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Denver Infill Blog
January 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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January 31, 2006. The Rocky Mountain News ran an
article on the proposed 55-story condo tower at 14th & Lawrence yesterday
(Condo
Developer Likes Denver's Look), providing some additional
information about the project such as the fact that the developers need to
sell 50% of the units before they can begin construction. This isn't
an unusual requirement, in fact I'd say it's quite the norm, but it does
make me wonder if they're really going to be breaking ground in the
spring. Let's hope there's 100 people out there willing to go under
contract on a $450/sf unit within the next couple of months. I know
that developers are always overly-optimistic about their projected
groundbreaking dates to convey a sense of certainty about their project
and to keep the excitement high, but I feel they do themselves more harm
when they don't make their promised groundbreaking date than they would if
they just gave us a realistic project timeframe. Anyway, best of
luck to Great Gulf Group. Wouldn't that be cool to see the Four
Seasons and the Gulf Tower under construction at the same time?
Here are three of the
images that appeared as a slide show along with the News article
yesterday (my thanks to John Rebchook at the
News and Kelly Lind at Wall + Aiello Public Relations for providing
the original high-resolution files):
Tower at Daytime,
Tower at Dusk,
Close-Up of Base. What a nice way
to end the month of January!
January 29, 2006. Today I completed a new and improved
version of the "new Denver skyline" image found at the bottom of the
Big Picture
page. The base aerial photo has been updated from 2004 to 2005, and
new and/or updated project renderings have been added.
Here's an additional
rendering of the proposed 55-story condo tower at 14th & Lawrence, also
obtained like the first one from the Denver Post website. This one
shows the tower in its position on the surface parking lot at the corner
of 14th and Lawrence. I'm hoping to obtain higher-resolution images of the
proposed tower, but for now, we'll have to live with the low-res versions
from their website.
Finally, a project that's
been on the
Central Platte Valley page for a long
time but has never gotten underway is finally showing signs of activity.
The project in question is at the corner of 15th and Little Raven, the
site of one of the few remaining vacant buildings in the CPV. All
that was originally known about the project at this site (see #6 on the
CPV page) was that it was to be a 120-unit condo building of unknown
height planned by Ray Suppa, who developed the Palace Lofts at 15th &
Blake. Now, the project finally has a name, "Confluence at Cherry
Creek," and will feature condos in a six and nine story building. The
project is still being developed by Ray Suppa, and Oz Architects is doing
the design.
January 27, 2006. I think the title of the article by
Margaret Jackson in today's Post says it all... "skyline-transforming
rush." In case you haven't seen today's Post yet, we've just
been informed of a new 55-story residential high-rise proposal for
Downtown Denver! A Toronto-based company, Great Gulf Group, plans
the skyscraper at the corner of 14th and Lawrence, immediately behind the
west end of Larimer Square. Here's the article: (55-Story
Condo Tower Joins Skyline-Transforming Rush). Oh, and
they even have a decent
rendering already.
So the question many
people will raise, as is discussed in the article too, is can Downtown
support all these residential high-rises? Of course, only time will tell.
With the price point for this new tower (starting at $450/sf) comparable
to that of the Four Seasons and some of the product in the Central Platte
Valley (as well as probably the rumored W hotel/condo project too), the
success of these towers will depend on many well-to-do folks who would
normally live in the 'burbs or in Cherry Creek or Country Club to be
willing to move Downtown. Personally, I think projects like the
Glass House and the Spire, with their target being more the young
professional and with prices starting in the $300/sf range, are
no-brainers. I believe both of those projects will have little trouble
selling out, and more towers like them are needed. Anyway, the best way
to find out the depth and breadth of the Downtown high-rise market is for
there to be active proposals being marketed of all shapes and sizes and
price points...and that's exactly what we've got now in Denver. But what we've
got to do is get a couple of these out of the ground. I
really think a lot of these proposals will have a better time selling
units if there's at least a few towers under construction. The Glass
House is a great start, but the Central Platte Valley is already a proven
commodity. We need the Four Seasons, One Lincoln Park, and the Spire
to break ground by this summer at the latest.
January 26, 2006. A very short blog entry today, but exciting rumors about two Downtown projects: One Lincoln Park is planning
on breaking ground in two weeks, and the internationally-renown
architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has recently
completed the design of Denver's W Hotel.
January 24, 2006. Denver City Council last night approved
the rezoning for Alliance Properties' 8-story apartment project on
Block 036 in Northeast Downtown, which
includes the renovation and conversion of the Piggly Wiggly Building into
residences. They also approved a more controversial rezoning at 832
Kalamath in the
La Alma - Lincoln Park neighborhood.
