The Denver City Council tonight is expected to resolve a conflict that is complicating efforts to redevelop the former University of Colorado Health Sciences Center along Colorado Boulevard into a new “urban town center.”
The council will vote after two public hearings on whether to grant landmark designation to two buildings on the nearly 32-acre site.
Jamie White, the son of the architect of the two buildings, is seeking the landmark designation, saying they are worthy of protected status and should not be torn down.
White’s effort has drawn opposition from Shea Properties, which is seeking to turn the shuttered campus center and empty hospital into retail, entertainment, hotel and multi-unit residential uses.
Nearby neighborhood residents also have said they would rather see the buildings taken down to make way for a street grid pattern.
Council President Jeanne Robb and Councilwoman Marcia Johnson, both representing area residents who would be affected, also opposed the effort for landmark designation in past public meetings.
The designation would protect the John F. Kennedy Child Development Center, built in 1968, and the Children’s Psychiatric Day Care Center, built in 1962. Both are on East Eighth Avenue.
The Denver Landmark Preservation Commission has urged the buildings receive the landmark designation, saying they are good examples of the Usonian naturalistic architecture style popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Shea’s development plans call for tearing the buildings down. The Denver Planning Board voted in favor of those original plans and has sided against giving the buildings the landmark designation.
The medical school site became vacant when the Health Sciences Center relocated to the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.
The property is bounded by East Eighth Avenue on the south, Colorado Boulevard on the west, East 11th Avenue on the north and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Clermont Street to the east.
Marcus Pachner, a consultant working with Shea, said Shea is offering to preserve, at least for now, the day care center so White can have a chance to see if a future use for the structure can be found — if White withdraws his application.
As of late Friday, White had not accepted that offer and had not withdrawn his applications. He could not be reached for comment.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
