A significant project at 17th Avenue and Pearl Street in Uptown is now complete. Bespoke Uptown, a 10-story, 316 home project, not only eradicated a large surface parking lot but also incorporated two historic buildings into the new infill project.
Let’s start with a few photos from 17th Avenue and Pearl Street. Here you can see how the two historic buildings are seamlessly incorporated into the project.
With the majority of the facade comprised of brick, Bespoke Uptown looks sharp and fits in nicely. Multiple setbacks in the building form and the lack of a podium make this building a win.
Swinging around the block, here are a few photos of the six-story section at 16th Avenue and Pearl Street. The roof of the lower section features an outdoor amenity deck and pool.
The red brick facade and black metal paneling also extend to the alley side of the project.
Wrapping up, here are a few more photos of the ground level.
Bespoke Uptown provides some great density to the 17th Avenue corridor and takes up one of the large surface parking lots that are still scattered throughout Uptown.
Such a well executed project! Were the setbacks and different brick colors something that was required by the city, or did the developer choose to incorporate this items on their own?
The step-down was dictated by zoning but the brick / facade was all the developer / architect.
I think that portion of 17th has a design overlay requiring a significant portion of the building to use masonry.
How are the two small historic buildings incorporated into this project? I would think that to be used for small businesses, they should be effectively separate from (not incorporated with) the large apartment buidling.
I believe these will be brought back to their retail glory and run independently from the apartment building.
I do miss the “Black Pearl” coffee house’s building. I was lucky enough to be able to see the residence above it in the mid-90’s and it was incredible.
This is a very nice looking project, however, and offers much more living space. I’ll still always be a sucker for unique small builds that are so well thought out. I am happy to see the required setbacks, but also the care the developer architect put into this overall design.
I typically greatly dislike the huge Soviet Block style apartment buildings unless they do something like this that breaks them up a bit and helps them seem less imposing.
Very nice!
It’s nice yes and I think the density for the sake of density is great except I don’t understand why particularly in Denver the precedence is toward low rise, wide buildings. And when we consider this view plane nonsense, well in my opinion most of the view plane ordinance is, while some dozen people in a particular area looking toward a visible fraction of the front range should impact the entire design of the cityscape from here to eternity? How many people when they are at the Botanic Gardens parking lot looked for the view of the mountains? Let’s take a poll. From the Natural History Museum I see the skyline framed by the mountains and that’s a great view and still there are towers there. What could be worse if there are double or triple the amount of towers, or instead the entire city street grid filled with 10 story building blocking most of the sun from the sidewalk? So I wanted to add to the conversation concerning pedestrian friendly or that theory. Personally I think point towers are more functional from an urban environment and design standpoint. Take the mass of the building and set it on it’s side then use the ground area for an urban yard for the building’s residents.
DenverInfill constant: (1) Ryan or Ken post a project profile. (2) James denigrates the project for not being tall enough. (3) James attributes lack of project height to view plane ordinance or design review board intransigence, etc. …I suspect that developers decide to build 10-story landscapers mainly because they can do so cheaper than building a 50-story building with the same amount of units. I suspect that if a developer wanted to build a 50-story residential building, they would buy a lot downtown where they could build a 50-story residential building (and then build a 50-story residential building). I have not been reading DenverInfill regularly, but I suspect there are no developers willing to undertake the financial risk to engineer, build, and lease/sell a 50-story residential building in Denver ca. 2021. This ain’t New York…seems there is abundant real estate elsewhere in CBD-close neighborhoods that can be developed with the same amount of units. I doubt the view plane ordinance is driving these decisions.
Sure that’s all understood. I know the norms with view planes in Denver (cough) but I can still question their practicality in reference to sidewalk sunlight. Isn’t it true the vision is to build a pedestrian friendly inner city and wouldn’t sunlight be a significant factor in that friendliness? And wouldn’t taller (not 50 perse, you said 50), wouldn’t 25-35 story apartments allow for more sunlight for the pedestrian? At some point when all the available land is filled in with 10-15 story buildings it could look like you laid a urban mattress down. I find the architectural design norms in Denver the last ten years to be almost clicky. I guess this really isn’t a forum for discussion rather a place to be gaslighted for expressing opinion. It’s useless to question much here but to just praise and agree.