The project, named Maravilla, is planned as a 75-unit condominium
development on a one-acre site (see my blog of December 24). Some people in the neighborhood
objected to the project's density. By the way, if you haven't
checked out the Santa Fe Drive corridor lately, you should. The number of
building renovations, new art galleries and design firms, and
revitalization in general is amazing.
I also have some updates
relating to the two articles I discussed in the last two days' blogs,
thanks to some additional information I received from John Rebchook at the
Rocky Mountain News. First, relating to the Central Platte
Valley parcels, the buyer of those parcels is not Legacy Partners but
Kennedy & Associates; although that fact doesn't change the
development of the site as envisioned in the Commons Master Plan. It
also appears the transaction will include the entire block bounded by Wewatta/Delgany between 15th and
16th. Then, relating to the hotels on
Stout Street, it looks like we have a new Infill Update to add to
Block 138 in Central Downtown! The
proposed Homewood Suites Hotel is indeed a new project, separate from the
Best Western Hotel planned for the corner of 15th & Stout. The
Homewood will share the site of the old Motor Garage with the Embassy
Suites, with the Homewood in the center of the block and the Embassy at
the corner of 14th & Stout.
January 22, 2006. Two items today: Let's start off with a
new big color
rendering of the Spire project on
Block 131 in Central Downtown. The
building seems to have lost its green glass look, although it's hard to
tell if that's the case in this latest image since it's almost evening
in the scene. Anyway, there's certainly more detail evident in this latest
image, reflecting hopefully that we're getting closer to seeing this
project come out of the ground.
The other issue for today
is an article about Downtown's hotel market from Saturday's News (Getting
Ready to Explode). There are two things I found of particular
interest in this article. First, there was a short list of hotels
listed that are rumored to be in the works for Downtown that included
the W, St. Regis, and Trump hotels. I've heard about the W and the
Trump, but this is the first I've heard about a St. Regis hotel coming to
Downtown. Has anyone else out there heard about that? If so,
send me an email if you are willing to share the news.
The article also
indicated a Homewood Suites hotel was planned for 14th and Stout next to
the proposed Embassy Suites. I'm thinking this might be the same project as
the Best Western, since that's not on the list. It's certainly
possible that the developers have switched brands and are going with
Homewood Suites instead. The Best Western is supposed to be 138
rooms and cost $19 million. This article says the Homewood Suites
will have 125 rooms and cost approximately $18 million. Pretty darn
close. Plus, the Best Western is planned to be next to the proposed
Embassy Suites hotel. The only problem is that the article says the
Homewood Suites is to be at 14th & Stout. The Best Western is
planned for 15th & Stout. At 14th & Stout, there are only two
developable corners, with the Embassy Suites on one and the 30-story
age-restricted condo tower proposed by the St. Charles Town Company on the
other. So unless Charles Woolley has scrapped his plans for his
condo tower, then the article should have placed the proposed Homewood
Suites hotel at 15th & Stout at the Best Western's planned location.
The only other alternative I can think of is that the Homewood Suites will
be built in the middle of the block along Stout where the old Motor Garage
building is. It was reported recently that the developer of the
Embassy Suites, who originally was planning on renovating the Motor Garage
and incorporating it into the hotel, will now be tearing the Motor Garage
building down. Perhaps by doing so, that creates a large enough site
to accommodate the Embassy Suites on the corner and the Homewood Suites
mid-block. If that's the case, then the article missed including the
Best Western.
January 20, 2006. There was an article in the News
on Wednesday about the pending sale of two parcels in the Central Platte
Valley that suggests we're getting closer to seeing commercial development
taking place in the Commons portion of the CPV, the area between the
Consolidated Main Line railroad tracks and Union Station. First, in
case you didn't read the article, here it is:
Two Parcels in Central Platte Valley Set for Change
in Ownership. Today I'll focus on the first of those two
sales discussed in the article, the property purchased by Legacy Partners.
The article contains a few statements that are inaccurate or confusing, which I will try to
sort out.
The article states the
property is located at Wewatta and 15th. That can't be right since
the parcels at that intersection include the Gates HQ building, the
Wewatta Transfer Condos, the west half of the old Postal Annex site
(slated for condos after the EPA building is finished), and part of the
parcel that stretches all the way to Cherry Creek where Opus is planning a
large mixed-use development. Besides, none of these parcels are 1.75
acres in size. The property in question is actually located at
Wewatta and 16th, diagonally on the opposite side of the Gates building given
how Wewatta curves up to the Delgany Street alignment. This is the site of
the surface parking lot currently serving the Gates HQ building.
