Last week’s presentations for the restoration of Denver’s Union Station were a visual feast. Two competing developers produced scale models and artists’ renderings of an exquisitely renovated structure with underground trains.
What no one produced was the money to deliver the urban renaissance splayed across table and screen.
Maybe it would have sullied the sales pitch. Still, it’s hard to understand how dollars don’t play at least as big a role as pretty pictures in one of the city’s grandest renewal ventures.
Without money to pay for it, talking about a transit center that costs $300 million in one case and $515 million in the other is like picking Versailles for your dream home.
Here’s how much money the voter-approved FasTracks initiative set aside for fixing up Union Station – $213.7 million.
The principals of both the proposed Union Station plans said the formula for making the figures work will come later.
“We’re looking at any alternative for closing the gap,” said Ferd Belz, the president of Union Station Partners LLC.
Well, not exactly any alternative.
Union Station Partners is looking for $300 million in new public subsidies to pay for its $515 million “vision.”
Continuum Partners and East West Partners, the other group seeking to renovate in and around Union Station, needs $85 million to make a go of its $300 million transit center plan. Continuum, said finance specialist Tom Gougeon, is looking for a “public financing mechanism.”
Aren’t we all.
Most people understand that the choices at Union Station will affect Denver’s place in the history of great American cities. Make no small plans and all that.
“This is a process,” Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said Monday. “One plan is a couple of hundred million more. Is what we get really worth that?”
Hizzoner didn’t answer.
“Long-term infrastructure decisions are the hardest,” he said. “They demand a breadth of vision.”
Thing is, they demand big public bucks, which the public should know about upfront.
Clearly, the residents of Denver and Colorado will benefit from an updated Union Station. Union Station Partners likened it to Rockefeller Plaza in New York. East West-Continuum pledged a sumptuous urban corridor. The question is what people must forgo in other public services to enjoy the amenity.
“I don’t think it has to be either-or,” Hickenlooper said.
The mayor then talked about reallocating existing resources to have parks and rec workers mow school lawns.
Hickenlooper is an eternal optimist. He plans on getting lots of federal money to plug the gap at Union Station.
“We need to get a consensus among our congressional representatives to make this a priority,” he said.
Say that again.
FasTracks was a huge bond issue for a regional transportation system. That meant it couldn’t include “bells and whistles” for Union Station, said Hickenlooper.
The initiative process “is not a bad system,” the mayor continued. “It forces the machine to run leanly.”
There is nothing lean about the current proposals for Union Station. Think buried trains, pedestrian promenades, a 45-story hotel/apartment tower and, of course, period restoration in a century-old Denver architectural icon.
“I look forward to finding (antique) chandeliers on eBay,” said Doug McKean, who would be Union Station Partners’ project manager.
McKean and company are looking for the public to pay for that attention to detail. So is East West-Continuum. Both developers are counting on things like federal tax credits and keeping a portion of local taxes collected at their developments to help pay off transit center debt. Even so, the financing gaps are as big as the eyes of many who ogled the developers’ gorgeous illusions of grandeur last week.
Former Denver Mayor Federico Peña once challenged people here to imagine a great city.
Eventually, we also have to imagine a city we can afford.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
