{"id":2288,"date":"2012-12-14T17:51:04","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T00:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=2288"},"modified":"2012-12-15T09:00:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T16:00:14","slug":"reconfiguring-placemaking-at-9th-and-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=2288","title":{"rendered":"Reconfiguring 9th and Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the ending of the Walmart War<\/a> at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado the main players are back at the drawing board.\u00a0 Mayor Hancock, developer Jeff Fuqua, City Councilwoman Jeanne Robb and others have their say in this press release<\/a> from the Mayor\u2019s office, as well as in this story<\/a> from the Denver Business Journal<\/i>.\u00a0 According to a Denver Post<\/i> report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

After Walmart exited, Hancock convened all the parties \u2014 CU, Fuqua, City Council members, city staff and the development authority \u2014 to come up with another plan, <\/i>[the Mayor\u2019s Chief of Staff Janice] Sinden said. “Quite frankly, it was to say, ‘We’re going to do this right, not fast,’ ” she said. “And we’re going to really ensure that this is something the community is incredibly proud of. And that is going to take some time. And he put a lot of responsibility on the developer to reach back out into the retail community and come up with options.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What the developer has come up with as an alternative anchor tenant is the well-known Kroger\/King Soopers<\/a> chain of grocery stores.\u00a0 The particular kind<\/i> of store that will anchor the site is still being discussed, but according to the Post<\/i>:<\/p>\n

\u2026one option being explored is a Fresh Fare<\/a> store \u2014 one of Kroger’s new-style stores that have upscale meats and seafood, gourmet cheeses and natural and organic foods, as well as chef-prepared meals to take home, besides the usual array of grocery items.\u00a0 “That’s what we are advocating for, as upscale a market center as we can possibly secure in that community,” Sinden said\u2026<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"KSFF.800\"<\/a>

King Soopers Fresh Fare store at Kent Place, University and Hampden, Denver (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

The news of King Soopers as anchor tenant inspired the following ringing endorsement from Councilwoman Jeanne Robb:<\/p>\n

“The grocery store is fine. It’s maybe not exciting, but it’s definitely fine\u2026What we need to work on is mixed uses. We wouldn’t get that with the previous tenant.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m not sure why having Walmart as an anchor tenant would have precluded mixed use. \u00a0The potential for adding more “rooftops,” to use Councilwoman Robb’s words, was always there. Walmart certainly would have brought more merchandise and price variety to the mix.\u00a0 But that issue aside, there\u2019s certainly more talk today about including office space, senior housing, affordable housing, and even a hotel.<\/p>\n

Citizen responses to the prospect of having King Soopers as an anchor tenant have run the gamut from \u201cAnything is better than Walmart\u201d to \u201cKroger is just as bad as Walmart.\u201d \u00a0There\u2019s widespread relief that Walmart is out of the mix, but also a palpable lack of excitement about the substitute.\u00a0 One of the more thoughtful comments on the Post<\/i> story<\/a> comes from \u201cRB\u201d:<\/p>\n

I don’t like the idea of a grocery store — we already have a Whole Foods, a nice Safeway, and Marczyk’s in our neighborhood, and a King Soopers is of a lower quality than all of these.\u00a0 I’m not familiar with Fresh Fare, but it would seem to duplicate the WF and Marcyzk’s at least somewhat. \u00a0\u00a0The problem with a grocery store is that it requires a lot of surface parking, which is exactly what we DON’T want at the 9th\/Colorado site. We want a dense urban streetscape, not a suburban-type auto-oriented development with a sea of surface parking. If they can place all of the parking into underground structures of some type, or simply have a very limited amount of parking \u2026that would be more acceptable. But the neighborhood will fight any development proposal that isn’t high density and that includes surface parking lots that are visible from the major arterial streets surrounding the site.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"CBHD.800\"<\/a>

Denver City Councilwomen Susman and Robb addressing the Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District Board Meeting, Hill Middle School, 6 December 2012 (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/b>If \u201cRB\u201d is right that the neighbors don\u2019t want surface parking then they\u2019re in for some disappointment.\u00a0 As disclosed at last week\u2019s Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District (CBHD) board meeting<\/a>\u2014and as anticipated by RB\u2014King Soopers doesn\u2019t need underground parking. So, that feature appears to be off the table (Walmart, on the other hand, planned for it).\u00a0 Interestingly (but unsurprisingly), neighborhood opposition to surface parking apparently doesn\u2019t extend to the Trader Joe\u2019s<\/a> store that\u2019s committed to moving in at the corner of 8th<\/sup> and Colorado, just across the street.\u00a0 \u00a0Last week\u2019s CBHD meeting also disclosed that Trader Joe\u2019s will not only have surface parking but also a surface lot that\u2019s bigger<\/i> than what they anticipate needing.\u00a0 And apparently that\u2019s just fine with the neighbors who were in attendance because there was no noticeable outcry.<\/p>\n