According to the city's assessor's records, there are two parcels where
this parking lot is located. Take a look here at this parcel map
from the city's website:
Parcel Map 1.
The parcel outlined in blue, at 16th and Wewatta, is exactly 1.75 acres
and is listed as being owned by Trillium Commons LLC (essentially the same
entity as Wodo). Clearly, this is the parcel in question,
particularly if you look at the
Commons Master Plan for that block, which
allows for a 17-story and a 9-story commercial building, exactly as the
article indicates.
The confusing part is
whether this purchase includes the other half of the parking lot,
identified here:
Parcel Map 2. This 1.59-acre parcel
is owned Wodo LLC and, according to the Commons Master Plan, the planned site of
a large 1790-space public parking garage. The article quotes a Mr.
Bush, who states, "The
site includes 1.75 acres for office buildings, plus additional land for a
public parking garage, which likely will be incorporated into any
development." Is the "additional land" referenced in this
quote as the planned site for a public parking garage, the 1.59-acre
parcel owned by Wodo? It must be. But that would mean then that the
purchase by Legacy Partners covers a total of 3.34 acres, not "almost two
acres" as stated in the article. So, did
Legacy buy both parcels or just the one closest to 16th Street? For
their $13.75 million, did they get 1.75 acres at $180/SF, or did they get
3.34 acres at about $95/SF? These are details some people may not
care about, but to others (including me), they are important.
Anyway, let's end with two photos of the model at East-West Partners'
Riverfront Park sales office of the block in question, which shows a
massing of the 17- and 9-story office buildings next to the public parking
garage.
View from West.
View from South.
January 19, 2006. With a recent trip to the Riverfront
Park sales office, I'm now able to show you a few pictures of the new
model East West Partners has of the One Riverfront Park project, as well
as a massing model for the new City House project, the 18-unit townhome
project that sits in between the Glass House and One Riverfront Park in
the Union Station View Plane corridor. Here's
One Riverfront Park (also see Jan. 14 for
another image) and here's the general massing for City House from the
front and from the
back along the railroad tracks.
January 17, 2006. So what's going on with Archstone Phase
2? I've heard from several independent sources that Phase 2 of the
Archstone at Riverfront Park project will be moving forward this year. In
case you're not familiar with it, check out Project #15 on the
Central
Platte Valley (North) neighborhood page. The project's
site plan, massing, and design are all dictated by the Archstone PUD, so
it really becomes a matter of if or when Phase 2 gets built, not what gets
built (without going back the city to amend the PUD which would amount to
essentially a rezoning). The interesting part is that I've heard
that Phase 2 will be rentals just like the existing Phase 1, but I've also
heard that it may be "senior housing," whatever that means. Also,
I've heard that Archstone will not be the developer, but some other firm
will actually be implementing the Phase 2 entitlement. I suppose it
doesn't matter too much. Either way, the project will be a
significant addition to what is already one of my favorite streets, 15th
Street, at least the LoDo/CPV/Highland stretch of it. If anyone out
there has the inside scoop on Archstone Phase 2 and is willing to share
it, please let me know.
A few days ago I
mentioned the new RiverClay project proposed for the Jefferson Park
neighborhood. I've just uploaded it to the
Jefferson Park neighborhood page as an official Infill Update!
Hopefully, a rendering of the project will be available soon.
January 15, 2006. As promised, today I've uploaded a new
special feature, the "Downtown
Denver Buildout Scenarios" page in the
Special Features
section. For the past few years, I've coordinated the semester
project of the urban planning graduate course I teach at the University of
Colorado - Denver with the Downtown Denver Partnership, so that the
students get to do work for a real client, the Partnership gets a work
product at no monetary cost, and I enjoy it because it has to do with
Downtown Denver! So this year, we did a number of "buildout
scenarios" of Downtown, where we identified over 70 parcels that are
vacant or are surface parking lots, determined an appropriate mix of uses
for a high-rise on each site, then calculated how many residential units,
hotel rooms, office square footage, etc. there would be if all sites were
built out as envisioned at the maximum allowable density. This
exercise gives everyone involved or interested in the Downtown Area Plan
update, which the Partnership and City are getting underway this winter,
some background information to consider as they look at the future for
Downtown. Anyway, I'll let you read the students' work and think
about what the numbers tell us, and what kind of questions about the
remaining capacity of Downtown might be raised.
