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Denver Infill Blog
April 2006
Here's
where I will regularly share news, observations, rumors, ideas, or
anything else about urban redevelopment, infill projects or Downtown
Denver.
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April 30, 2006. Just a couple of quick things for today,
the last day of April. I've discovered four new infill projects in
the Curtis Park-Five Points neighborhood! I'm still working on filling in
the details, but more info about them soon.
Also, Great Gulf Group,
developers of the proposed 55-story condo tower at 14th and Lawrence, have
submitted a building permit application for a sales trailer for the parking lot at
that site. A great sign they are moving forward with their plans.
The buildout of the Four Seasons Residences sales office in the
ground-floor retail space of the Performing Arts parking garage is coming
along nicely and should be open soon. Hopefully, their sales office
opening will coincide with placing a project sign at the corner of 14th
and Arapahoe, since we've learned that Great Gulf Group plans a large sign
just a block away for their corner. Those two should help create a
lot of buzz going into the summer season.
Speaking of project
signs, one of my pet peeves is when you go past a construction site and
there is no sign of any kind telling you what they're building, let along
a rendering of it! Happens all the time. I don't get it.
If I were building a large building of some kind, I'd want everyone to
know what's coming.
April 28, 2006. The Tejon Square townhome project at the
southeast corner of W. 34th Avenue and Tejon Street in the booming
Highland
neighborhood has just wrapped up construction. As evidence, here are
a couple of recent photos showing the completed construction (Tejon
1,
Tejon 2).
Sprocket Design-Build is the architect,
which has designed a number of smaller townhome-style infill projects,
mostly in Northwest Denver, but in other locations as well throughout the
greater Downtown area. In fact, today I'm happy to announce a new
infill project, designed by Sprocket, for the
Capitol Hill neighborhood. It's a
6-unit townhome project located at the corner of E. 8th Avenue and
Humboldt
Street right near Cheesman Park, and appropriately named Parkside.
Here's a couple of images (Parkside
1,
Parkside 2). These smaller
townhome projects like the ones Sprocket designs are just as
important to the restoration of the built environment in our Downtown area
and the re-urbanization of our Downtown neighborhoods as the 20-story
high-rises. In fact, it was really these smaller projects and
historic conversions that dominated the Downtown redevelopment and infill
scene in the 1990s that established the market for today's Downtown
residential boom.
April 27, 2006. Since the
Golden Triangle has been the topic lately, here's news about
another tower about ready to break ground in that neighborhood. The
developers of the 12th & Elati Residences (not sure if that's the final
name yet) have submitted a building permit application with the City of
Denver. The project consists of 63 workforce housing apartment units
and ground-floor retail in a 10-story building. This year is shaping
up to be a busy one for the Golden Triangle. The 12th and Elati
project, the Piranesi at 11th and Delaware, Hanover's 16-story 816 Acoma
project, and the parking garage for the new Denver Justice Center will all
be under construction this year. The developers of the 17-story
second phase of the Museum Residences also hope to break ground late this
year as well, not to mention the big grand opening of the new Hamilton
Building at the Denver Art Museum. About the only project that I
haven't heard anything about regarding a groundbreaking date is the
19-story 1000 Speer project. Anyway, to refresh your memory, here's
the Rocky Mountain News article by John Rebchook from August 2005
announcing the 12th and Elati project (Developers
To Build Units Near Belvedere).
April 26, 2006. Today we get our first look at the design
of a new project: the 16-story apartment tower Hanover is planning at 816
Acoma in the Golden Triangle. Here's the rendering (816
Acoma). The image I've had for this project on the
Golden Triangle neighborhood page for several months now is of
a similar tower Hanover has built in Dallas. Now that we've got the real
thing, it's time to swap that one out for this new one. Also, I've
been told that a construction fence has just been put up around this site
at 8th and Acoma. Last I had heard was that Hanover was planning to
begin construction on 816 Acoma this summer. They've been going
through development review with the city for several months now, so
apparently they're wrapping that up and getting ready to break ground!
