{"id":1057,"date":"2012-02-18T12:07:14","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T19:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1057"},"modified":"2012-09-29T06:44:16","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T12:44:16","slug":"developing-9th-and-colorado-part-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1057","title":{"rendered":"Citizen Input on 9th and Colorado: Architectural Form"},"content":{"rendered":"

This series of posts has been chronicling the development of the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center site at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado, a relatively small (28 acre) site that\u2019s being developed as a mixed use urban neighborhood.\u00a0 Attending the public meetings about the project has been a great opportunity to learn about what\u2019s involved in moving an urban infill project from idea to reality; for example, about General Development Plans, Design Standards and Guidelines<\/a>, and the latitude that developers have for \u201cplace-making.\u201d\u00a0 It has also been a terrific opportunity to take the pulse of what citizens value in their urban environments and what they take to be the \u201cgood city<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sign at Corner of Colorado Boulevard and 11th Avenue (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Colorado Boulevard Health District Board meeting and public hearing on February 2 offered some new conceptual renderings of arguably the two most significant aspects of the 9th<\/sup> and Colorado project, the Large Format (Big Box) retail store at 11th<\/sup> and Colorado, and the 8th<\/sup>\u00a0Avenue edge, or what\u2019s been dubbed \u201cRestaurant Row.\u201d\u00a0 These latest renderings were shaped by citizen input from the adjacent Bellevue-Hale neighborhood. \u00a0The Big Box store, as shown and described by the project architect, will incorporate several different architectural \u201clooks\u201d to break up the built mass that\u2019s required to contain 100,000 square feet of retail space. \u00a0These include \u00a0monumental stairs, terraces, grade changes, and other features designed to periodically alter the \u201crhythm\u201d of the building.\u00a0 This sounds very good in theory.\u00a0 After viewing a few conceptual renderings, however, one citizen \u00a0commented that the imagined building still looks \u201cblocky,\u201d \u201cclosed\u201d, uninviting, and institutional– reminiscent of a \u201chigh school.\u201d \u00a0Nothing has been finalized; project managers wryly intimated (and I sympathize!) that presenting, for public comment, conceptual drawings that are still very much works in progress is one of life\u2019s no-win propositions.<\/p>\n

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Conceptual Rending, 8th Avenue “Restaurant Row” (Sembler)<\/p><\/div>\n

Revised drawings for the 8th<\/sup> Avenue edge (above) met with a little more citizen enthusiasm.\u00a0 The plan here is to offer a mix of modern and traditional (i.e., turn of the 20th<\/sup> century) building styles that will break up the long block and also create a sense that the area grew \u201corganically\u201d over time instead of all at once. \u00a0There\u2019s also a concern to provide some contrast with the Big Box building. \u00a0Denver\u2019s popular Old South Pearl Street was mentioned as one existing model for what\u2019s desired.<\/p>\n

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Old South Pearl Street, Denver (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

The project architect is happy with the way that the 8th Avenue piece of the development is coming together as an exercise in \u201cplace-making\u201d. What struck me, however, is that no mention was made of the specifics<\/em> of this place nor of its history as a Health Sciences Center. \u00a0It seems\u00a0that any serious effort at place-making should take these specifics of history into account. \u00a0Certainly the preserved Nurses Dorm provides one touchstone, but nary a mention was made of it…unless it\u2019s taken-for-granted that this is the kind of early 20th<\/sup> century building style to be emulated.\u00a0 For their part, assembled citizens commented that they \u201cdon\u2019t want stucco\u201d, and would like the developer to avoid anything that looks like the Colorado Pointe<\/a> apartment buildings located directly across \u00a0Colorado Boulevard.\u00a0 I\u2019d add that it might be nice to consider something iconic<\/a><\/em> along with the traditional<\/em> and contemporary<\/em>, if the area is to be more visually interesting than the other architectures that are currently infilling Denver. Sembler Company is keen to receive more citizen input about architectural look.<\/p>\n

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Nurses Dorm (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

The other major topic for the meeting was a transportation analysis update.\u00a0 As noted in previous posts, projections suggest that there will be much less traffic moving into and out of the site compared to when it was used as a Heath Sciences Center.\u00a0 Denver Public Works and Planning personnel provided some interesting comparative data on anticipated number of trips into the site plus expected numbers of additional cars using adjacent off-site streets. \u00a0Daily car trips into the site when it was used as a Health Sciences Center numbered 27,392. The original developer\u2014Shea Properties\u2014anticipated 19,864 daily trips for its planned development of 1 million square feet of retail space.\u00a0 The current, less dense Sembler plan \u00a0(300,000 square feet of retail space) anticipates 13,991 daily trips.\u00a0 Thus Sembler expects \u00bd the number of car trips into site as whole compared to its old use.<\/p>\n

Citizens, however, remain concerned about the accuracy of these numbers and ask whether Sembler has a track record for delivering projects that don\u2019t exceed traffic projections.\u00a0 They\u2019re especially \u00a0concerned about traffic volume on specific residential streets that will feed into the project from the south of 8th Avenue (for site plan go here<\/a>).\u00a0 Denver traffic engineers predict that these streets will carry between 170-280 more cars per day\u00a0 than currently.\u00a0 The chief concern for local parents is that these streets have lots of kids walking to a local elementary school.\u00a0 Several of these streets also lack sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk in<\/em> the street.\u00a0\u00a0 These observations produced some interesting back-and-forth. \u00a0Several well-informed and well-spoken mothers channeled their inner Jane Jacobs to press Denver officials on the arrangements that would ensure \u00a0kid safety. The traffic engineers insist that their first concern is always safety. They offered \u00a0comparative vehicle counts for \u00a0\u201ctypical\u201d Denver streets that are a lot higher than for those\u00a0 around 8th<\/sup> and Colorado. \u00a0Project managers also reminded the audience that the key planning goal for this development is to restore the street grid and the site\u2019s connectivity to the surrounding area.\u00a0 Citizens support that, but not at the expense of pedestrian safety.\u00a0\u00a0 It was noted that if development is successful beyond expectations\u2014certainly a developer goal!\u2014then there could be more traffic than anticipated (but see here<\/a> for an account of how the Big Box store might offset these increases by encouraging residents in the vicinity of the project to walk much more).\u00a0 In short, citizens asked city officials to consider incorporating more \u201ctraffic calming\u201d measures around the site.\u00a0 This request was well received: public works people will meet with residents to talk about the measures that could be taken to maximize pedestrian safety.<\/p>\n

The next meeting of the Colorado Boulevard Health District Board will be Thursday, March 1 at 4:00, Molly Blank Conference Center of National Jewish Hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This series of posts has been chronicling the development of the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center site at 9th and Colorado, a relatively small (28 acre) site that\u2019s being developed as a mixed use urban neighborhood.\u00a0 Attending the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9th-and-colorado"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-h3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2065,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions\/2065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}