My congratulations to the
students. For many, it was their first semester in grad school and
their first planning project of any kind. A job well done!.
January 14, 2006. Today I've got a much better rendering
of the One Riverfront Park project that recently broke ground in the
Central
Platte Valley next to the Glass House. On the project
website there's only one black-and-white
sketch of the project, and in an article about One Riverfront Park in the
Post on Friday was a rendering showing the project from quite a
distance away. But the
image I'm happy to share with you of the
7-story condo portion of the project is from a much closer perspective.
As you look at this rendering of the condo tower, the townhome portion of
the project is "behind" you.
January 13, 2006. A few odds and ends for today:
The News reports today that Bill Mosher (Mosher Sullivan
Development Partners) and two other investors recently purchased Smiley's
Laundromat at Colfax and Downing, which bills itself as the "world's
largest laundromat." Their plan is to replace the building with a
mixed-use housing project consisting of 15,000 SF of ground-floor retail
and 50 to 100 residences above (5 to 8 stories maybe?). What a great sign
that the revitalization of Colfax continues! If the city goes through with
its plans to unilaterally rezone the entire stretch of East Colfax from
Grant to Colorado Boulevard with the new Main Street zone, projects like
this might start popping up faster than we can keep track of them.
Speaking of the new
Walnut Street Townhomes (see Jan. 11 below), I've run across two new renderings of
the project. An original
sketch of the project currently appears for the project on the
Ballpark neighborhood page. The two new images show more clearly the
front and
rear exteriors of the project. I like the
cool spiral staircase going from the second floor balcony to the rooftop
deck.
Finally, sometime this
weekend, a new
Special Feature will be added, and it has something to do with
the Downtown Area Plan update that the city's about to undertake.
That's all I'm saying for now. Happy Friday the 13th!
January 11, 2006. Things are really happening in the
Jefferson Park neighborhood! Developer David Zucker, who is
currently under construction with the
Zocalo condos at 22nd & Decatur, is
planning another project in this neighborhood with the awesome skyline
views. Located at the corner of Clay Street and River Drive (2240 Clay),
his next project, appropriately named RiverClay, will be a 6-story
mixed-use residential project consisting of 60 condominium units, two
levels of structured parking, 4,000 SF of ground-floor retail, and a
workout facility. Units will range from 680 SF to 2,500 SF with the
average around 1,100 SF. Sales should start in March with
construction planned to begin in the fall. A rendering will be
available in a few weeks here at DenverInfill. Jefferson Park
is the neighborhood with the little-known historic commercial district at
25th & Eliot that has all the potential to become another "32nd & Lowell"
or "Old South Pearl." This historic business district served as the
terminus for the Denver City Railway Company's horse-drawn streetcar
"North Line" in the 1880s.
Also, both the News
and the Post report today that the Walnut Street Townhomes project
is set to begin construction in March (see the January 2 blog entry below)
in the
Ballpark neighborhood. This is going in on one of those
ugly gravel-covered lots near Coors Field where an old industrial building
used to be. A few more projects are still needed, but the connection
between Downtown and the historic residences of the Ballpark/Curtis Park
neighborhood is finally starting to mend.
January 9, 2006. The news about the Four Seasons
continues to get better. Not only did the Denver Post report
the other day on what I had mentioned in my blog entry of December 28,
that the developers had closed on the land, but in the article the
developers are quoted as saying they plan to break ground in the middle of
2006. Of course, they originally said they were going to break
ground in May 2005. Anyway, all signs seem to be pointing to the
Four Seasons, the Spire, and One Lincoln Park all being under construction
by this summer!
In December, the Lower
Downtown Design Review board reviewed two major projects in the works for
Lower Downtown, the 1800 Market condo/apartment building on
Block 049, and
the "new" Sugar Building project on
Block 019. For the 1800 Market
project, it is getting close to final design, with minor tweaking of
various building elements taking place. The last I've heard is this
project is still planning on breaking ground this summer. For the
Sugar Building project, it is earlier on in its review process with the
LoDo board, but so far, so good. The design continues to evolve and
receive positive reviews from the city and the board. Hopefully this
project could be underway by summer or fall of this year.
It's certainly feasible
that by this fall, there could be over a dozen tower cranes amid the
Denver skyline!
