New Urbanism gains critical mass at the foot of the Rockies

The Denver/Boulder region is rapidly emerging as the metropolitan area with the largest concentration of new urbanist communities. Someone looking to move to a newurbanist community in the next few years could find an abundance of choices below the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. From the dense urbanism of the Commons Neighborhood in downtown Denver to the greenfield village of Prospect in Longmont, the new communities cover the entire scale of the Transect. With the nation’s largest urban infill project ready to begin construction at the old Stapleton Airport, and the large-scale redevelopment of the Lowry Air Force base, the Denver area is poised to add a significant number of homes in new urbanist settings: The eight most prominent projects will account for more than 21,000 new units. A number of infill projects in Boulder will add to that total. The strong economy is contributing to this change. “Because the job growth is so strong, we are now starting to have some of the same problems that California has with affordable housing,” says Will Fleissig of Continuum Partners, a Denver development firm. “In that kind of market people are willing to experiment a little bit more.”   On the downside, the strong economy has also spawned more sprawling subdivisions on the hillsides, more congestion, and declining air quality — all conditions that intensify the cry for a reevaluation of growth patterns. The Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Denver in 1998 helped raise the visibility of alternative development patterns, but seeds had been sown years earlier. In November 1995, the Denver Post ran an in-depth series on the New Urbanism, listing nine plans for new urbanist projects in the Denver/Boulder region. Five of those plans are now being realized, and many new ones have been added. “It’s no longer a planning concept,” Fleissig says, “we’re down to the nitty gritty, and every city is trying to figure out how to make it work.” A new downtown neighborhood The Commons Neighborhood (also known as Denver Commons) is one of the most promising large-scale additions to a downtown under construction in the US. It brings over 6 million square feet of mixed-use development to a 60-acre former rail yard adjacent to Denver’s revitalized historic LoDo district. The plan by Design Workshop of Denver extends Denver’s street grid to the Commons, but seeks to distinguish the neighborhood from LoDo by allowing buildings from six to 20 stories high. Seven street types will help give the various areas of the development distinct identities. The housing mix will include highrise apartments, warehouse lofts, and traditional brownstone townhomes, says Jeff  McMinimen, a project manager with Design Workshop. Public transit is an integral part of the plan. A recently completed pedestrian bridge brings 16th Street, Denver’s pedestrian and transit mall, into the heart of the Commons. Moreover, a multimodal transit facility next to the historic Union Station will create a hub for commuter rail, light rail, buses, and the 16th Street mall shuttle. With the street infrastructure and the 15-acre Riverfront Park nearly complete, the first buildings are now under construction. According to McMinimen, the first two buildings by master developer Trillium Corporation will include loft-style apartments and some ground-floor retail. East West Partners of Beaver Creek bought about half the property from Trillium last year and is now building condominiums along the park on the Platte River. Some of the units are part of a novel “urban time share” concept. They will offer people with permanent residences in the mountains a opportunity to spend time in the urban core. At build-out, the Commons will hold more than 2,000 residential units. The City of Denver will raise $30 million through a special Metropolitan Improvement District tax district to pay for parking garages, underground utilities, streetscapes, and parks. Central Denver’s other prominent urban village is Post Properties’ Uptown Square, a redevelopment on the site of the vacated St. Luke’s hospital. This high-density neigborhood includes 1,000 apartments and 50,000 square feet of ground-floor retail on 10 acres.The first phase of 449 units and approximately 25,000 sq. ft. of retail will be completed in December, and the project’s second phase has begun construction. Uptown Square was designed by RTKL. Redevelopment takes off Urban design professionals in the region will follow the progress of the Stapleton redevelopment intently when construction gets underway next spring. The project is a crucial test for how well design standards can be upheld under an accelerated production building schedule — developer Forest City plans to build 500 houses and 300 apartments next year. Stapleton’s financial health is also likely to influence the decisions of conventional developers and financiers who are considering future traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs). With a projected 12,000 houses and apartments and more than 13 million square feet of commercial space on 2,935 acres, Stapleton is by far the largest project in the region. Tom Lyon, whose firm Wolff Lyon Architects has worked on the architectural guidelines for Stapleton, is hopeful that a high level of quality and variety can be maintained. “We ask for at least three models from every builder, and Forest City has required that each builder build in different categories, so they won’t compete directly with each other,” Lyon says. Each model must have a significant variation in style and detailing, and the color scheme is more varied and bolder than in conventional subdivisions. While the guidelines identify a number of approved local styles, builders are free to experiment with other designs. “We