Thousands of new homes being proposed at Lowry have some residents worried about the impact on their neighborhoods.
Two projects that could add as many as 2,000 homes were not part of the original Lowry redevelopment plan created in the 1990s. Several others in the works, which were included in the plan, will add at least another 1,000 units.
Residents such as Gail Bell are questioning the need for so much housing. Bell says the projects will increase traffic and tax the school system.
“Denver is so overbuilt as it is,” she said. “When does it stop? When do you start thinking about the quality of life for the people who live here?”
Lowry resident Joyce Evans, who publishes The Lowry News, agrees.
“We’re landlocked, and we don’t have adequate transportation, and no matter what they did, we still wouldn’t have adequate transportation,” she said. “There’s no corridor to go down.”
But with signs throughout Lowry touting the community as a “Landmark Urban Neighborhood” – and the implication of density that accompanies the moniker – some wonder what all the fuss is about.
“I’m impacted,” said Betty Jean Dayoub, a Lowry resident and broker associate with the Kentwood Co. in Cherry Creek. “But progress trumps history.”
Planning to redevelop Lowry began in 1991, when the Department of Defense announced the 1,866-acre Lowry Air Force base would close. Lowry’s closure in 1994 cost the metro area 7,000 jobs and $295 million in annual spending.
Today, Lowry is about 80 percent built out, and its redevelopment has created a $5.7 billion gross economic impact between 1994 and 2005.
Home values in Lowry have escalated rapidly. According to a study by the Genesis Group, single-family homes at Lowry appreciated 78 percent from 2000 to 2006, compared with 45.2 percent for Denver as a whole.
Attached homes at Lowry, including town homes, lofts and condominiums, appreciated 62.9 percent from 2000 to 2006, compared with citywide appreciation of 29.9 percent over the same period, according to the report.
The planned redevelopment of the Buckley Annex, which was not part of the original redevelopment plan, is among the most contentious of the proposed projects. The 72-acre site, south of East First Avenue between Monaco Parkway and Quebec Street, is home to the Defense Finance Accounting Center, which at one point employed 3,000 people.
But after the center landed on the base-closure list in 2005, the Air Force contracted with the Lowry Redevelopment Authority to create a plan for the site. The Air Force ultimately will sell the site, which abuts both Lowry and Denver’s Crestmoor neighborhood, to a developer.
While plans still are in flux, the initial proposal calls for 1,000 residential units, 100,000 square feet of retail space and 100,000 square feet of commercial space. The height of the buildings has not been determined.
“It’s certainly more dense than a neighborhood like Crestmoor, but it’s less dense than Crestmoor Downs,” said Monty Force, the LRA’s deputy director, referring to an apartment complex adjacent to the Buckley Annex.
“We’re trying to find that balance between what is an appropriate use of an infill site and accommodating the surrounding neighborhoods,” he said.
Lowry’s original redevelopment plan calls for a four-story height limit. But the LRA has deviated from the reuse plan a number of times. For example, there was no retail town center in the original plan, but today, the Lowry Town Center is an important part of the community and home to hundreds of residents.
The Lowry neighborhoods most affected by the proposed development of the Buckley Annex would be West Lowry near Second and Quebec streets; Park Heights, where $1 million-plus homes back up to the south end of the site; and the six to eight $600,000 homes along Quebec that face the annex.
“I’m from New York – it’s not like I’m scared of density,” said resident Chris O’Connor, a former attorney who serves on Lowry’s restoration advisory board. “But it wasn’t designed to be here. We don’t have mass transit, and Alameda wasn’t designed to be that kind of corridor.”
Among the other controversial projects is International Risk Group’s proposal to build up to 1,000 residences on top of a remediated landfill to the east of the Mira Vista Golf Course on East Alameda Avenue.
The Air Force would pay for only a 2-foot soil cap on the landfill, so the 80-acre site never could be developed. Even soccer fields or a park that hosts concerts would generate enough traffic to breach the cap.
IRG bought the site for $10, with the understanding that it could develop it if it improved the cap, said Brent Anderson, the company’s chief executive. The company intends to improve the cap and develop the site.
“It will either be a fallow field with a fence around it, or it will end up with some development to subsidize a better cap,” Anderson said.
Many residents also are opposed to the redevelopment of Hangar 2, which will help finance nearly $7 million in renovations needed for improvements to the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in the adjacent Hangar 1.
Initially, IRG wanted to demolish the hangar and build 300 condos on the site. IRG revised its plans after residents voiced their concerns.
“We kept saying if you’re going to do something, there needs to be a wow factor,” said Dayoub, who serves on the Hangar 2 task force. “They got the wow factor.”
The latest plan, to be presented to the Landmark Preservation Commission on Aug. 21, calls for construction of three new buildings inside the existing hangar structure. It also reduces the number of residences to 230 and some retail space.
“I really hope it happens because it would be the coolest thing I’ve ever worked on,” said architect Brad Buchanan of Buchanan Yonushewski Group.
Other developments in the works include the East Park neighborhood, which will add up to 800 units; Luce, a 74-unit condo project across from Hangar 2; and the 125-unit Hangar Lofts on Lowry Boulevard.
The Colorado Community College System owns 150 acres adjacent to Lowry. It’s been working on a plan to redevelop up to 100 acres. The property would be made available to a developer either through a sale or ground lease, said Gwen Anderson, director of Lowry development for the college system.
Because the land was transferred directly from the federal government to the community college system, the LRA has no authority over how it’s developed. But the system plans to work closely with the LRA to make sure it complements development at Lowry, she said.
“It’s a very interesting parcel, and it’s in a good location,” she said. “We’re very optimistic that it can be very special not only for the college campus but for the surrounding community as well.”
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
