{"id":71,"date":"2011-06-24T11:44:40","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T17:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/interculturalurbanism.wordpress.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2012-09-29T06:53:15","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T12:53:15","slug":"developing-9th-and-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Introducing 9th and Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more interesting urban infill projects taking shape in Denver is the redevelopment of the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center campus at 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.\u00a0 The best reporting on this project and its history can be found at the Life on Capitol Hill<\/a> website.\u00a0\u00a0 Planning began in 2004 with the original purchase of the site by Shea Properties.\u00a0 In February 2011 Shea pulled out of the project, and in April the site was put under contract for purchase\u00a0 by The Sembler Company<\/a> of St. Petersburg, Florida.<\/p>\n

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Portion of former Health Sciences Center Campus (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sembler seeks to create, as did Shea, a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use development having a \u201ctown center\u201d feel.\u00a0\u00a0 The site is only 28 acres, however, which is relatively small by town center standards (about \u00bc the typical size).\u00a0 It thus presents unique development challenges.\u00a0 At a public meeting of the Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District (CBHD) advisory board on June 14, 2011 Sembler\u2019s Atlanta-based president Jeff Fuqua discussed a bit of what his company has in mind.\u00a0 The site is currently envisioned as having about half the density as originally proposed by Shea, with little to no office space. The retail-residential split would be about 50-50.\u00a0 A \u201crestaurant row\u201d is envisioned for the 8th Avenue edge, one that\u2019s populated by distinctive, local establishments.\u00a0 Sembler is planning to include\u2014in response to community input\u2014a natural foods grocery store, perhaps in \u201clarge format<\/a>\u201d form (which is one of the Company\u2019s specialities).\u00a0\u00a0 Residential space would lean to multi-family rentals.\u00a0 A few streets truncated by the original medical center buildings would be re-connected to the existing street grid.\u00a0 One building of historical significance (a 1920s nurses dormitory that\u2019s possibly suited for office space) would be preserved along with its adjacent grassy \u00a0quadrangle. Parking would not be visible from anywhere along the periphery of the\u00a0developed site.\u00a0 Sembler hopes to close on the property at the end of 2011, begin construction in May 2012, and open early in 2014.<\/p>\n

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

Mr. Fuqua\u2019s report seemed to resonate with the assembled citizens.\u00a0\u00a0 They like the company\u2019s expressed preference for local as opposed to national retailers.\u00a0 Their concerns about the provision of green space and bikeways, and how traffic and noise will be mediated during construction were briefly but successfully addressed\u2026at least for the moment!\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Fuqua (himself a Colorado native, raised in Lakewood) clearly appreciates that this is a unique site located along a stretch of boulevard that doesn\u2019t have much interesting going on to either the north or south. \u00a0And whereas Shea originally planned to keep 6 campus buildings besides the nurses dormitory Sembler will keep only the dorm. With this largely open canvas there’s excellent potential to create a distinctive site plan and architecture using “city-as-body” or “heart of the city” metaphors that would honor the site’s medical history, attract residents and consumers and\u2014to the extent that the site sits at the boundary of several different, somewhat diverse Denver neighborhoods\u2014help stitch together surrounding communities. \u00a0Thus, there’s much to look forward to as development proceeds, beginning with the more detailed site plan that Sembler Company officials intend to provide at the next CBHD board meeting on July 14, 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more interesting urban infill projects taking shape in Denver is the redevelopment of the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center campus at 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.\u00a0 The best reporting on this project and its history […]<\/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-71","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-19","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","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=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2072,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/2072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}