Located less than five miles south of the CBD, a 30-minute ride on the light rail from Union Station and other office centers, the area within half a mile of Evans Station is booming. Although it is far from DenverInfill’s typical coverage area of the Greater Downtown Districts and Neighborhoods as published last year, Evans Station and its intensifying land use (especially near Broadway) has attracted some press. It exemplifies Denver’s strategy of incentivizing redevelopment of old, previously industrial sites close to rail transit and arterial roads; neighbors I spoke to are generally glad to have more density close to the light rail and a transformation of what used to be a Superfund site northwest of the intersection of Broadway and Evans.

Though it takes time for these areas to “turn over,” folks described what is being built now in Evans Station as familiar to anyone observing RiNo’s transformation 5+ years ago. Walking and biking through this neighborhood’s scant pedestrian and bike infrastructure to take pictures for the blog affirmed that comparison. The Evans station area isn’t RiNo, of course; with the Washington Park view plane capping development at 110′ feet, it will never be. But a trip away from neighborhoods with the most hype can inform us of current trends in development while also filling out our sense of what parts of Denver deserve attention.

COMPLETED

Starting with the completion of the Evans Station Lofts in the last ten years, just shy of 500 apartment homes and condos have been delivered to market. However, we will see that more apartment homes will be delivered in the next few months than in the previous ten years combined. This post will not cover the duplex, triplex, and townhouse building explosion south of Evans Avenue. For that type of coverage, check here.

Evans Station Lofts (2012). Completed in 2012, this affordable housing complex brings undeniable charm and a wonderful material palette directly across the street from the transit plaza. For anyone driving or walking across the Evans overpass of Santa Fe Drive, it greets you and makes you wonder what more is tucked under the road. Ten years after this project, it would be exempt from any parking requirements if it were to happen again.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
5 Stories | 50 apt homes | 7100 sf retail | 42 (v) 32(b) parking Medici Consulting
Urban Land Conservancy BC Builders

Encore Evans Station (2016). Hugging the freight rail in a way council might soon consider dangerous, Encore Evans Station offers a lesson in how national multifamily developers first approach redevelopment near a transit stop: namely, to build far underneath the entitlement (here, C-MX-8) with a clubhouse, pool, and surface parking. On the bright side, the first project’s success often proves that a previously industrial area can work for developers looking to build higher-density residential. Still, future residents, say, 20 years later, may be left wondering how many more people could have lived in the neighborhood had that nearly six-acre site, a four-block walk from Evans station, been built more densely.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
3 Stories | 224 apt homes | 293 (v) 112 (b) parking Encore Enterprises KTGY MPC

SoBo 58 (2020). South of Evans Avenue, legacy single-family homes and duplexes are being slowly bought up and redeveloped into higher-intensity use, such as duplexes, triplexes, or townhomes. SoBo 58 brings that for-sale housing north of Evans Avenue. It’s interesting to see condos in South Denver when condo projects have been canceled or converted to rentals in other parts of the city, so we hope SoBo 58 stands as an example that taller and higher-density for-sale homes can succeed across all neighborhoods in Denver.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
5 Stories | 58 condo homes | 53 (v) 30 (b) parking Doug Means Cunningham Group Architecture Anderson Construction

The Overland (2021). A recent addition to the neighborhood, visible to anyone taking the D line to Evans or traveling along Santa Fe Drive, the mixed-use apartment building that is the Overland stands out. One of the first high-rises to emerge near the station, the Overland will seem less exceptional soon. The Overland boasts retail space on the ground floor fronting Cherokee Street and massively improves the pedestrian experience for all subsequent residents, but does not screen from view of drivers or light rail passengers the three-story, above-ground parking structure upon which the five stories of residences stand.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
8 Stories | 140 apt homes | 3850 sf retail | 150 (v) 90 (b) parking Littleton Capital Partners Humphries Architects Wilson and Company

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Alexan Evans Station. Where there was once a carpet and furniture store, there is now a nearly finished apartment building that comprises an entire city block. A strange variety of street activation and points of interest (within a narrow band of corporate design) can be found while walking south along the building’s Broadway frontage. At the southwest corner of Broadway and Evans is a new retail space, ideally for food and drink, followed by a glassy leasing and coworking space that slightly jogs out of the building. Then the building begins to parallel the street, and a pedestrian would pass a fitness center, some apartment homes, and five live/work units, all with various facades.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
5 Stories | 367 apt homes | 2500 sf retail | 397 (v) 240 (b) parking Trammell Crow Residential JHP Architecture Maple Multifamily

