{"id":803,"date":"2011-11-22T08:38:38","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T15:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=803"},"modified":"2012-09-29T06:46:06","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T12:46:06","slug":"developing-9th-and-colorado-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=803","title":{"rendered":"Citizen Input on 9th and Colorado: Connectivity and Public Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

At its meeting on November 10th<\/sup> the Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District (CBHD) Board gave its blessing to Sembler Company\u2019s latest conceptual plan for developing the infill site at 9th<\/sup> Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.\u00a0 Some details were reported here<\/a>, with a more complete report filed by Rory Seeber for Life on Capitol Hill<\/a>.\u00a0 The plan has been discussed with and approved by most relevant neighborhood associations (the Congress Park vote is still pending).\u00a0 The November 10 Board meeting summarized the project\u2019s guiding principles and community outreach efforts. \u00a0The Board Chair, Mary Nell Wolff, suggested that this outreach has made for a better plan than the one that was initially proposed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

9th and Colorado Conceptual Overview (Sembler Company and Davis Partnership)<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s a lot to like in the revised plan.\u00a0 The emphasis is clearly on making active, pedestrian-friendly streets and spaces.\u00a0 The latest plan has one-third the vehicular density of the original plan developed by Shea Properties. \u00a0There will be much less surface parking than when the site was occupied by the Health Sciences Center.\u00a0 Fifty percent of the total parking will be below grade.\u00a0 The plan reflects great sensitivity to \u201cview corridors.\u201d\u00a0 Screen walls and landscaping will make it almost impossible to see internal surface parking lots from anywhere on the perimeter of site.<\/p>\n

A new feature is a mid-block plaza between 9th<\/sup> and 11th<\/sup> avenues (upper left on the map). This will serve as an enhanced \u201cfront door\u201d to the site when entered off of Colorado Boulevard. \u00a0The plaza will front a 100,000 square foot \u201clarge format\u201d store.\u00a0 \u00a0The mature grove of trees along 9th<\/sup> Avenue will be preserved.\u00a0 The annex to the historically-designated Nurse\u2019s Dorm will be removed and thereby expand the size of the Quad. \u00a0The Quad is the primary element of an open space plan that exceeds the 10% required by law.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Quad contains the oldest black walnut trees in Colorado.\u00a0 I like the allowance for a twenty foot wide, north-south pedestrian alley that breaks up the line of retail buildings located to the west of the Quad.\u00a0 This narrow thoroughfare strikes me as being akin to the small, unnamed alley at Belmar<\/a> in Lakewood that connects the Belmar plaza to West Alaska Drive.\u00a0 The narrowness gives a bit of an \u201cOld European\u201d flavor to that site.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Alley at Belmar, Looking from Plaza to West Alaska Drive (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

A natural foods grocer will occupy the building south of 9th<\/sup> Avenue on Colorado Boulevard.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the right size for a Sunflower Market, although the tenant has not been identified. The tenant for the large format store has also not been identified, but according to the developer it will be \u201csomething like a Target.\u201d \u00a0The original proposal for a second floor movie theatre has been ruled out, for logistical reasons. \u00a0A fitness center is still a possibility. \u00a0As previously reported, the plan is to include 450 residences in buildings at the southeast corner of the site.\u00a0 These will all be multi-family rentals but they could become condos later.<\/p>\n

In the question and answer period Board members and citizens raised a number of concerns. \u00a0One citizen questioned the overall reduced footprint of this latest plan compared to earlier ones.\u00a0 She suggested that small is not necessarily better if all we\u2019re looking at is retail and residential space. She suggested that the \u201curban grain\u201d would benefit from more office space above and beyond what\u2019s already designated for the historic Nurse\u2019s Dorm.\u00a0 Other questions were raised about bicycle connectivity and the energy efficiency of buildings.\u00a0 The site will be sensitive to \u201cmulti-modality\u201d but there is no set-aside for new bike lanes. \u00a0Existing bike routes may be enhanced and there will likely be bike racks in the Quad.\u00a0 All buildings will be of \u201cgreen\u201d design given that it is pretty much de facto<\/em> these days. \u00a0All the building contractors will be local.<\/p>\n

The main concern is about traffic volume and flow, especially congestion on the already-busy 8th <\/sup>Avenue.\u00a0 The three story parking deck located just south of the Quad was identified as a potential problem-maker since it would receive and discharge cars onto 8th<\/sup>.\u00a0 To address this problem one citizen made an interesting suggestion; specifically, he proposed flipping the parking deck with the retail building located catty-corner to the northwest.\u00a0 This adjustment would feed cars onto 9th<\/sup> Avenue, which has long been underused as a traffic thoroughfare.\u00a0 The developers responded that the deck is located where it is in order to serve visitors to the \u201cRestaurant Row\u201d planned for the 8th<\/sup> Avenue edge.\u00a0 Plus, the developers pointed out that they expect the number of cars visiting the site to be approximately one-third the number that visited when the Health Sciences Center was in full operation.<\/p>\n

During this exchange I found myself thinking that this is a relatively small site so it doesn\u2019t seem that having such close proximity between parking deck and restaurants is really necessary. After all, the site\u2019s top priority is walkability. \u00a0No one mentioned it, but another virtue to flipping these structures would be to more fully enclose the Quad on its south side with retail space.\u00a0 The Quad is\u00a0 designed to be the site\u2019s beating heart.\u00a0 It seems a shame to have it bordered on one whole side by a parking deck. \u00a0Full enclosure unencumbered by parking is an element shared by many of the great public plazas and squares of the world<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0Populating at least a few of these commercial spaces with tenants dedicated to various arts\u2014visual and\/or healing\u2014would be a nice touch aimed at better connecting the site to its history.\u00a0 Flipping the structures would compromise the quality of the alley discussed above, but it would invite construction of another alley between the relocated retail space and Restaurant Row.\u00a0 The Row is already planned to have entrances on both its north and south sides, so squeezing some alley space in here would perhaps enhance the \u201curban grain\u201d desired by some citizens.\u00a0 Restaurant Row was described a couple of times by Mary Nell Wolff as \u201cNew Urban\u201d in spirit. However, it might benefit even more from a conscious effort to add a touch of “Old Europe.” \u00a0If there\u2019s an absolute need to stay with the parking deck then it might be fronted on its north side with spaces akin to those that comprise the arts-and-design focused Block 7 at Belmar, a line of studios that also front a parking deck.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Block 7 at Belmar (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sembler Company hopes to close on the property in late spring or summer 2012. Demolition is planned beginning summer 2012 and is scheduled to last about 15 months.\u00a0 An opening is envisioned for summer\/fall 2014.\u00a0 The next CBHD Board meeting is scheduled for December 1 at 4:00 PM in the Molly Blank Conference Center on the campus of National Jewish Hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At its meeting on November 10th the Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District (CBHD) Board gave its blessing to Sembler Company\u2019s latest conceptual plan for developing the infill site at 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.\u00a0 Some details were reported here, with a […]<\/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-803","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-cX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","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=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2067,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/2067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}