an entertainment venue, restaurant/retail uses, and structured parking.

A Concept Plan was filed for both blocks with the city planning office in September 2019 and in March 2020 a few additional documents were submitted to the city for review. This project is early in the development stage and many aspects of it are likely to change in the coming months. Below is a concept rendering of Train Denver, courtesy of the project architect, Davis Partnership.

Paradigm River North. The east corner of 34th and Walnut is the site for Paradigm River North, a proposed eight-story, 200,000 square foot office building by Jordan Perlmutter & Company. The development would include around 12,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurant/retail space, a bike storage room, and 219 automobile parking spaces on two underground levels. The site is currently occupied by a self-storage facility.

Paradigm River North was filed with the city planning office in early 2019 and has steadily progressed through the review process, with building permit documents submitted by Tryba Architects as recently as May 2020. Here’s a rendering, courtesy of Tryba, of Paradigm River North.

3930 Blake. A 16-story residential tower is proposed for 3930 Blake, located at the south corner of 40th and Blake and across 40th Street from the northern block of the Train Denver project described above. The owner/developer is listed on city records as R Cap Blake Street LLC and Davis Partnership is the architect. A small industrial building, surface parking, and open land are currently found on the site.

According to the project’s Concept Plan filed with the city planning department on March 10, 2020, the proposed development would include 193 homes, ground-floor restaurant/retail space, and 178 underground parking spaces. A rendering is currently not available, so here’s a Google Street View of the site currently.

Here’s a panorama of the blocks just east of the 38th and Blake transit station, where four of the five proposed projects above are located. On the far right, in the foreground of the Walnut Street Lofts is the site for Foundry. The open dirt in the center is the cleared site for World Trade Center Denver. The white windowless building to the left of the beige brick Industry RiNo Station building is the site for Novel RiNo. The one-story building with blue garage doors and adjacent open lot is the site for 3930 Blake. The two blocks behind that is the Train Denver site.

And because we love drone panoramas so much, here’s one final photo of our area today looking toward Downtown Denver.

We hope you enjoyed our big post today! Coming soon is the final quadrant (South) in our four-post series on infill development in booming River North.