DenverInfill Blog

Have to chuckle a bit about concerns that the W Hotel must be aesthetically pleasing to neighbors, such as those who live in Larimer Place. I want to know who can protect us against having to look at Larmier Place.........

And Office Depot could move to 17th and Arapahoe.....
 

Thank you, anonymous. All three residential projects built along Larimer from 15th to 18th in the late 1970s/early 1980s are godawful-ugly, and completely suburban in character, with their emphasis on car drop-offs instead of ground floor retail. The Windsor is the worst of the lot in my opinion (particularly since they took the name of an old grand hotel that wasn't even located on that block), but Larimer Place and Barclay Towers aren't far behind.

My nomination for a new home for Office Depot is the old California Mall/Eat Up food court at 16th & California. That building, while a lot newer than the Fontius/Steel building nearby, is becoming an eyesore with its lack of an anchor tenant.
 

I was stopped at a light on Speer today & got a long depressing look at Larimer Place. THAT is the king of ugly in Denver. It is a vertical slum. Randumb enclosed balconys that are all different, Etc. Etc. Ken, we had a
worst Parking lot contest. How about "worst Bldg. from the 70's or 80's".
 

lol, i love the Barclay
 

If the old Media Play space in the Denver Dry building is still vacant - it would make a great spot for the Office Depot, and so would the old California food court building - seems either of those owners should be happy to host a new tenant.
 

I love the ENORMOUS Office Depot! I think a couple great places for it to move would be the old Cottrell's building on 16th and Welton or the old Woolworth's space along 15th and Champa. They'd need to innovate a little with the Cottrell's as it would be a multi-storey affair. But after not too many modifications, they could move right in. The remainder of the Woolworth's is actually two buildings and probably requires demolition but would afford a large single-level retail area.
 

I'm going to weigh in again on this one because I'm pretty furious. I've lived in New York City, Chicago, L.A., Minneapolis, and Seattle. Denver is the only city among them that has such idiotic and preposterous building height limitations etc. that are malarky and are leading the city down a path straight toward becoming the most unlivable city in America. Fools people. Look at what suburban sprawl has done to the region, and these pathetic height limitations on buildings in these special little enclaves within the core of a major city are plain stupid. I'm sorry, if I sound harsh. I know a bunch of people swear and live by these notions. But, they are notions that led to a sprawling city like Paris. If we want Denver to become like Paris, we better stop wasting time and money on a funky light rail system to connect the suburban sprawl mess and start buidling an efficient subway to allow us to get around down town. If we adhere to these idiotic practices of the past that continue to consume the limited downtown space with 8-40 story buildings--whoo ha, most condo towers in other major cities are 40-50 stories and the business-related buildings are in the 50-70 range if not higher--then we are going to find people hate our city. People who claim to be protecting the city and thoughtfully planning are setting us up for a collassal nightmare when they carefully let each last parking lot become the Sugar 3. A marvelous less-than-20 story building. It is going to happen just as it has in every other major city, that eventaully all of the surface lots will be consumed. And then what? I recall the area of Chicago around the Hard Rock Cafe 15 years ago. There were about 10 surface lots that now all have 50-80 story buildings on them. We cannot afford to allow height protections etc. to get in the way of keeping our city liveable and by that I mean you should be able to get from one end to the other in 15 - 20 minutes of walking time. You can barely get from the capitol to union station in that time now as it is were it not for the brilliance of the 16th street mall shuttle, but imagine if things go as they are and the city has to widen north and it becomes too wide full of these idiotic tiny brownstones and crap being built because right now, I guess the land is still too cheap. Meanwhile the core downtown is finally getting some taller projects, but too, too, many weak and tiny projects are going up. It is shear stupidity to limit the heights of buildings and foolish in both the short and long runs. Two developers each with a 12-story project should be forced to merge their plans into one mixed use building and give the other plot of land to a land bank to hold it for two more developers. No building should be allowed to be built from CPV to cap hill that is shorter than 40 stories. Period. I know I'm all over the place with this post, but it's because I'm so furious reading healdines like "Now 40 stories!" Duh. 40 stories? What is with people here? Get over your blocking views or casting shadows and think about how people are going to live and work down here if we cannot get around? You keep authorizing 8-story underground parking garages for these then 16-total story buildings. That's a lot of cars that then go out onto streets to drive 20 blocks to get to the office depot you moved to make way for a 12-story W hotel. Why not add the W hotel into The Spire and make it 62 stories instead and save that block for the sure to be next Peninusula or whatever? Do you seem my point? Do the people here not get the concept that the cost of adding floors to buildings is about 1/3 the cost vs. building new buildings with shorter heights? The Chicago City planners would never allow an entire block to be consumed by a building that was 8 stories tall etc. This is so infuriating and somebody needs to sit down and really think this through beyond their own lifespan, beyond the days when buildings in Denver couldn't exceed the current tallest height due to FAA regulations, and beyond these little special holier-than-thou enclaves of Larimer and Lodo where building height is protected by rules and regs masterminded by antiquated people from back in the day when urbanites were fleeing to the suburbs. Those days are over. We are back, but we're going to be forced to move to Chicago if things keep heading in the wrong direction and Denver is turned into Paris without as subway and it takes an hour to drive 15 blocks or walk from one end of the city to the other.
 

Agreed!! ^^
 

Anon from 10:52. You obviously are not an urban planner nor do you have any concept of what makes a great city. So, I am not going to waste any more time writing my comment...if you're so displeased...move to Chicago. Bye!
 

Denver... to become like Paris or like Chicago? I think my vote's for Paris!
 

Anon: 10:52. My first guess is that you were a shtick personality who is trying to stir things up a bit and the 2nd thought was perhaps you were drinking. But - in either case - I would imagine most people believe the exact opposite of what you posted. Tall buildings don't make cities great. It's the street action that leads to people interaction which make the human impact.
 

my vote would be more like the chi!-and i'm from Denver.