In addition to Market Station, featured in our last update, McGregor Square, just down the block, is also shaping up nicely. With most of the facade now complete, we now have a preview of what the finished project will look like.
Let’s start with a few photos of the public plaza in the middle of the three buildings. A lot of progress has been made here with thick caliper trees, brickwork on the passageways, and a new frame for the large screen overlooking the plaza.
As you can see in the photos above, the facade is mostly complete on all three buildings. Here are a few more photos around the project. The office building, located at the south end of the project, features a modern glass and brick facade. The condo building, in the middle, has a beige, patterned brick facade. The hotel, located on the north side closest to Coors Field, features a red brick facade resembling its stadium neighbor.
While taking up a full block of surface parking, McGregor Square checks off every box for a great urban project: housing, lodging, office, retail, and an ample amount of public space. Construction is expected to complete in the next few months.
Update 12/01/2020 3:05PM: Sage Hospitality Group has announced they will be opening their hotel component come Spring 2021. The hotel will be named The Rally Hotel and will feature 176 guest rooms, including 29 suites.
Ugh-ly. Another pile of confusion. These noxious structures are the McMansions of apartment buildings with all their gimmickry, imbalances, and fussiness. The building in the foreground is like a calming rest for the eyes after the screeching violence of McMansion… er, McGregor Scare.
I generally agree that these look overworked. I think that it’s more of an issue with the canyon/commons concept more than materials. Though, the materials palette, in its current state, looks thirsty for uniformity but is arm-wrestling for uniqueness.
Maybe it’ll come together and look slightly more settled once it’s complete. Hard to tell.
Really nice. Can’t wait to see this place filled with people next year.
The hotel and residential buildings look good but I’m not loving the office building, something is off about the glass and lack of brick detailing. Overall this will be a positive development for LoDo and will be a great spot on baseball game days. 100x better than the parking lot that used to be there.
I think this project is great, especially because of the “imbalances” that Diego describes above. As far as I’m concerned, there are only four things that matter in architecture:
1) High-quality building materials. Check.
2) A human scale at street level. This is true in the plaza especially.
3) Breaking up long horizontal stretches into vertical planes (i.e. avoiding looking like a landscraper). This project’s multiple distinct buildings do this nicely.
4) A reasonable amount of density relative to the surrounding area. Check.
Anything else doesn’t really matter that much. In 30 years, nobody will remember that these three buildings were built at the same time, which is fantastic. A city block with a totally harmonious unified architecture made by a single developer is a BAD thing — I’d take this “pile of confusion” over a carefully unified city block any day.
I’d say I feel pretty strongly about one very important (and very much left out) characteristic; rhythm.
Re: “In 30 years, nobody will remember that these three buildings were built at the same time”
I do agree that there’s something special about projects that manage to escape their original architectural intention and evolve into something new, with time.
I like your observation that these buildings may appear to be unconnected to a single project, but taken individually, they still have that hodgepodge-ness that has become popular of late. Bobby is right to point out rhythm. I think that is nonexistent here, and what makes this project unappealing to me.
It’s a fender bender. 6 different looks all smashed together in a rather unremarkable way.
1) High quality materials wasted on bad design. Check
2) Crushing human scale. Check
3) Huh? Check
4) Will make a lot of money for somebody. Check
Nothing matters because nobody will remember these buildings anyway….especially in 30 years.
I like the audacious design effort and the street level interior plaza that will provide quiet interior balconies for residents on the upper floors.
Not every unit in every building can or should have a view of the mountains, and designers that meet the challenge of creating an interesting interior view for a building should be appreciated. The building exteriors are fine, much better than the metal skinned structures a few blocks away.
Little mentioned here is walkability; the ability to live your life without a car, and the location is excellent from that perspective.
That concave curve at the penthouse levels above the convex curve is just beyond hideous.
Overall I appreciate what this project does for the urban fabric, but the design is an overwrought trainwreck.
That concave curve does hurt my brain a bit. When I first saw it I tried to squint and look for whatever beauty the architect had in mind, but all it does is hurt my brain.
I thought I remember the renderings looked stunning and I was so excited for this development. This is not what I remember. There’s something confusing about the whole thing. It has a bit of a Las-Vegas-esque gaudiness to it.
I haven’t totally made up my mind yet. Right now I’m just a bit confused and let down after feeling so good about what I thought I saw in the renderings. I’ll have to see it in person.
I have to say though, this big hunk of dense development is infinitely better than a parking lot, so I’m grateful for it. The only reason I’m disappointed is that the architecture turned out to be okay instead of great. It’s not ugly. Maybe it will grow on me.
Does anyone know what the new Water Tower is on the old Rocky Mountain Warehouse lofts? Looks like it was installed over the last few months.