Uptown Roundup NOV 2025

Completed

Novel Uptown. One of my favorite facets of watching a building being constructed is when the building starts to get the weather wrap put on it, before the facade goes on. At one point, looking up from Lincoln Street, right at the crest of the hill, you could just see this big purple structure emerging. It’s not purple anymore; it doesn’t scream “brand new” when you notice it biking past. But a big parking crater in Uptown has been filled, and that’s a victory! I also feel, biking 16th Avenue every day, that we all just observed that Logan Street could feasibly be reduced to one lane north of Colfax Avenue and no one would notice!

Kenyon Uptown. I know this project very well. It was the exact case study that helped me realize why Denver’s old parking minimums were bad, and why Expanding Housing Affordability’s proposed modifications to parking minimums was a big step in the right direction. Well, three years after a thread on the modest improvements to parking rules via EHA, parking minimums are dead and gone in Denver. And good riddance! As is, I think this project looks really, really good and want to praise the architecture firm for some smart material palate choices. A building like this makes me believe that East 17th Avenue, with just a little more investment (and a road diet… and more buses that get you there faster) could become one of Denver’s great urban corridors one day.

Under Construction

Marieta Uptown (previously 1709 Washington St). This project—so beautiful, so simple, so close to being done—was nearly placed in the completed category. But, yeah, there are fences. So we wait just a little longer to enjoy the presence of this building along 17th Avenue. And can we talk about the fact that this project is for-sale condos? So few of those are being built and delivered in Denver these days that it’s worth uplifting the developers who are making this happen.

Grant Street Apartments. This one took people by surprise, but that’s a good thing! In a thriving, active city we should struggle to remember each individual infill development that makes sense to build in Central Denver. As well, these homes will take the place of a former drive-through bank, so it’s hard to think of a better trade for urbanism than that.

Proposed

1800 Sherman Street. Presuming that this project breaks ground, it will bring a substantial number of new homes and business activity to a part of Uptown that, at the moment, is mostly office and hotel space. Well, honestly, it’s mostly terrible, awful parking lots like we see at the proposed site of this project. So channel all of your positive energy!

Tapestry Block. Demolition has already taken place for the Employer’s Council offices that used to comprise the northern end of the site, and prep for excavation is taking place. This will end up as a strange site—the alley as it interfaces with 17th Avenue will be vacated to allow for easier internal circulation between the two developments to be built on this site and most directly to allow for sufficient space for a day care’s outdoor play area. Despite the site prep, this doesn’t count as under construction yet, however. But at the pace it’s moving through permits, I expect ground to break soon.

1616 N Pearl. This is one of those projects that uncorks my enthusiasm for new homes in Denver. Did you know it is actually possible to build a lot of homes on a small site? This building would amount to a net density of 328 homes per acre, presuming it breaks ground. It is moving through permits at a lightning pace, as Northeast Denver Housing Center has proposed one of the more radically urban new developments in the neighborhood with the lowest parking ratio of any of the developments in this round up, a .15 parking ratio.

17th and Pearl. This project offers us a tidy narrative explanation of why we saw so many projects in Uptown proposed that might never break ground. In 2022, Denver City Council voted into effect an inclusionary housing ordinance, which increased the burden on private developers to deliver a set number of affordable homes per market-rates homes in a given development. In the month preceding the policy’s start date, more multifamily projects were proposed in Denver than in the preceding year—this project among them. Does that mean these weren’t real projects, and that they were simply an attempt to protect a property owner’s bottom line? Did this force forward a glut of supply that then upended the market fundamentals for subsequent private development? Who the heck cares! A given DenverInfill post is not a post-grad economics paper in the making. What we care about is that every project that earnestly could break ground under the pre-EHA rules must have been approved by April of this year… and look at that! Our small, condo project at the corner of 17th and Pearl satisfies these conditions heartily. However, aside from a Transportation Plan accepted in May of 2025, little new permitting has taken place for this site. But, also, the project site is currently used as staging for the nearly complete Marieta Uptown across the alley. So there are good omens for a future groundbreaking!

618 E 16th Avenue. An otherwise unimportant parking lot in Uptown could soon be transformed with a new apartment building in walking distance of future East Colfax Avenue BRT and very close to the downtown central business district. This building straddles two zone districts, and so is built only to five stories along 16th Avenue, while it goes up to 8 stories further south on Pearl Street. When I originally tweeted out the project, there was something of an international pile-on about what a terrible, inhumane floor plate this building had. (Must be tough to expect perfection instead of progress!) The folks in question were well known (online) architects and professors of urban design. One Tweeter, whose post has now been deleted, called it, “Somehow worse than turn of the century [sic] NYC tenements…” I would say that DenverInfill is basically agnostic about floor plates, though, sure, we endorse any reforms that make it easier to build nicer buildings. But realistically, this looks like every other apartment building that was proposed or built in Denver over the last 5 years. And isn’t anything better than a parking lot in the urban core? Who’s the bad guy here?

1680 Pennsylvania Street. A seven-story apartment building could fill in a parking lot in Uptown, very close to the central business district. A little further away from East Colfax, this project would nonetheless bring more riders to the Future BRT stop at Pennsylvania and Colfax, and fills a hole on Pennsylvania Street with new homes and neighbors. It’s not impossible for this project to break ground in the near future, but it is a little behind on permits if it wants to stay approved with the pre-EHA SDP from March.

Denver Police Department, new District 6 HQ. After an unsuccessful attempt to relocate District 6 of the Denver Police Department to the Golden Triangle, local architects Roth Sheppard, who have made a bit of their reputation out of police station designs, are at the helm on a very impactful project in the middle of Uptown, the replacement of the existing HQ along Washington Street and Clarkson Street just off Colfax. This project is on a very, very tight deadline. It is required that the project is “substantially delivered” by the end of 2027, as $25 million in Elevate Denver bond funding was furnished for this project, about half the budget for this project. As such, the project is flying through permits and must break ground within the next few months. The existing building, which features a prominent mural along Colfax Avenue, is to be demolished, though. At one point, the idea was floated to sell that parcel of land to free it up for commercial development. Let’s see if that takes place. Along Clarkson Street, a new two-story parking garage will allow for more DPD parking and will include a few spaces for the general public to use. At the southeast corner of Washington Street and 16th Avenue, a new three-story HQ will be built. All of the existing curb cuts along Washington Street and 16th Avenue will be reused. 1% of the budget for the project (now estimated at around $51 million) will be realized as public art connected to the site. A half-million dollar commission for public art doesn’t come around every so often! So keep your eyes peeled, aspiring public artists, for an opportunity to make new police murals happen.