{"id":661,"date":"2011-10-09T18:25:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T00:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=661"},"modified":"2014-08-09T17:06:22","modified_gmt":"2014-08-09T23:06:22","slug":"developing-9th-and-colorado-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=661","title":{"rendered":"Why Not Save the Historic 9th Avenue Bridge?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Sembler.dp_.Map_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-676\" title=\"Sembler.dp.Map\" src=\"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Sembler.dp_.Map_-256x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"256\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>In this series of posts (for earlier ones see the \u201c9<sup>th<\/sup> and Colorado\u201d category) we\u2019ve been chronicling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sembler.com\/\">Sembler Company<\/a> plans for developing the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center campus at 9<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, and also editorializing as the spirit moves. \u00a0I couldn\u2019t attend last Wednesday\u2019s Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District (CBHD) Board meeting because of another commitment, but my colleague <a href=\"http:\/\/www.contemporaryurbananthropology.org\/team.php\">Kyle Cascioli<\/a> went and wrote up a few notes.<\/p>\n<p>The plan reported here was apparently preceded by another developed over the summer that was deemed unacceptable by CBHD Board Chair Mary Nell Wolff. \u00a0This led to cancellation of the public meeting scheduled for September while the development team (including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davispartner.com\/\">Davis Partnership Architects<\/a>) went back to the drawing board. The plan discussed last week was described by Wolff as \u201cgreatly improved.\u201d\u00a0 Key elements of the revised plan include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Creation of a more consistent \u201curban edge\u201d to the project.\u00a0 The perimeter visibility of retail space and signage has been reduced\u2014apparently this was the major rub of the earlier plan\u2014so as to better integrate the development into the existing fabric of the Colorado Boulevard corridor.\u00a0 \u00a0Screen walls and planters will also be used to better conceal the backs of retail buildings.<\/li>\n<li>Improved pedestrian access to the site.\u00a0 This is a major emphasis of the new plan.\u00a0 This includes creating several pedestrian \u201cislands\u201d for 9<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Avenue and more below grade parking.<\/li>\n<li>Expanded footprint for the old campus quad that\u2019s adjacent to the preserved 1920s Nurses Dorm. The quad will serve as the \u201ccultural center\u201d of the development. The center will be filled with some sort of physical feature; e.g., a sundial or a water fountain (alternatively, some sort of historical marker recognizing the site&#8217;s medical history, or associative statue akin to a three dimensional <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vitruvian_man\">Vitruvian Man<\/a>, or some relevant, specially-commissioned piece of public art would also be appropriate). The Nurses Dorm will have offices on the second floor and upscale sit-down restaurants on the first floor.<\/li>\n<li>Elimination of the 1965 bridge over 9<sup>th<\/sup> Avenue that linked the old hospital and research library.\u00a0 The first developer (Shea Properties) had targeted this bridge for multi-story rental housing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_679\" style=\"width: 330px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Research-Bridge.shea_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-679\" class=\"size-full wp-image-679 \" title=\"Research Bridge.shea\" src=\"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Research-Bridge.shea_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"276\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-679\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quad is at center, just right of L-shaped structure; 9th Avenue bridge is center left.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There are still no details about the identity of the Big Box or \u201cLarge Format\u201d anchor tenant.\u00a0 Sembler has letters of intent from a diverse group of restaurants and other soft and hard goods retailers that will populate the site.<\/p>\n<p>During the Q&amp;A one citizen asked whether certain mature flowering trees will be preserved as part of green space. \u00a0Sembler will be looking at that.\u00a0 Another questioned whether anything in the development\u2019s architecture will reflect \u00a0the diversity of housing styles (Art Deco, Spanish Colonial, Tudor) that characterizes the adjacent neighborhood.\u00a0 Shea\u2019s original plan stipulated creation of a \u201cnew architecture\u201d that would create spaces and character to tie the site together and complement the surrounding community.\u00a0 However, it&#8217;s not clear that such a commitment is in the cards with Sembler.\u00a0 Conceptual renderings of the site continue to represent the buildings in a generic neo-modern style.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_935\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/1965Bridge7.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-935\" class=\"size-full wp-image-935\" title=\"1965Bridge7\" src=\"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/1965Bridge7.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-935\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">1965 Bridge over 9th Avenue, Looking east from Colorado Boulevard (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Apparently elimination of the 9<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Avenue Research Bridge has been widely applauded. \u00a0However, preserving something of its structure and form\u2014if only a hint on whatever new buildings will rise on either side of the road at that location\u2014would be a nice touch especially since the louvered windows on the 1965 hospital and bridge suggest a commitment to \u201cgreen\u201d building before it became fashionable.\u00a0 There\u2019s some suggestion that the materials used to rebuild throughout the project will reference the site\u2019s medical school history, but there are no details yet. \u00a0There\u2019s also the matter of what the development will be called, but nothing has been formally proposed.<\/p>\n<p>The next CBHD Board meeting is tentatively scheduled for November 10. At that time various neighborhood groups will be asked to voice their approval of the new project in its current proposed form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this series of posts (for earlier ones see the \u201c9th and Colorado\u201d category) we\u2019ve been chronicling Sembler Company plans for developing the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center campus at 9th\u00a0Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, and also editorializing as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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-661","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-aF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3363,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions\/3363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}