Just down the street from the proposed Speer Boulevard Apartments, we are going to visit the Speer and Washington Apartments project. If you don’t remember what this project is, it’s a 107-unit apartment building being built along Speer Boulevard and Washington Street.
Since we last took a look at this project in May, work was just beginning on the underground parking structure. Now, the building has topped out and most of the strucutre work is done. Just like B-Street LoHi, this apartment building is steel built versus the timber built structures we have been seeing with most of the other 5-story apartment building projects. Here are some pictures from last weekend.
The Speer and Washington Apartments are expected to be complete by November of this year.
Ya know, I’m really not pleased by all these buildings being built with steel construction I mean…wood is more chic, more now, more coastal-major-city-like. I hate it that every building doesn’t have retail and isn’t 30 stories or more. God, this town just sucks. 😉
Move, Rob C.
I’m about 98.762% sure it was a joke.
That was sarcasm, Sheldon.
Apparently you missed the sarcasm in Rob’s post. The winking emoticon would be an indicator of that.
Anyone care to share their insights on steel versus wood construction? Also, the marketing seems pretty carefully thought-out.
I’d be interested to hear about the difference between steel and wood construction? Would footsteps in a unit above be less noisy with steel construction?
Speaking of noise, I hope all the units have triple-pane windows or some type of unbelievable noise-abatement engineering features in walls and windows. Living a few yards from an 8-lane ‘semi-expressway’ wouldn’t be my cup of tea, no matter how nice the building looked.
From a fire safety perspective, steel is a lot better than wood — but a little more expensive. Notice that this is framing steel — fine for up to 7 or 8 stories, but not as strong as structural I-beam steel, which can hold up a skyscraper. But the higher the structure, the more expensive the basic structure of the entire building.
In Los Angeles, wood housing structures are being built up to 7 or sometimes 8 stories — but at that height almost always atop a very solid, rigid concrete and rebar base ground floor, often over similar underground parking construction. These buildings meet the highest new earthquake standards. Denver has numerous multi-floor, mostly wood structures, which are the cheapest to build, sometimes over concrete and steel base floors. But wood is vulnerable to rot, fire and termites. Steel is better, but costlier.
Oh, and steel construction is usually less creaky than wood. In a steel structure, the floors are almost always poured concrete, reinforced with rebar, and less noisy than wood-frame floors.
I didn’t realize Speer & Washington is now considered Wash Park? (see the project sign along Speer)
It isn’t in wash park. Why doesn’t speer get the love? My goal in the next few years is to change this horrible neighborhoodism! We are speer and we are the best! 🙂