The teams vying to redevelop Denver’s Union Station will unveil their plans at a public forum tonight at the Paramount Theatre. The historic rail station will become the hub of metro Denver’s FasTracks rail system, as well as a retail anchor for lower downtown Denver.
Both teams have declined to discuss details until tonight’s meeting.
“We want to know what the public response is to the visions these teams have submitted to us,” said Liz Orr, the project’s master developer executive director. “They’re two different visions.”
What’s known so far is that Union Station Partners, led by Cherokee Investment Partners, stays true to the site’s master plan. It proposes burying bus lanes and heavy-, light- and commuter-rail lines below grade. It also proposes dividing the property into 12 parcels that would be sold as standalone-development sites for hotel, residential, retail and commercial projects.
“We’re excited about our proposal and think ours is the best. We think we’re going to win,” said Ferd Belz, president of Cherokee Denver LLC.
The team led by Continuum Partners and East West Partners proposes keeping the light-rail lines at grade and sending regional buses underground. It calls the plan a “financially achievable” way to overcome the project’s financial hurdles by 2011. The team also plans to develop all the parcels itself.
Several special-interest groups have their own ideas about what the development should include.
Friends of Union Station, for example, wants to ensure the early extension of 18th Street into the Central Platte Valley to minimize the impact of a new circulator shuttle on the surrounding neighborhood. That would entail burying heavy-rail lines early in the project.
It also is interested in plans for a new plaza area on the station’s Wynkoop Street side. The group would like to see it used for things that encourage pedestrian flow, such as stores, restaurants, markets, public entertainment, and bicycle and scooter rentals.
The Campaign for Responsible Development will be studying the plans with an eye toward jobs, sustainability and affordable housing.
“We’re very excited to see the physical plans and designs, but we also believe this project is about more than bricks and mortar,” said Robin Kniech, the campaign’s coordinator. “We also recognize it’s very early, so we see this as the beginning of a dialogue.”
The group wants housing to include units at prices lower than what is considered affordable under the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance.
Projects should contain housing that’s affordable to people earning 50 percent of area’s median income, or $25,100 for a single person and $32,250 for a family of up to three people.
“That would be hotel workers, retail workers, building service workers. A lot of downtown is run by workers who earn these incomes,” Kniech said. “They can live without a car and use transit for everything. If they live on transit, they have access to all kinds of jobs.”
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
Public forum
Issue: Union Station redevelopment presentations
Time: 5:30 to 9:30 tonight
Place: Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
“We’re very excited to see the physical plans and designs, but we also believe this proj ect is about more than bricks and mortar. … We see this as the beginning of a dialogue.”
Robin Kniech, Campaign for Responsible Development