Hanover Evans Station. This massive building, taking up 60% of an entire city block, has nearly finished. Furniture and finishings are being installed, and leasing has begun. Hanover Evans Station improves the pedestrian experience along Acoma, Jewell, and some of Bannock and Asbury with new sidewalks, trash cans, benches, bike racks, and street trees. Yet the scale of this building compared to its surroundings is a little surreal (walk down Lincoln Street from Mexico to Asbury, for example). However, looking west down Jewell from Broadway offers a better sense of the future neighborhood’s urban fabric and development pattern. Hopefully, the final portion of the block will redevelop in the future and hides the uncovered parking structure that is visible at the corner of Bannock and Asbury.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
5 Stories | 278 apt homes | 344 (v) 211 (b) parking Hanover Company
W Partnership Hanover Construction

The OSO. A tower crane is hard at work bringing this split-level apartment building to Acoma Street. When finished, this building will become the tallest structure for at least a mile and offer ground-floor restaurant space at the corner of Jewell and Acoma. The drop in building height from 9 stories at the southeast corner of Jewell and Acoma comes from the building straddling two different zone districts; rather than drag out the project and rezone to one consistent height or intensity, the developers decided to work under the entitlement they had.

Project Description Developer Architect Contractor
9/5 Stories | 267 apt homes | 6,900 sf retail | 244 (v) 152 (b) Palisade Partners
Craine Architecture Milender White

PROPOSED

SoBo 38. Conceived initially as 38 condos (hence the name), the developer found space for an additional 4 to squeeze in. The developers are currently sitting on construction permits, and by December 2022, no activity was underway at the site. The design of the building suggests that of the condos across the alley, though it doesn’t seem that they’ll share amenities; we hope this project will break ground soon.

Project Description Developer Architect Most Recent Activity
5 Stories | 42 condo homes | 39 (v) parking Doug Means Cunningham Group Architecture Commercial Construction Permit (2022-04-26)

Gables Evans Station. Ahead of this new high-rise’s groundbreaking, the site has been cleared. What was once an industrial warehouse off Evans Avenue will become high-density housing within walking distance of the light rail. A voluntary affordable housing agreement between the developer and the city (preceding adoption of the new EHA rules) committed 10% of the total homes in this building to be affordable at or below 80% of the Area’s Median Income. In the Southwest corner of the lot, there will be a retail restaurant space, bringing an unlikely but tenaciously active retail corridor along Cherokee Street in the shadow of the Evans overpass.

Project Description Developer Architect Most Recent Activity
7 Stories | 283 apt homes | 3,000 sf retail | 309 (v) 167 (b) parking
Gables Residential
Davis Partnership Commercial Construction Permit (2022-12-27)

More plans and parcels are coming together for the neighborhood than can be covered in this post. On January 30th, City Council approved a rezoning for potential multifamily at the northeast corner of Acoma Street and Colorado Avenue. A representative for the property owner made it sound like they were interested in exceeding their new entitlement of 5 stories by using new Expanding Housing Affordability incentives. A concept plan was filed in early 2022 to develop at minimum five stories along Jewell Avenue between Broadway and Acoma, though it was recently marked inactive. North of Colorado Avenue along Acoma Street, city representatives and members of the nonprofit Urban Peak just broke ground on a shelter that would quadruple the previous total beds for homeless youth. And looking through property records, it’s clear parcels in the neighborhood are being acquired by the LLCs that will further develop the station area.

Though changes in interest rates and other market forces might slow the development of multifamily in the short term, with over 1200 new homes being delivered to the market where there were no homes before, this is a neighborhood in the middle of a transformation.

About the author:

Andy Cushen is a car-free urbanist living and working in Denver; his reporting and analysis of the construction boom in Denver neighborhoods can be found under the handle @BuildupDenver on Twitter. Andy is joining the DenverInfill team to help cover neighborhoods north and west of I-25 (such as the Highlands, Sun Valley, and West Colfax) and RTD rail stops with significant developments nearby.

Maps for projects mentioned in this post:

Evans Station Lofts

Encore Evans Station

SoBo 58

The Overland

Alexan Evans Station

Hanover Evans Station

Hanover Evans Station

The OSO

SoBo 38

Gables Evans Station