January 8, 2006. Two new highly-visible infill projects
are coming to the
Highland neighborhood! Several of
the first infill projects in the neighborhood occurred in the little
section of Downtown street grid on the west side of I-25, like Highland
Crossing, City View Lofts, and the Overlook. But within this area,
two key parcels with awesome skyline views remain undeveloped... but not
for long. The first is on the block bounded by 15th, Central, 16th,
and Boulder Streets. The half block along 15th is the Overlook
project developed in the 1990s. I'm not sure if the other half block
along 16th was to be a future phase of the Overlook or not, but it is
finally going to be developed by Urban Ventures LLC, who brought you the
Monarch Mills project in the Central Platte Valley. This new project
will consist of several 3 to 5 story residential buildings and is supposed
to get underway this spring. Another cool aspect about this parcel
getting developed is how nicely this project will anchor the corner of
16th and Central where the new Highland Bridge over I-25 will land.
The other vacant site
getting developed is the land in front of the Highland Crossing project
where a future phase of that development, a 6-story and a 7-story
building, never got built. The land is now under the control of a
different developer who plans a residential project at that location (the
two little commercial buildings there will be razed). That project
is supposed to break ground in October 2006.
I haven't found out yet
how many units, the names of these projects, renderings, etc., but I'm
working on that. But with these two new projects, the Highland
Bridge, the revitalized Platte Street, and the Central Platte Valley and
all of its amenities, this northwest Downtown area is truly becoming a remarkable
urban setting.
January 4, 2006. I've uploaded four new Infill Updates
today. Three represent projects I've mentioned here in the Blog
sometime over the past month or two, and one is a brand new one I've not
announced yet. The ones you've read about before include the City
View Townhomes in the
Highland neighborhood, the 816 Acoma
Tower by Hanover in the
Golden Triangle (which, by the way, I've
come to understand has been finalized at 16 stories), and the 1740
Franklin Street condominiums in the
City
Park West neighborhood. The new project is also in City
Park West... the Marion Street Lofts, a 27-unit condo project at the
corner of E. 22nd Avenue and Marion. A rendering hasn't been
obtained (yet) and I'm not sure about the number of floors, but given the
number of units and the size of the site, I'm guessing 3 to 4.
The Hilton Garden Inn at
14th & Welton, across the street from the new Hyatt, is now a construction
site! A few weeks ago a chain link fence went up around the site, and
demolition of the parking lot started this week. Here's the
proof.
January 2, 2006. Today I've got news of a new infill
project in the Central Platte Valley, plus some general updates on a
number of other planned projects throughout the Downtown area. First
the new project: A small project known as City House will be located in
between the Glass House and the One Riverfront Park projects (both
currently under construction) in the CPV. City House will be an
18-unit townhome project located in the
Union Station View Plane corridor, which
allows for development within the corridor up to 25 feet in height. No
rendering of the City House project is yet available, but I'll certainly
post one as soon as it's available.
Two infill projects, 18th
& Market Residences and 816 Acoma (the apartment tower proposed by Hanover
next to their recently-completed Boulevard Lofts project at 8th & Speer)
have recently been submitted as active development review cases to the
city -- a great sign that these projects are moving from concept to
reality. Additionally, a number of other infill projects are now
under "Final Review" with the city. These include: One Lincoln Park,
12th & Elati Apartments, Inca 29 Brownstones, Belle Terre, and FirstBank
at Colfax & Franklin. One other project also now under Final Review
is the 11th & Grant Condominiums, a project announced a couple of years
ago as a 54-unit project, but now envisioned as 30 units. Finally,
two projects have moved to the Building Permit stage: Walnut Street
Townhomes and the Alta Vera Condominiums.
January 1, 2006. Happy New Year! Now that 2005 is
history, it's appropriate to take a look back and review this past year
and contemplate our progress in the ongoing revitalization of Downtown
Denver and the eradication of the loathsome surface parking lot.
What a year it was!
Shortly before 2005 began, the massive expansion of the Colorado
Convention Center opened and, a month earlier, the 50-story Four Seasons
project was announced to great fanfare. While it was disappointing
that the Four Seasons didn't break ground in 2005 as originally promised,
little did we know when January 1, 2005 rolled around that SEVEN more
towers over 20 stories would be announced for Downtown Denver during the
coming year! One Lincoln Park, The Spire, Embassy Suites Hotel, 14th &
Stout Condo Tower (St. Charles Town Company), Denver Athletic Club Hotel,
Speer & Market Condo Tower (Geller), and North Broadway Tower all were
revealed during 2005. Of course, Mr. Geller may never get his LoDo
Historic District de-designation, and a few others of these may never get
off the ground either, but that's the way it goes in the world of
high-rise real estate development. But one thing is for sure: you'll never
get any new towers built in your downtown if no one proposes any!