April 25, 2006. Those of you who have been following the
State's proposal to build a new Colorado Justice Center and Colorado
History Museum might find this interesting: The Urban Land Institute (ULI)
was retained by the State to have one of ULI's Advisory Service Panels
come to Denver and study the State's proposal to construct a new Justice
Center and History Museum and to offer their recommendations on the
project's size, siting, etc. (Denver did the same thing with the ULI for
their proposed Justice Center). The ULI report is now available and
it's an interesting read. The file is about 1 MB in size, so here's
a link to download the report directly from the State's website:
http://www.courts.state.co.us/scao/rfp/ulireport.pdf
Here's a quick summary of
the report, in case you don't want to read the whole thing (although you
should). The ULI agrees with the State and recommends the
construction of both a new Justice Center and History Museum. Both
facilities are inadequate in terms of size, building infrastructure and,
in the case of the Judicial Center, security. The ULI report also
points out the fact that it is rather odd that these two facilities (which
share a common underground infrastructure) were paired to share the same
block in the first place. Anyway, in terms of siting, the ULI notes
that there are basically three options (aside from the "do nothing"
option): Build a new Justice Center on the existing site and relocate the
History Museum elsewhere, build a new History Museum on the existing site
and relocate the Justice Center elsewhere, or relocate both facilities to
new sites elsewhere in the Civic Center area. The ULI recommends
constructing the new Justice Center on the existing site and relocating
the History Museum to another location nearby.
Regarding the new site
for the History Museum, the ULI report discusses two locations, but does
so in a manner that attempts to not reveal the actual locations. However,
based on a previous newspaper article on this topic (see my blog of
December 6, 2005), the two sites were
identified as 1) on the block south of the City & County Building across
Bannock from the Denver Art Museum, and 2) next to the historic Evans
School along Bannock between 11th and 12th. In the ULI report, despite
their attempt to be vague, it's pretty clear that their "Site A" is the
block south of the City & County Building, and their "Site B" is next to
the Evans School. Which site did they pick? "Take your pick,"
they basically said... both sites would work just fine for a new History
Museum location.
Finally, in a section in
the report called "Expanding the Scope" the ULI discusses the need for the
State to develop a Physical Master Plan for their facilities, particularly
for the area around the State Capitol. As evidence of the State's
lack of a Capitol Complex plan, the ULI discusses the State's recent
construction of a parking garage at the corner of 14th and Lincoln (see
Block 026-B). Here's a choice quote from the report:
"The development of the
state-owned parking garage on Lincoln Street and 14th Avenue is an example
of such a decision [not maximizing the value of an asset]. Placing
a parking garage at such a high-profile site is not the highest and best
use of land located in the urban core. The panel is not here to
debate the value of the parking that will be provided; the panel
understands that parking is needed. At the very least, the parking
structure should have been developed with the capacity to accommodate some
additional state use and should have maximized the floor/area ratio (FAR)
credits by building below grade. Furthermore, had a master plan existed
for the state's parcels, that site might have been evaluated as a location
for the new judicial center, as a museum site, or for another appropriate
state function."
Well said. But
while there's not much we can do about the parking garage now, with the
development of the new Justice Center and History Museum, let's hope the
State puts much more thought and effort into the design for those
facilities, and let's also hope that the City of Denver and its citizens
insist upon (and receive) having an active role in ensuring these new
State buildings enhance the urban character and architectural integrity of
the Civic Center area.
April 23, 2006. Thanks to Brent and Matt at Century Real
Estate Services, today I'm happy to share the news about their next
project, Welton Place (formerly called Welton Square). Welton Place
will cover the entire block bounded by Welton, Glenarm, Park Avenue, and
24th Street (see Project #11 on the
Curtis Park-Five Points page), except for
a couple of historic residences along Glenarm, which will remain.
The first phase of the
project will consist of a 7-story condo building anchored at the corner of
Welton and Park Avenue that will cover about three quarters of the Welton
half of the block. This building, to be known as 2300 Welton, will
feature 105 upscale condominiums, including several affordable units provided
under the city's
Workforce Housing program, an underground
level of parking, and ground-floor parking and retail. The architect
for this building will be Shears Adkins Architects.