\"TJs\"<\/a>

Trader Joe’s site plan for 8th and Colorado<\/p><\/div>\n

Haunting all of these discussions is a concern about whether the development will have any \u201csense of place.\u201d \u00a0Citizens are of multiple minds about placemaking. \u00a0Some want a place that says \u201clocal\u201d\u2014as in a majority of local Colorado retailers.\u00a0 Some want a place that says \u201cupscale,\u201d in order to attract a particular kind of crowd.\u00a0 Some want a place that the local neighborhoods can \u201cown.\u201d \u00a0Some want green space. It\u2019s not clear what any of this means from the standpoint of urban design.\u00a0 On her Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0City Council President Mary Beth Susman says that there\u2019s \u201c<\/b>more of a chance of having a sense of place\u201d now that Walmart has been vanquished.\u00a0 But just like I\u2019m skeptical of Councilwoman Robb\u2019s claim that Walmart\u2019s presence somehow precluded mixed use, I\u2019m not sure why King Soopers would facilitate placemaking any better than Walmart.\u00a0 Especially since grocery stores generate less tax revenue\u2014and thus fewer placemaking resources\u2014than other anchor tenants. \u00a0Folks at the \u00a0anti-Walmart website that\u2019s been renamed as Do It Right at 9th<\/sup><\/a> say that King Soopers is a \u00a0step in the right direction, but that has more to do with liberal politics rather than any coherent placemaking vision. \u00a0Except for offering up a few boilerplate generalities<\/a> the website offers no real substance about what\u2019s \u201cright\u201d at 9th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

In multiple posts on this blog<\/a> we\u2019ve advocated for placemaking that (1) reflects\u2013in both substance and architectural style\u2014the site\u2019s history as a health sciences center and (2) welcomes the burgeoning ethnic diversity of urban cores. The first of these considerations prescribes\u2014drawing on \u201chealthy city\u201d and \u201cheart of the city\u201d metaphors\u2014an identity-establishing signature building, the adaptive reuse of a few more significant existing structures, full enclosure of the central Quadrangle to create a more intimate and pedestrian-friendly public space, better (and safer) pedestrian and bicycle connections between the site and the playing fields of Congress Park, and a Denver B-cycle station. The \u201cstreet gyms<\/a>\u201d used in Santiago, Chile to prompt physical activity and enliven public space would also be nice amenities, especially for kids and moms.\u00a0 The second consideration prescribes\u2014drawing on intercultural<\/i> city<\/a> ideals\u2014at least a few value shopping alternatives, a critical mass of “hard” public space (including parking lots<\/a>) where \u201cinformal economies\u201d can be encouraged and supported, and housing to accommodate not only multi-generational “Next Gen<\/a>” families but also a broader swath of\u00a0cultural<\/a> and economic<\/a> diversity. \u00a0At the CBHD meeting Council President Susman noted that she wants to see more “pocketbooks” on the site, referring to prospective residents. I trust she understands that not all pocketbooks are of the same size, quality, and color.<\/p>\n

Twenty twelve began<\/a> with preliminary discussion of 9th<\/sup> and Colorado design guidelines and citizen concerns about what the development will \u201cfeel\u201d like.\u00a0 The year ends with the same guidelines in place but everything else in flux.\u00a0 Thankfully, there are lots of ideas and examples percolating through the urban blogs and scholarly literature that can serve as useful fodder for imagining a great, context-sensitive place.\u00a0 Here\u2019s hoping that 2013 will bring broader, better-informed, and more creative thinking about placemaking at 9th<\/sup> and Colorado and how the enterprise might serve the entire<\/i> city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the ending of the Walmart War at 9th and Colorado the main players are back at the drawing board.\u00a0 Mayor Hancock, developer Jeff Fuqua, City Councilwoman Jeanne Robb and others have their say in this press release from 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-2288","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-AU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288","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=2288"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2307,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288\/revisions\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}