These seven new towers
are certainly not the end of the story for 2005. During this past
year, we also saw construction start on the twin 23-story Glass House
towers, and the completion of the 37-story Hyatt hotel. And while
skyscrapers are appealing and have an impact on the skyline, equally as
important for Downtown were all the under-20-story buildings that
were announced or under construction in 2005. These shorter
buildings contribute just a much to the pedestrian activity, economic
vitality, and mending of Downtown's urban fabric as any high-rise, and so
in that regard 2005 was a banner year. Announced or under
construction this past year were the DNA building, the EPA building, the
New Sugar building, the Residence Inn, the Hilton Garden Inn, the Best
Western, the 15th & Wewatta Mixed-Use project (Opus), the 1800 Market
Street project (Corum) and Grant Park... and that's just in Downtown
proper. Stretching a bit into the Center City neighborhoods, we have the
19-story 1000 Speer project, the 22-story Hanover tower, and about 30
other projects of all shapes and sizes.
In 2005, we also had a
successful vote by Denver citizens to build a new Denver Justice Center that will
cover two and a half city blocks, news of a possible new Colorado Justice Center
and Colorado History Museum, rumors of a W Hotel for
the Central Platte Valley, and the planned conversion of the existing Embassy Suites into a Ritz
Carlton. Construction finally began in 2005 on the long-planned
redevelopment of East Village, and significant progress occurred on the
new Libeskind-designed wing of the Denver Art Museum and adjacent
mixed-use residential project. The permanent home for the Museum
of Contemporary Art was unveiled in 2005, along with news of a Clyfford
Still museum coming to Denver and the completion of the Ellie Caulkins
Opera House. The 1600 Glenarm conversion project transformed a
vacant office tower and its tired facade into a stylish new upscale
apartment tower, the gutted shell of the Columbine Building at 18th and
Sherman found new life as a Hampton Inn, and the Executive Tower Inn
finally started to receive a long-overdue rehab.
Downtown redevelopment
has been chugging along at a steady pace since the early 1990s, with most
of the activity occurring in the form of public-sector projects, historic
building conversions, and relatively modest-scale new construction.
What 2005 will be known for is the year that the private sector finally
took the leap back into the high-rise arena in Downtown. Not since
the early 1980s has there been the number of planned high-rises as there
is today. That's what makes 2006 such a critical year for Downtown.
Will any of these towers get built? Or will this be another cycle of
"couldn't get it done" in high-rise development for Downtown Denver?
Will we enter the second decade of the 21st Century with a dozen new
skyscrapers that enliven our skyline, propel our image as a cosmopolitan
top-tier city, and maximize the utilization of precious real estate?
Or will we find ourselves at that juncture with the same
stuck-in-the-Eighties skyline, with mid-rise development nibbling around
the edges of Downtown while ugly surface parking lots occupy the core of
our city? We may know the answers to those questions in 2006.
Finally, in 2005
DenverInfill.com was completed. I started this website in the
spring of 2004, but only got the Northeast Downtown subarea finished
before I had to shift my attention to other priorities. As 2005
began, this website consisted of not much more than just that one subarea
and blank placeholder pages for everything else. Methodically, I
worked my way through the remaining 144 Downtown blocks, through the 13
Center City neighborhoods and their 150 or so projects, and finally
concluded with a number of Special Features, the Infill Scoreboard, the Big Picture, and the Blog.
DenverInfill was finally "finished" (at least in terms of its base
content and structure) in July 2005. At that point, I finally
started to talk up the site a bit and get the search engines like Google
and Yahoo to crawl my site so it would come up on web searches about
Downtown development. When I first Googled the words "Denver" and
"infill" this past summer, this site didn't show up until about the
thirteenth page. DenverInfill.com is now the #1 search result
for those same two words on almost every major search engine! Site
traffic has grown steadily for DenverInfill, mostly through word of mouth. In January 2005, a grand total of 36 unique visitors
stumbled upon this website during that month. In December 2005, over 2,200
unique visitors checked out DenverInfill.com. Special thanks
to Aaron and Matt for their help during those early days when this site
was more of a vision than a reality, and to Joe and Rob for their ongoing support
and encouragement and for accompanying me on those many "field trips" to
take the 1,500+ photos that appear throughout this site. And of
course, thank you to all you regular DenverInfill visitors and for
your emails and tips on new infill projects. Have a great 2006!
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