A new multi-family residential project, 2401 Blake Street, is now underway in the Ballpark/River North area just two blocks from Coors Field.
The 2401 Blake apartments are being developed by Lennar Multifamily Communities, which is currently under construction with an 18-story apartment tower at 21st and Welton in the nearby Arapahoe Square district. Located along the northwest side of Blake Street at 24th Street, the new project features 241 homes in a seven-story building. The site is currently occupied by a row of one-story industrial buildings from the 1920s and a small surface parking lot. The site is being cleared with construction on the new apartments to follow. Below is a Google Earth street view showing the existing conditions and an aerial image with an outline of the site:
In addition to the new residences, the project also features ground-floor commercial uses along Blake Street. Three restaurant/retail spaces totaling 7,400 square feet front an outdoor patio/courtyard area that’s adjacent to both the public sidewalk and the building’s lobby, which anchors the corner at 24th Street. Past the retail spaces along Blake are ten ground-floor residential units.
Thanks to our friends at Kephart, the project architect, here are two images: on the left is a rendering of the building as viewed from the corner of 24th and Blake looking north, and on the right is a rendering of the ground-floor plan showing the lobby, commercial spaces, and courtyard/patio along Blake Street:
Approximately 270 vehicle parking spaces are provided on two levels. Some of the parking is located on the ground floor in the rear of the building behind the lobby, retail, and residential units, accessed from 24th Street. The rest of the parking is located on an underground level accessed from a driveway that wraps around the back of the building to the northeast side where the small surface lot is currently. The development also includes about 50 bicycle parking spaces, a Denver B-Cycle station, and a few car-sharing spaces.
From the pedestrian’s perspective, 2401 Blake significantly improves the walkability on the block. As can be seen in the Google street view above, the site currently includes no curb and gutter, uninteresting blank walls, and a very narrow sidewalk blocked by stairs and the front bumpers of cars parked diagonally along the street. The new development provides a wide sidewalk with generous landscaping, bike racks, seating, trash receptacles, lighting and, of course, an engaging building frontage consisting of retail and residential entries and public spaces.
An improvement, yes. I still don’t know why developers are giving us ground-floor residential units in this part of town. Not secure, not desirable.
I think this part of town is safer than you think it is and, with the addition of a couple hundred or so more residents and patrons of the new businesses walking around, it will become even safer. Besides, the ground-floor units are elevated above and set back from the sidewalk. Overall, I think this will be a good addition but I wish developers would stop relying so much on stucco.
I think Kephart skips DD. I looks like to took a SD-level concept/massing, and just went straight to drawing CDs.
No refinement. 3-4 design ideas haphazardly thrown together without any semblance of a design concept.
I think it’s an interesting looking building, and definitely will bring some serious improvements to the street. I love old buildings, and I can see why these are being demolished, as they are not particularly interesting. Still, it seems like me to be a shame to tear them down when there are so many surface parking lots nearby.
I am interested to see how the retail really relates to the building and the street. I am always happy when a developer gives real mixed-use an effort and I want the retail to succeed. But, “Retail B” looks very buried in the site and I am concerned about its viability,,,
retail b has a big outdoor patio… ca-ching!
I’m not a huge fan of the design or materials, I worry that those big expanses of stucco will turn out very cheap looking, and I think the curved elements are gimmicky and will age poorly. The half with the retail looks totally inconsistent with the residential half, it’s almost like they took two designs and jammed them together.
Demolition is underway at this site!