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■ 32-acre site will feature mixed-use on Colorado Blvd., up to 1,200 residences
BY RORY SEEBER
GRAPHICS COURTESY OF DAVIS PARTNERSHIP ARCHITECTS
Judging by the reaction of the approximately 150 people who attended a community meeting Jan. 10, Shea Properties’ plans for the former University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) campus at 9th & Colorado are right on track.
“This is exciting to me. I’m really pleasantly surprised,” said one woman, a resident of the Hilltop neighborhood south of the 32-acre property.
“We’re not looking for a project we can make a bunch of money on and then run off and count that money somewhere else,” Shea Homes Colorado president Chetter Latcham, a Denver native, told the gathering.
“We are here for the long-haul,” Latcham continued. “Our goal is to return this project to the neighborhood and then sort of blend back into the neighborhood. We are not looking for accolades....What we want people to do is drive through the community when we’re done and say, ‘Is this old or is this new? It sure feels good and it sure fits into the neighborhood.’”
Shea was chosen as the master developer for the site in 2004 and has been conducting comprehensive planning sessions ever since, meeting with city representatives, the Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District (CBHD), which co-hosted the meeting, business owners, and neighborhood groups.
The CBHD is acting as the community advisory committee for the as-yet unnamed project, for which site work is scheduled to begin with hazardous material remediation by the UCHSC (as part of the contract) when the purchase of the first 10-acre parcel of property north of 9th Ave. along Colorado Blvd. is finalized in January of next year.
A PURELY CONCEPTUAL VIEW of the completed project shows all of the conjectured structures, in grey, including the seven preserved buildings, along with the saved & new open spaces, in green.
Shea, operating the ambitious project under a new entity entitled Shea Neighbors, has roughly divided the property in three “zones” which will be redeveloped in three primary phases (see map, above left).
Zone 1/Phase One is bordered by Colorado Blvd., 9th, 11th and Bellaire. Zone 2/Phase Two is between 8th & 9th and will be bordered by (a new) Ash St. on the east. The final zone and phase is the far southeastern portion of the site, delimited by 8th, 9th, Ash & Clermont.
Rose Medical Center lies north of 9th and east of Clermont, while the Veterans Administration Hospital is situated to the immediate northeast of Zone 1, between Bellaire, 11th and Hale Pkwy.
According to a rough schedule announced at the meeting, after work begins on Phase One in approximately one year’s time, Zone 2 is to be razed in January 2010 for Phase Two, and the final zone and phase a year later.
Davis Partnership Architects is the lead architect for the project.
Shea seeks to re-zone the property (it intended to file the re-zoning application with its General Development Plan at the end of January) with three different districts, each primarily focused on one of Shea’s three “zones” listed above.
Zone 1 and Zone 2 are envisioned as commercial mixed-used areas with offices and ground floor retail, possibly including an anchor store as well as smaller retailers, restaurants, perhaps a movie theatre complex, a hotel and some residences. It would be re-zoned as CMU-10 (Commercial Mixed Use).
According to Denver’s zoning code, CMU-10 is “the most restrictive of the commercial mixed-use districts, with the shortest list of allowed uses. It includes commercial uses appropriate for high-visibility locations such as employment centers and the intersections of arterial streets. The purpose of the district is to concentrate higher intensity commercial uses, spatially define streets, encourage higher site standards, and create a more attractive pedestrian environment.”
The eastern portion of Shea’s Zone 2 will be re-zoned RMU-20 (Residential Mixed Use) if Shea’s application is approved. Again according to the zoning law, such a district is “primarily residential, allowing either single or multiple-unit dwellings. Along heavily traveled streets, development may be either residential or mixed-use, combining residential with neighborhood-serving retail, office, or service uses.”
IF THE PROJECT ADHERES TO ITS ANNOUNCED SCHEDULE, work in the area labeled ‘Phase One’ above would begin in about a year, with the following phases planned for 2010 & 2011.
Shea plans two- to four-story residential development along 8th as well as some office and retail uses. A new four- to five-story parking garage will likely be constructed south of the existing bridge over 9th and be wrapped by other elements of the project.
The final requested re-zoning, the higher density RMU-30, would be applied to Shea’s Zone 3, east of Ash to Clermont and south of 9th, where the existing parking garage would also be wrapped, primarily with residences, and a variety of residential will be built, including one or two high-rises.
A small segment of Zone 1 north of the existing hospital building would also carry this designation.
A total of approximately 1,200 new residences will be built for the project, ranging from one-bedroom apartments to luxury condominiums. As per the city’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, at least 10% of the new housing will be classified as affordable.
Shea has decided to save seven existing structures on the campus, more than originally projected three years ago. Brit Probst of the Davis Partnership noted that the structures fairly well demonstrate the variety of architectural styles as they evolved during the 20th Century.
The structures, as numbered in the drawing, upper right, and their proposed re-uses are:
1–The eight-story, 1,100 space parking garage built in the 1990s on the southeast corner of 11th & Colorado will be “wrapped” with retail development.
The current conceptual plan contemplates utilizing the parking structure for residents. A dedicated bridge for the residents to the proposed commercial/movie theatre complex to the east of the garage is shown on the plan to accommodate this.
2–The eight-story bio-medical research building on the southeast corner of 9th & Colorado will be refashioned to contain a hotel/condominium residential tower with ground-floor retail.
(This is not to be confused with a six-story, extended-stay hotel to be built on the southeast corner of 8th & Colorado by private developer/hotelier Charlie Biederman, which when completed is likely to contain the popular Annie’s Cafe, which sits on the site.)
