This week, Denver celebrates the grand opening of the city’s newest architectural icon: the Art Museum’s Daniel Libeskind-designed Frederick Hamilton Wing. And there are several more iconic structures looming over downtown’s horizon.
Six internationally renowned architects (none of them local) are competing to design the Clyfford Still Museum, located on Bannock Street behind the Hamilton Wing.
Acclaimed London architect David Adjaye is designing the Museum of Contemporary Art’s new exhibit hall in the Platte Valley.
And the city awaits big-ego-architect Steven Holl’s scheme for the new courthouse at the downtown Justice Center campus.
Our charm bracelet is full. Now Denver should pause and attend to the strong, durable links necessary to weave this urban eye candy into a coherent, human-scaled whole.
It’s time to build a city. The opportunity is front and center with the imminent selection of the master developer for Denver’s Union Station.
Two credible teams are vying for the job: Union Station Partners, LLC, which is comprised of Phelps Development, Cherokee Investment Partners, Trammell Crow, Sage Hospitality, New Boston Fund and an array of architects and engineers; and Continuum Partners and East West Partners, two local developers with extensive holdings in the Platte Valley and Lower Downtown, which have assembled a team that includes DMJM Harris, Kiewit Construction and an impressive list of architects, planners and engineers.
The similarity in their proposals is significant:
Both teams pledge to install key transportation infrastructure by 2011, including light rail, regional bus service and ensuring the at-grade heavy rail behind Union Station is routed underground at 18th Street. Development on the site doesn’t work unless 18th Street is extended to the Platte Valley.
Both make substantial changes to the 2004 Master Plan while adhering to the dense, mixed-use development pattern envisioned by the plan.
Both move the regional bus service from beneath the Wynkoop Street plaza in front of the station to another location. Continuum-East West puts it underground behind the station, believing that getting the noxious diesel vehicles off the streets is important for downtown’s livability. USP places the buses in a multistory structure behind the Ice House, with housing above and a pedestrian bridge across 18th Street connecting the structure to the station.
The differences in the two approaches are equally significant.
Union Station Partners proposes two towers on 17th Street behind the station. The south tower (460 feet) and the north (540 feet) are more than double the height allowed in current zoning. Their scheme also includes two, 250-foot office towers at 16th Street and 18th Street at Wewatta.
Both towers will house a mix of hotel and condominiums. Whether the citizen-based Union Station Advisory Committee will support these mammoth structures is unclear. Whether the real estate market will support the density is unpredictable.
USP proposes to put the light rail beneath 17th Street, heading directly into the station, dividing the 19.5-acre site into 12 separate development parcels. Continuum-East West would keep light rail at grade and proposes a station at Chestnut Street – or, alternatively, heading into the station at grade, along 17th Street and stopping at the railroad tracks.
Because these two developers control much of the ground in the adjacent Platte Valley, they envision less density on the constrained Union Station site, because their land holdings expand the development footprint.
Both proposals exceed the $240 million allocated to develop this multimodal hub. Union Station Partners’ vision exceeds that amount by at least $350 million, Continuum-East West’s by $100 million.
USP needs a Hail Mary pass of gigantic proportions to fund the shortfall. Whether the market will accept the density they propose is unanswerable.
Continuum-East West has a lot at stake. Their adjacent land holdings will either benefit or lose value if the site doesn’t develop within a reasonable time frame – including appropriately located transportation and quality, well-designed, market-serving projects and civic space.
If the Regional Transportation District, the city and the state Department of Transportation can’t reach a fundable, buildable and marketable resolution with one of these developers, the citizens have the most to lose.
A key opportunity will be squandered. What could be a dynamic center of economic activity and human energy will instead be a lifeless construction zone for buses, trains and light rail.
It’s time to build a city.
Susan Barnes-Gelt (bs13@qwest.net) served eight years on the Denver City Council and was an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña. Her column appears on alternate Sundays.
