We have a short but visually appealing update today on The Confluence, the 34-story apartment tower under construction near Confluence Park on the edge of downtown.
Thanks to GDA Architects, we are excited to share this newest rendering of the high-rise:
And here’s a shot of The Confluence from early today. It was another spectacular Denver sunrise this morning!
The Confluence is currently at the 31st floor—just a few more to go before it tops off.
If that rendering is accurate, then they apparently decided to eliminate pedestrian access to Confluence Park from Little Raven St. on the southwest side of the building. If so, I am very disappointed.
No JerryG, it’s still there. The passageway runs diagonally from the corner of 15th and Little Raven between the two buildings, below the pool.
Ken, in a previous rendering that DenverInfill posted 11/17/13, there is a passageway directly from Little Raven next to Cherry Creek. So in total, there would have been three passageways: one from the corner of Little Raven and 15th and one each from both of those streets. This latest rendering shows the garage entrance and a shell structure (for the utility boxes?) at the corner of Little Raven and Cherry Creek.
Jerry, I see where you’re talking about now. I never noticed that ped connection from Little Raven right along the edge of the property near the creek in the earlier renderings. According to the landscape plan, that isn’t a through connection anymore. There will be a narrow sidewalk that wraps around the parking garage ramp that one could get to by cutting through the porte cochere and then across the grass to the park, but I doubt that is intended for the general public as the sidewalk leads to a minor building exit.
What is the platform that seems to come out into the park area going over the pathway?
Barb, that’s just an illusion. I’ve have a copy of the landscape plan. The end of that diagonal walkway is at grade with the park path.
I am curious to see how the landscape plan ties into the proposed plan for the new Confluence Park master plan.
I drove by this on Speer on the way into town. It has such a fantastic presence!
To me, it proves that the ‘Vancouver’ model (point tower with a pedestrian scaled podium base) can and does work in this town.
It makes me disappointed that all the surrounding buildings are such low-rise nonsense – totally wasted opportunity).
Hopefully as Denver demands more density and as land prices increase, this type of development will become more feasible and we’ll see more of them.
Totally agree. I feel what’s happening to Denver is a form of Boulderization because of a general under utilization of density on available acreage that is being gobbled up by mid-rise apartment buildings for the quickest dollar.
James, totally agree with you about the “Boulderization” mentality of limiting heights/densities in Denver. Ken was instrumental in getting the Confluence project approved, over big NIMBY opposition, especially from nearby neighbors in surrounding buildings, who didn’t want their mountain views obstructed. Excessive view planes across big parts of the city only reinforce the small-town resistance to tall buildings, even during a transformative construction boom. On this blog, we read continuous arguments that buildings, even in the Downtown area, are too big, too tall.
While I will agree that the neighboring buildings wasted the development potential, that was a different time, different economy. Besides, this project had special circumstances that allowed it to build this tall.
Understood. Those neighboring projects were good infill for their time.
But hopefully the time is soon coming where it makes sense to replace those with more density and more height. It’s time for Denver to do a better job fully utilizing it’s acreage.
I completely agree with you. I wish that this type of tower had been utilized–at least a couple of times–in Union Station to give the area a much more interesting skyline rather than the over-bulky monotonous masses we are seeing go up. It saddens me to think of the missed opportunity the Union Station neighborhood represents in terms of meaningfully contributing to Denver’s skyline.
Not only is it a shame architecturally, it adds to inequality.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-land-use-rule-rise-economic-mobility-slows-research-says-1476813771
Any word on whether the Beautiful Bell Tower is still being planned? Wasn’t this another example of the Design Review Board and the general fear of heights? When you think about the politics of view planes and how these define skyline possibilities, Denver seems to think this is part of it’s unique heritage to keep the brakes on. I don’t see that stopping other large cities that have wonderful surrounding to see from their core areas. It makes more sense to me as the wave of development rings outward from any downtown core people could find other options for viewing beautiful surroundings. Denver isn’t right up next to the mountains like Boulder or places in Montana. So it seems to me there would be more room adjusting what’s considered valuable vantage points as being such an important cultural heritage. Certainly viewing the mountains from anywhere in Vancouver, BC hasn’t stopped that city.