Also included in the
first phase will be the construction of 12 townhomes at 24th and Glenarm,
to be known as the 24th Street Townhomes. These townhomes will be
designed by
Sprocket Design Build, a firm known for
its distinctive modern design. The Glenarm half of the Welton Place
development will be lower scale in nature to fit in with the existing
Victorian-era homes on the block and across the street.
The second phase of
Welton Place will feature approximately 30 condos, along with commercial
space, in a building at the corner of Welton and 24th Street. Diagonally
across the intersection from this second phase is the beautiful
Blair-Caldwell Library and, just a block farther down, a Light Rail
station at 25th and Welton.
The Welton Place project
will be a welcome addition to this area. The Welton Street corridor
from 25th Street through about 30th Street serves as the spine of the historic
Five Points business district, and from 20th Street down to Colfax as a
key street in the heart of the Central Business District. But the
stretch between 20th and 24th Street is a no-man's land of surface parking
lots and a couple of lower-scale non-descript buildings.
Fortunately, the One Lincoln Park project on
Block 177 is going in at the southwestern
end of this gap, and now Welton Place will be built at the northeastern
end of this gap. Hopefully, these two important infill projects will
promote the redevelopment of the remaining three blocks in between.
Century Real Estate is
still finalizing the overall site plan and building designs for Welton
Place, but some preliminary images will be available and posted here at
DenverInfill soon.
April 21, 2006. How fast have sales been happening at the
Glass House? Well, yesterday I spoke with Chris Frampton, head of
marketing for East-West Partners, who said that 236 of the 389 units have
already been sold since sales to the general public officially started not
even two weeks ago. Today, in her article in the Denver Post,
(Many
Like What They See in Glass House) Margaret Jackson reports
that East-West Partners has sold 250 of the 389 units. See, in just
one day, they sold another 14 units! Seriously, whether it's 236 or
250, that is a staggering response, and an extremely positive sign that
the high-rise residential market in Denver may be much deeper than many
people have thought. Of course, the Glass House is aimed at a
slightly less affluent market than the Four Seasons or the Great Gulf
Group tower, but the Glass House isn't cheap, either.
Of note in the article is
the comment that sales at the Glass House have gone so well, that
East-West Partners is "planning to build a nearby project similar to Glass
House...." As far as I am concerned, East-West Partners should start
putting up Glass Houses all over Downtown Denver!
April 20, 2006. I've been told there is now a
construction trailer set up at the One Lincoln Park site. Good
thing, since nothing has happened there since the ceremonial
groundbreaking several weeks ago.
The newspapers have
reported that Archstone has sold its Riverfront Park apartment complex on
15th Street. The new owners have renamed the development "The
Station at Riverfront Park." The complex will be managed by Corum
Real Estate, who is developing the 18th & Market Residences project on
Block 049 in Lower Downtown. I wonder what this might
mean for the rumored start-up of Phase 2 of the project (see Project #15
on the
CPV page)?
Century Real Estate, who
is currently wrapping up construction on the Blake Street Apartments in
the
Ballpark neighborhood, is planning some exciting things for
their next project, Welton Square, listed in the
Curtis Park-Five Points neighborhood as
Project #11. I had a chance to speak with the developer recently and
have learned that their plans for Welton Square are really starting to
shape up. The project will include a mix of townhomes and condos in
several phases. I'm getting more details on the project and will
have more to say about Welton Square soon. Along with the progress
being made at the East Village redevelopment, the Park Avenue corridor is
seeing a lot of great infill action!
April 18, 2006. John Rebchook of the Rocky Mountain News
had an article a couple of days ago about the ever-improving Downtown
office market (Office
Market Uptick Predicted). This is the latest in a series
of articles from the local media over the past year or so documenting the
steady improvement in the metro office market and, in particular, the
Downtown submarket, which continues to maintain a vacancy rate of a few
percentage points lower the Tech Center submarket.
