Evans Station Roundup OCT 2023

Alexan Evans Station. Finishing touches were underway on the building at the time of photo taking, which is now leasing. Some of the first tenants are in the space; an F45 Training gym has taken up space in the first-floor retail along Broadway, and the sidewalk around the block is fully open to pedestrians. With this development done, there are three fewer curb cuts along Broadway than there were three years back. Yet, it’s hard to communicate just how massive this new building is: including parking, this building totals more than half a million square feet of developed space, claiming an entire city block in South Denver. If you allow the observation, with all that frontage, the building’s contribution to the urban fabric seems a little selfish. Turning inward, you can see the building’s donut holes in Google Maps, where outdoor amenity spaces plug the top of the parking structure. In a narrower structure, resident amenities typically come as third- or fifth-floor decks overlooking the street, which at least adds “eyes on the street,” maybe someone’s pool-party music, a sense of liveliness. But then, at Denver Infill, we understand that there will always be background buildings, “vanilla” buildings. The need for more homes and less surface parking in Denver means that we sometimes get a building like this. More exciting then, to think of the new neighbors, and that these neighbors will bring business to the entire Broadway and Evans commercial corridors, and they’ll live just three blocks from the rail station, and how a building like this reduces the pressure on exurban sprawl by bringing so many homes so close to central Denver.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Oso. Much vertical progress has occurred on-site since we last visited, in fact, the building has now topped out. (Which warranted a return for new photos.) Though not the largest building in the neighborhood by square footage, the building is big in a different way. The Oso adds commercial space just off Broadway, luring passersby into this new, dense neighborhood. Those standing at Jewell and Acoma gain a fascinating window into the neighborhood’s future and recent past. Looking west, there will eventually be a bike/pedestrian connection across Santa Fe Drive; the street is lined with new construction, apartments, and actual sidewalks. Looking east, there is a new and used tire shop; the block between Acoma and Broadway has no sidewalk and is used as free car storage at the moment.

Urban Peak Mothership. A smaller project, slightly little outside the station area as we’d previously covered it, this development adds shelter beds and longer-term transitional housing for homeless youth and young adults to Acoma Street between Iowa and Mexico Avenues. This upgrades a previous Urban Peak facility at the same address, too small and under-resourced for their organization, and the neighborhood will be undoubtedly be better for the addition.

PROPOSED

Russell House (née Gables Evans Station). At the time of photo-taking, the site remains cleared but with no new work. Many projects in Denver have stalled out since national monetary policy tightened in the middle of last year. However, within Denver’s permitting system, there is constant communication between the city and the developers, with a structural engineering plan just approved last week, suggesting this project is still very much alive. Looking at the most recent construction permits, we see an updated rendering of how the building will fill the site, with an interesting shape to ensure the apartments have access to open air, like a lowercase “h.”

Jewell Pedestrian Bridge. After visiting the Evans Station area by bike many times over the last year, I am personally excited to see this bridge break ground and allow for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the rails and Santa Fe Drive without being put in front of drivers exiting or entering a highway. The site presents some real difficulties: because of the density of rails and the highway below, only one pier can support the span, and the bridge needs to be much higher at Cherokee than at the golf course. The design presented here is only a concept from a community meeting on the project earlier this year; the project’s website predicts the bridge won’t be complete until 2026. DenverInfill looks forward to seeing the design of this building evolve with the community; it’s going to change for the better.

These photos show the conditions for someone crossing from the South Platte River to Broadway right now. Evans is not pleasant. It’s steep, the sidewalk is not in good condition, and there are many slip lanes for cars getting off and on Evans Avenue. As urbanists, we ought to push to transform every street into a pleasant place for walking and cycling, but for the safety and comfort of people in Overland today, it would be preferable to avoid the Evans overpass on foot if there were another option.

The next couple of photographs document the currently proposed alignment of the future bridge along Jewell Avenue. Of note, the city has already spent some money on improving the trail that runs north-south along the western edge of Santa Fe Drive. More is to be spent on improving the experience for pedestrians and cyclists using W Iowa Avenue to go under the rail and S Santa Fe Drive. There is vehicular access to and from southbound Santa Fe Drive along W Jewell; the proposed bridge would bend southwest at the western edge of the Santa Fe Drive ROW, directing cyclists and people in wheelchairs down to Asbury Avenue, which connects to the South Platte River Trail at Pasquinel’s Landing Park. The eastern side of the bridge is more straightforward but needs to be much taller than the western side: RTD requires bridges to have several feet of clearance over their catenary wires, requiring the bridge to begin 30 feet above the ground.