3–The four-story Skaggs School of Pharmacy, built in 1994 on the north side of 8th at what would be approximately Albion, will be redesigned to house neighborhood-serving retail, perhaps with added underground parking.
4–The 1965 research bridge over 9th between Albion and Ash will be refashioned to supply seven stories of rental housing.
5–Plans have not been finalized for the three-story 1920s-era nurses’ dormitory south of 9th between approximately Ash and Bellaire.
The dormitory sits on the north side of a grassy quadrangle, which is one of four primary large open spaces to be preserved in the project (see map, upper left). The developers are currently evaluating residential use for the dormitory, with parking in the adjacent proposed development that would be built on the westerly portion of the quad.
6–The four- to five-story, 1,000-space parking garage on the southwest corner of 9th & Clermont, built in the 1980s, will be “wrapped and given a facelift.” Like all the parking structures in the completed project, it will not be visible as a parking garage per se.
7–The primary hospital structure north of 9th, which forms the cross of a “T” with the research bridge when seen from above, was constructed in 1964 but has benefitted from later updates.
SEVEN EXISTING CAMPUS BUILDINGS, numbered in the map at left, will be preserved.
The building will be re-skinned and some of its western edge will be eliminated so it will not protrude into a new Albion (see below). The plan is to incorporate its lower floors into retail spaces for the Albion corridor and the upper floors into rental residential.
Besides the quadrangle, other preserved open areas include north of 9th across from the quadrangle, the northeast corner of 8th & Colorado, and the northeast corner of 9th & Colorado west of the research bridge (once some structures have been razed).
New open spaces will be provided in Zone 3 south of the parking garage on Clermont.
As explained by Lynn A. Moore of the Davis Partnership, as many of the existing mature trees as possible will be preserved, and open spaces will make the commercial areas north of 9th on Colorado more “permeable” to motorists and pedestrians.
The preservation of such buildings as the original hospital and the nurses’ dormitory will not allow a normal street grid to be re-established. Such a project would also entail re-aligning some of the north-south routes.
However, several new streets are proposed (see map, upper right), among them: what has been facetiously called “eight-and-a-half avenue,” to run east-west from Colorado to Bellaire between 8th & 9th; a new Bellaire from 8th to the new east-west avenue; a new Albion south from 11th to the new avenue; and a new Ash, north-south between 8th and 9th.
The new east-west route will be made possible by the demolition of at least two large UCHSC structures.
During a question & answer period after the presentation, those gathered asked about Shea’s experience with such projects, especially the “creative re-use” of older buildings; the traffic impact from the completed project; parking; the percentage of for-sale vs. rental residences; and financing for the project in the current unstable real estate and mortgage markets, among other queries.
Shea president Latcham said that the company has a long history of major projects since its founding in 1881, including participation in the construction of the Golden Gate bridge and Hoover Dam, and several projects which involved re-use of older structures.
THE NEW STREETS IN THE DEVELOPMENT AREA, seen in blue at left, would include three blocks of Albion, upper left of map, an east-west street between 8th & 9th, and one-block extensions of Ash & Bellaire.
He explained that such new residential community developments as Highlands Ranch and Reunion are actually “anomalies” if all of the company’s projects are considered.
Using previous traffic studies of the campus (including one from 2003) and considering the approximately 1,200 new residences planned and the new retail attractions, it is estimated that on-street parking in the surrounding neighborhoods will likely decrease 14% when the project is completed. In addition, with the construction of new garages and additional streets, there will be a net gain of more than 1,000 parking spaces within the project’s boundaries.
Latcham explained that the percentage of rental vs. owned residences will be market-driven. Currently in Denver about 60% of residences are rented. He assumes that the project will be about evenly split when completed, but he noted that developers need to be “right” with their estimates before building apartments, especially high-rises.
“We have to know there will be a market for the eight- to 12-story buildings,” he said.
As for funding, Latcham said that Shea has an (untouched) $1.25 billion line of credit.
“We have never walked away from a project,” he said. “This is not contingent on financing.”
As noted throughout the meeting, the project will continue to be affected by public input.
Earlier Latcham had said that nothing has yet been approved by the city.
“As we continue with the entitlement and planning process we have been encouraged by the continued support from the neighborhoods,” Latcham continued. “Since early 2005, we have held over 100 meetings with neighbors and various groups and have continued to learn from and gain insight on what the community wants. We think the current plan, although still a work in process, contains the majority of the elements that will make this a vibrant and elegant landmark for the community.
“In our recent January public meetings we presented to over 350 people. Our goal in these meetings was to see if there were any major objections to our conceptual plan before we submitted the formal GDP to the City in early February. We have received resounding support for the direction we’re headed and heard several suggestions that will help us refine our thinking as we move forward but on a whole.
“We have done as much as we can to make sure that everybody’s voice is heard,” he said.“Some of you are going to like what we do more than others, but at the end of the day it’s a (project) you can look at and say, ‘They delivered the promise of what they said they would do.’”
“We have been encouraged by the continued support from the neighborhoods,” Shea Homes vice president Steven Mulhern told LIFE. “Since early 2005 we have held over 100 meetings with neighbors and various groups and have continued to learn from and gain insight on what the community wants. In our January public meetings our goal was to see if there were any major objections to our conceptual plan before we submitted the formal General Development Plan (GDP) to the city. We have received resounding support for the direction we’re headed and heard several suggestions that will help us refine our thinking as we move forward.”
Several more public meetings will be held in the months ahead, including some required by the city. None had been scheduled as of deadline. Review of a GDP can take up to six months.
For more information, visit sheaneighbors.com online.
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