The article notes that
around 500,000 SF of office space in four buildings is currently being
planned for Downtown. While that is a great sign, the question that
I've posed here many times before is: When will a developer step
forward and build the first true high-rise office building since the
Reagan administration in Downtown ? The EPA, DNA, 16 Market Square
buildings... they're all great projects, but none of them represent a true
spec high-rise office tower. The 1999 Broadway tower remains, after
21 years, the last of its kind built in Downtown. At some point,
there has to be enough companies out there that simply want the prestige
of being in the newest office tower in Downtown. At this time, no
such thing exists. The combination of limited available space and no
contemporary high-rise office towers has to eventually equate to a
developer out there taking the chance and pulling the trigger on an
office-only skyscraper. Even if they started now, by the time the
space would be available, it would be 2008 or so, and if things continue
to trend as they are, seems like the market by then would be ripe for that
new space to come online. When? Where? Who will do it?
Come on Denver developers!
I leave you for today
with an updated
photo of the Zocalo Condos in the
Jefferson Park neighborhood. The project has topped off
and is working its way towards a Fall completion.
April 17, 2006. A few odds and ends today at
DenverInfill...
A few days ago I reported
that a building permit application was recently filed with the city for
the Tomboy Lofts at the Prospect Place development. Apparently, it's
not only the Tomboy, but the Red Cliff and Smuggler buildings too.
These three buildings encompass the core of the Prospect Place 7-building
development, featuring the "piazza" and retail element of the project.
Good to see this development finally taking the next step. Visit
their website at
www.prospectplacelofts.com.
The old Ethiopian
Orthodox church at the corner of East 17th Avenue and Emerson is coming
down! This will allow the proposed Emerson Uptown Lofts (see Project
#17 on the
Uptown neighborhood page) project to move forward.
The Village Flats on
Navajo project (see Project #10 on the
Highland
neighborhood page) recently finished construction and has only one unit
remaining for sale. Village Flats, LLC will be launching their next
project, Village Flats on Lawrence (see Project #1 on the
Curtis Park-Five Points neighborhood
page) in the near future. Visit their website at
www.villageflats.com.
I've added a new feature
here at DenverInfill. Alpine Light Pictures, Inc. is a
company that photographs construction projects on a weekly basis to allow
owners/developers to not only track their project's construction progress
via the internet, but to also give them visual documentation of many
aspects of project and site conditions for marketing and project
management purposes. ALP is currently tracking a number of major
projects profiled here at DenverInfill, so I've added links from
several project sections on this site to the appropriate project page on
their website. Check out the links to hundreds of time-lapse photos
for projects like the Glass House and One Riverfront Park on the
Central
Platte Valley page and the Confluence Heights and Wyandot
Overlook projects on the
Highland page, or visit their website
directly at
www.alpinelightpictures.com.
Finally, I've added the
Highlands Vista and Highland Bridge Lofts projects to the
Highland
neighborhood page.
April 16, 2006. Remember all the controversy last fall
over Buzz Geller's proposed 31-story tower at the "Bell Park" site near
Larimer Square? At that time, the plan was to remove (de-designate)
the block bounded by 14th, Speer, Larimer and Market from the Lower
Downtown Historic District, thereby eliminating the 55' height
restriction. The Landmark Preservation Commission vetoed that idea, and
since then a special committee has been studying the issue. The plan the
committee came up with is to create a new Special Review District for not
just the Geller block, but all the blocks between Speer and Cherry Creek
from Larimer Street north to Wewatta. All the blocks within this
special district would have some common design guidelines, while each
block would also have some guidelines unique to itself. One of those
unique guidelines for the Geller block is that a tower of up to 375' high,
with an additional 25' for a spire, would be allowed. The rest of
the blocks would be capped at a much lower LoDo-like height. The
approval for this new special review district will also rest ultimately
with City Council, not the Landmark Preservation Commission. Both
the LPC and the Lower Downtown Design Review Board will have significant
input in the adoption of the guidelines, but it appears only Council could
modify or remove the key provision on the Geller block to allow a tower of
up to 400' high. So, in the end, it appears compromise has won out:
Mr. Geller gets his tower but those opposed to the tower will know that no
other towers of that height can be built on the blocks to the north.
