A bold new proposal has made its way through the city, with possible construction starting shortly. Situated at the intersection of 40th Street and Blake Street, 3930 Blake being the official address, this new 16-story building would be an impressive sight as there will never be development directly to the west due to the rail tracks.
Currently, it’s hard to speculate if this project is getting underway. The site is fenced off, and some construction equipment resides on the project site. Given there will be three underground levels for parking, excavation will be a good indicator that construction has begun. That, however, has yet to start. When we look at the permitting side, everything is ready to go. Within recent weeks, construction permits have been issued by the city for excavation, foundation, and superstructure. Overall, this is more promising than not.
Here are a few photos of the project site from yesterday afternoon.
According to the permits filed with the city, One River North is getting developed by R Cap Blake Street LLC, which has notable developers from projects like Forest City. Saunders Construction is the builder on record, with Davis Partnership Architects behind the design. Below is a full-resolution rendering of One River North pulled from the construction permit. We have never seen anything so unique and different proposed for River North. This design is bold, edgy, and just what the area needs.
In total, the 16-story building will provide River North with 193 apartment homes over 178 underground parking spaces. We will keep a close eye on this project and check back in if / when it breaks ground.
I think I love this to an extent that I’d be a bit gutted if it weren’t completed as proposed. I’m like the last person in these conversations to advocate architecture over density and utility, but how fun is this building?
lots of trees and not lots of parking. this is what we need
Yes!
yes lots of trees – but what you cant see is the 3 levels of below grade parking. Unlike some of these new buildings going up in RiNo minimal parking provided this building should have adequate parking for all the residents.
You do realize that this building has fewer parking slots than it does apartment units? Not to mention even fewer spots than it does bedrooms.
RiNo neighbors will be bitching about losing their God-given street parking spots again.
This area will only have free-for-all parking for as long as the construction companies need them for their employees. Meters and parking restrictions are only a couple years away.
Anyone notice the mark-to-market neighboring buildings in the rendering? Kind of a laugh for me given the current state, one can hope that RiNo will develop itself into that. For this building… I am fascinated. Starting off, this seems to me, at least, to be a better design for a condo building. The cost will be pretty high for a small number of units, the cost will be high for the initial renters, and the building won’t exactly be in a bustling area of RiNo for the first signers, wouldn’t this be better for long(er)-term condo owners? Second, the lot itself is highly desirable as an office location, the building itself (less the smallish decks) looks more office than apartment. If not office or condo, this would make for a great location for a higher-end hotel. Nonetheless, my confusion does not diffuse my excitement for this project, I like that this will be seen by the A-Line and whatever ends up happening on the Pepsi area, this could end up being the part of RiNo people want to be in. Edens made there bet, can’t wait to see who makes the big bet on Pepsi to really determine what this part of town will look like! My final point on this, can we please start planting trees or do something with the space between the A-Line and the street on Blake (I like trees, but if office life comes back, street food center area would be really great right here in the medium term, sculpture art is dope too)
My sense is this area isn’t going to be an awkward residential district for long. I’m already pretty surprised at how far north the Larimer/Walnut/Blake corridor extends with residential and commercial buildings. Yeah, there’s going to be a TON of repurposing and infill to do once it all reaches 40th Ave, but it’s like almost already there, and won’t last long once a couple of “anchor” buildings set the edge. I imagine there will be plenty of demand among those who can squint and see the vision of the neighborhood.
I’d be willing to place a bet that either the City & County or Revesco will buy the Pepsi land.
My train of thought on this is that Eiltch’s needs a place to go by 2025 and they want to keep it in the city of Denver if possible. (https://rivermiledenver.com/)
The Coliseum is in pretty bad shape and could easily transfer all events had there to the National Western Complex once the renovations to that are completed.
This would leave a large concrete campus ready to accept something like the gardens.
It would provide the gardens decent access from 70, a great view of Denver, the mountains, and a large enough space to spread out.
I could see Revesco purchasing this space, but I’d highly doubt that Elitch Gardens makes enough money to support the purchase price. I think Elitch Gardens – which in my eyes is disgusting and ugly – will be relegated to the dustbin of history. Obviously, political reasons will keep it alive for so long there’s still fans of the place, but there isnt a piece of land in the entire city that could support, on its own, the land costs. I do not see any more good money after bad with elitch.
I think a consortium including Golub is the most likely outcome. Please give us condos overlooking Globeville Landings!!!
Hancock seems pretty attached to the Coliseum project, so I’d assume that if it doesn’t (it won’t pass right??) pass, the space will be politically difficult to transition to another use.
If I had to pick a place for new Elitch within “city” limits I’d say somewhere towards the airport off the A-Line would be perfect.
To be fair I think those renderings might be of the Novel development which will be right next door (and has already broken ground!) https://denverinfill.com/2021/06/construction-kicks-off-at-novel-rino.html
Awesome!
Sorry this is completely random and unrelated, but has there been any update on the Block 176 condo towers where Shelby’s was demolished? I walk past there frequently and haven’t seen any activity on the site; curious if that project is still active.
Hard to say. They put a fence up around the site but haven’t taken any of the parking lot structures down. I was going to post on it, but at the time they were still allowing parking at the lot through the fence. It’s made a lot of headway through the city so this one could be close (hopefully).
Fingers crossed … downtown needs actual for-sale condos, in my opinion.
We need about 15-20 Block 176 projects to be honest…
Ryan – they pulled the parking kiosk and the signs on 7/30.
Awesome, good to know. I was up there 7/23 and it was just the fence with all the parking stuff still. This is great news.
This looks like a maintenance challenge.
Which Forest City project?
Pretty interesting and cool concept; kind of brings to mind Bosco Verticale in Milan. Imagine Joe Public won’t be allowed inside to check it out.
They only have have the site fenced off so who knows what they’re doing.
Half*
Wow. Just wow. A few more projects like this daring and innovative building will put Denver on the architectural map. And, put to shame all the recent boring and safe stack of bricks that constitute so much of urban Denver’s infill of housing and offices.
Here is a little more info from milehighcre regarding this project:
“Following two years of intense design and preconstruction collaboration, Saunders Construction is preparing to break ground on One River North, a unique new 16-story residential building with ground-level restaurant/retail and underground parking, located at 3930 Blake Street in RiNo.
…
Construction permits have been issued by the city for excavation, foundation, and superstructure but a resubmittal of the development plan is required to address issues with complying with Denver’s Green Buildings Ordinance. The rendering of the building illustrates that a green roof and green facade is an eye-catching and prominent feature of the design.”
I wonder what the issues were and I hope they’ve been resolved!
The resubmittal has been submitted and is under review with the city. Currently just shows “TBD” for the deadline.
WOW! I love this. I hope it is is completed as designed!
Great more apartments. Denver needs more condos!