For a good overview on these recent developments, here's an article by the
Rocky's Mary Voelz Chandler from a few weeks ago (Diverse
Bell Park Interests Shift Away From Acrimony). Also,
check out my blog from
February 24 for more background on this
issue.
Personally, I've always
felt the best way to honor the historic nature of Lower Downtown is to
surround it with a built environment that is different in both scale and
architectural style. While I agree that plopping a 40-story tower in the
center of LoDo isn't a good idea for many reasons, surrounding
LoDo with taller modern structures provides the contrast that highlights
the scale and historic architecture of Lower Downtown. It's sort of
like Central Park in NYC. It's the contrast of the horizontal and
natural surrounded by the vertical and manmade that makes Central Park such an
oasis. With the new projects in the Central Platte Valley and
the proposed 55-story Gulf Group tower, Lower Downtown becomes the
historic and neighborhood-scaled oasis in the center of a modern vertical
city.
April 12, 2006. The
Jefferson Park neighborhood is getting yet another great infill
project! Developer Glen Wood is planning on building a 40-unit
residential development at 2600 Frontview Crescent. Frontview
Crescent is the short street that veers east from Clay Street just south
of W. 22nd Avenue and runs in behind the Chile Pepper restaurant before
curving and becoming Bryant Street. This project would be located
right where Frontview and Bryant come together. The project is to
include 12 townhomes and 28 condominium units, all as for-sale units.
The project will have underground parking for 65 spaces, with four floors
above that containing the residences. Construction is planned to
begin this summer. Bothwell Davis George Architects is doing the
design. A rendering will be finished soon and made available to you
here at DenverInfill. There's no doubt about it now.... Jefferson
Park has joined the ranks of the hot Downtown neighborhoods!
April 11, 2006. Two brief items today: The Tomboy Lofts,
the 10-story condo building in the
Prospect
neighborhood that is the next phase of Urban Neighborhood's 7-building
Prospect Place Lofts project, should be
under construction soon. Records at the City show they've applied
for a building permit for the Tomboy.
The other item is a
rumor: Hanover, the national developer who built the Boulevard Lofts and
who is building the 16-story
816 Acoma Street project next door, is supposedly planning a tower for
somewhere in Downtown.
April 7, 2006. Only one major case was under review
yesterday at the monthly meeting of the Lower Downtown Design Review
Board: the New Sugar Building (Block
019). The news is good! Last month the developers,
Will Fleissig and Grant McCargo, were asked to revisit the design of two
items, the balconies on the residential portion, and the facade of the
skinny Wazee infill building. At yesterday's meeting, the changes
the developers made were sufficient to receive approval on both matters
from the Board! The developers need to return to the LDDRB only one
more time, once they have the entire building designed down to the final
details. The Board felt it was important for them to have a chance
to see the fine-tuned designs before granting final approval. This
should be a formality, however, as the New Sugar Building's design is
already at a relatively mature state, and the developers have no intention
to veer off from the approved design. After the meeting, Mr. McCargo
stated that they hope to be under construction by this fall. The
very modern design of the New Sugar Building will be a stunning addition
to the 16th Street Mall. I can't wait until they make the design
public.
April 5, 2006. Today I've got the details of a major
infill project in the
Highland neighborhood. As you may
be aware, the new Highland Bridge is currently under construction over
I-25. This is the last of three pedestrian bridges along the 16th
Street corridor that will link the Highland neighborhood with Downtown
Denver (see Project #1 on the
Central Platte Valley page). At the
western end of this new Highland Bridge, at the corner of 16th and
Central, sits a vacant half city block. The other half of the block is
home to the Overlook Condominium project at 15th and Central, completed in
the 1990s, and a historic commercial block at 15th & Boulder. The
corner at 16th & Central represents the anchor to the western end of the
entire 16th Street pedestrian corridor and the gateway to the Highland
neighborhood from Downtown. Clearly, a weedy, vacant lot is not what
is
desired for this high profile corner. Fortunately, Urban Ventures,
LLC will soon be taking care of the situation.
I mentioned
Urban Ventures just the other day (see
the
March 31 blog) as the developers who
are bringing you not only the final phase of their Fire Clay Lofts project along Blake Street,
but Monarch Mills and the new Campus Village student housing project at
Auraria as well. They will be starting construction later this summer on
the Highland Bridge Lofts, a 101-unit condominium project that will
complete the entire half-block along 16th Street from Central up the hill
to Boulder Street. The project will feature three buildings: the
first to be constructed will be a 3-story building right at 16th and
Central with 29 units, followed by a second phase consisting of two
5-story buildings holding the remaining 72 units. Additional details such
as pricing and a rendering of the project's design are in the works and
will be available here at DenverInfill in the near future. It
looks like yet another prominent vacant parcel in an historic Downtown
Denver neighborhood will finally be developed!
April 4, 2006. There's lots of good Downtown news to
share with you today!
Item #1: The
Denver Post reported yesterday that Great Gulf Group, the company
planning the 55-story condo tower at the corner of 14th & Lawrence (Block
070) plans to erect a 22-foot tall sign advertising the project
later this month. They'll also be building a $2 million sales center on
the parking lot site as well. Construction is tentatively planned to
begin in early 2007 on the tower, now being called the Murano. It
will be fun to see a large rendering of the project on the sign at that
corner. It adds to the buzz about the project and creates a sense of
excitement about what's going on in Downtown in general. Makes me
wonder why after 18 months, the developers of the Four Seasons tower still
haven't erected a sign promoting their project yet?
Item #2: The 24
Walnut project located in the
Ballpark Neighborhood at the corner of
24th & Walnut has broken ground. That's yet another project to go
under construction this spring, with many more planned for this summer!
Item #3: How about
another exciting project for the
Highland neighborhood? Located at
the corner of 17th and Boulder, a new 6-unit townhome project recently
broke ground called Highlands Vista (www.highlandsvista.com).
The project is being developed by Y45 Development, Inc. lead by principal
Mark Yanowitz and Yano Designs, Inc. Here's a peek at the building
design:
Highlands Vista. The new townhomes
range in size from around 1,500 SF to a little over 2,000 SF, and in price
from the mid-$400s to the mid-$600s. The project should be finished
by around the first of the year.
Finally, with no Mall
shuttles running due to the RTD strike, a summer-like 74 degrees for the
high today, and with few people wanting to risk moving their car from
their precious Downtown parking space, I suspect the 16th Street Mall
today at lunchtime will be simply amazing. Yesterday I overheard
someone on the Mall tell their friend that they were enjoying so much
having to walk along the Mall, that they wouldn't care if the Mall
shuttles never came back! Of course, they've had that option all along, so
maybe this strike will help motivate people to spend more time exploring
their Downtown on foot.
April 3, 2006. With the RTD strike starting this morning
and the season opener for the Rockies at Coors Field this afternoon, we
have the Perfect Storm for traffic jams in Downtown Denver today.
Normally, when the Rockies play at home during a weekday afternoon, the
operators of the surface parking lots in Lower Downtown will jack up their
prices from the normal $7 or $8 a day to $20 to take advantage of the
baseball game. Consequently, these lots sit mostly empty until
around noon or so, when people start to arrive for the game. The
Downtown workers who normally park in those lots probably just park
further out and walk, or take RTD. But today (and who knows for how
long?) we'll have most of the tens of thousands of Downtown workers who
normally arrive Downtown by bus or light rail driving in and looking for
parking instead. So it should be fun to see the streets of Downtown
Denver this morning. I plan on walking to work.
One other thing I've
wondered about in the past was, what the pedestrian activity would be like
along the 16th Street Mall if we didn't have the Mall shuttles?
Normally on a nice day during peak hours or during lunchtime, the Mall can
get quite crowded with pedestrians, despite the fact that a dozen or more
shuttles are also carrying hundreds, if not thousands of people at that
same time. What if all those shuttle-riding passengers became
Mall-walking pedestrians? What would that be like? I guess
we'll find out today.
By the way, over the
weekend I did a complete update of the Infill Scoreboard, and updated both
of the Project Location maps on the Big Picture page.
April 2, 2006. Today I thought I'd share with you some of
the statistics behind DenverInfill and a profile of sorts
of all you people out there who frequent this site. For the
just-completed month of March 2006, there were 4,230 unique visitors to
DenverInfill who made a combined total of 11,890 visits. The
busiest day of the month was Monday, March 20, with 503 visits. The
weekdays are always much busier than the weekends, with about 150 or so
fewer visits on Saturdays and Sundays than on a typical Monday through
Friday. Generally, Mondays and Wednesdays see the most traffic to
the site.
The usage statistics I
receive for DenverInfill also tracks visits by the hour.
There's a very consistent pattern of visitor activity each day. The
first spike in activity occurs from 8:00 - 9:00 AM. This is when
you're having your morning coffee, reading the paper online, and getting
your day started by checking out your favorite websites. Another
spike in activity occurs from 8:00 - 9:00 PM. This is your typical
internet surfing time before you go to bed. But by far the busiest
hour of the day at DenverInfill is from 2:00 - 3:00 PM. This
is when you should be working, but you're bored and just trying to get
through the rest of the afternoon so you're goofing off playing on the
internet instead. Shame on you!
The most popular page on
DenverInfill is the Blog. This suggests a lot of you have
bookmarked the Blog page and go there directly when you visit. The
Home Page is the next most visited page, followed by the Downtown Main Map
page and the City Center Neighborhoods main page. The most visited
neighborhood page is the Central Platte Valley, followed by Central
Downtown, Highland, and the Golden Triangle. The most popular
Downtown block page in March? That would be Block 035-B, home of the
proposed Trump Tower, followed by Block 177, site of the One Lincoln Park
project.
A lot of people discover
DenverInfill after seeing it in their search results upon trying
various key words through search engines like Google or Yahoo. The two
words most frequently searched that led people to DenverInfill?
That would be "Denver" and "infill" (no surprise there!). But there
were also 865 other words or phrases that people were searching on that
ultimately led them to this website. A lot of them tend to be specific
project names, names of neighborhoods, or names of architects or
developers. Finally, DenverInfill has become popular enough to
achieve first-page ranking even without the word "Denver" as part of a
search phrase. Searching on just the two words "urban" and "infill,"
DenverInfill comes in at #9 on Google, #5 on MSN, and #1 on Yahoo; and
on just the two words "infill" and "projects," this site comes in at #4 on
Google, #3 on MSN, and #1 on Yahoo! Thank you to all you DenverInfill
regulars out there for visiting this site, for telling your friends about
DenverInfill, and for your emails. Together, we are letting the
rest of the world know about all the exciting things that are happening in
Downtown Denver!
April 1, 2006. Thanks to a DenverInfill regular
for letting me know about this: Check out the W Hotel's website under
their Residences section by clicking
here. Then, click on the little elevator
button that says "Upcoming News." Yep, one more confirmation that a
W Hotel & Residences announcement for behind Union Station should be
forthcoming.
Speaking of the W Hotel,
at
Denver Cityscape (a
website similar to DenverInfill but which covers the whole metro
area), my friend who runs that site is reporting that the proposed W Hotel
will consist of three 9-story towers sitting on a common 4-story base, for
a total of 13 stories. Sounds about right given the 140' height
limit. I'm speculating that two of those three towers will be the
condos, and one will be the hotel. Little by little, we learn more
about the mysterious W Hotel project. Hopefully, East-West Partners
will come out soon with an announcement and a rendering and end all this
speculation!
Speaking of East-West
Partners, over on the other side of the tracks in their Riverfront Park
development, a project called Parkside has finally come back from a long
period of no activity. Well over a year ago, a development case was
filed with the city for this project (see Project #29 on the
CPV North
page) that described it as a 13-unit townhome project at 19th and Little
Raven, diagonally across the intersection from the Skatepark.
Nothing has happened since then, but just recently the project has
resurfaced with a listing on the Colorado Real Estate Journal as
consisting of 12 townhomes in three, 3-story buildings, and 14 condominium
units in a 6-story tower. I'm not sure about the location though...
the CREJ listing has the project at 18th and Bassett, diagonally
across the intersection from the Manhattan, and across Bassett from the
Glass House. This one will require a bit more research. |
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