want to make sure we remain open-minded,” Lyon says. Denver’s other major redevelopment project, at the former Lowry Air Force Base, has recently benefited from a hot real estate market and strong interest from business tenants. The first 400 homes sold out in two months, and at this time, six corporations with a total of 1,500 employees are setting up shop where the runways once lay. On the residential side, Lowry now includes 500 single-family homes, 400 apartments, and approximately 1,200 residents, according to Hilarie Portell of the Lowry Redevelopment Authority. A town center with 150,000 square feet of retail is under construction, anchored by an Albertson’s supermarket. The 1,866-acre project will eventually have approximately 3,000 dwellings. Lowry’s master plan by Sasaki Associates has been refined by Design Workshop and several other firms, bringing residences closer to the curb and creating a network of pathways to improve pedestrian access to the town center and the employment areas. The original plan’s separation of uses into districts is still evident, however. neighborhood infill Sales have also been strong in Highlands Garden Village northwest of downtown Denver. Master-planned by Calthorpe Associates, this project is being built on the 27-acre site of the former Elitch Gardens Amusement Park. The plan features a progression from single-family homes and townhouses on the southern edge of the project, to a neighborhood center of six-plexes and apartments surrounding a community building and an existing summer stock theater, and finally a town center area of retail and workplaces on the north side. Developer Perry/Affordable Homes plans to build a total of 336 units and approximately 85,000 square feet of commercial. Construction began in the summer of 1999, and the completed first phase includes 30 single-family homes, a row of 8 townhomes, and a senior housing facility that will open in October. Thirty-four cohousing units are in the permitting stage. Sage Strever of Perry/Affordable Homes says the market has been so strong that homes originally priced in the high $100,000s to mid $200,000s are now selling in the high $200,000 to high $300,000 range. Prospect takes its time Designed as an informal village, “Prospect in Longmont is the most fully realized new urban greenfield project in Colorado,” says Michael Leccese, a Boulder-based writer who covers urban development. He adds that the 80-acre project, planned by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), does not quite have the scale to become a self-contained community. Prospect has been under construction since 1997, and close to 60 homes have been completed to date. The slow pace is deliberate, says developer Kiki Wallace, whose chief concern is making sure the architecture is diverse and of high quality. “We want to do more modern designs in future phases, and that has already created a lot of controversy among the homeowners,” Wallace says. “But we just want to do good design.” Prospect recently added its first retail building, and features a diverse collection of rowhouses, Victorian-style townhouses, and wooden single-family homes. The next generation Denver has yet to undertake a fundamental revision of its codes and zoning ordinances, but some smaller municipalities in the region are beginning to promote TND. “Westminster and Boulder are probably farthest along in terms of codifying the rules, so people don’t have to go through these herculean efforts but just go in and do it,” Fleissig says. In Westminster — between Denver and Boulder — Continuum Partners expects to break ground on Bradburn Village in November. The project is unusual in that Continuum plans to build the mixed-use center and the housing concurrently in the first phase. The town center’s location on a main arterial makes this possible, Fleissig says. Bradburn Village, designed by DPZ and Civitas, will include close to 800 homes and apartments and approximately 500,000 square feet of office and retail space. Continuum is also pursuing the redevelopment of the defunct Villa Italia shopping mall in Denver, turning the 100-acre site into a new neighborhood. Continuum owns the land and is currently in final negotiations for the purchase of the buildings, Fleissig says. Another promising new TND is Belle Creek in the first-tier Denver suburb Commerce City. Nanci Kerr of Pinnacle Pines LLC, the master developer, says the city government took a proactive stance and adopted a zoning code that encourages mixed-use development, and Belle Creek is the first project to proceed under the new ordinance. Commerce City’s Planning Commission and City Council approved the project unanimously and residents in surrounding neighborhoods raised no objections. The master plan by Arlo Braun and Associates of Denver features a four-block town center framed by three-story apartment buildings with neighborhood retail on the street level and townhouses zoned for live/work use. More conventional retail buildings are planned for the southern edge of the project. Arlo Braun has previously planned East Bay at Sloan Lake, an infill project of 111 neotraditional single-family homes with garages on alleys in Denver. With 300 apartments among the total of 956 dwellings, much of Belle Creek will be affordable to people earning 80 percent or less of the median income. The apartment component is designed by Humphries Poli Architects of Denver and will be developed and managed by Rocky Mountain Mutual Housing (RMMH). RMMH will also manage the multi-use Family Center, which is to house an early childhood learning center, an elementary school, a library, and an indoor recreation center. As a major civic anchor in the project, the Family Center will be built early in the development process, Kerr says. Infill in Boulder Unlike Denver, Boulder has partly contained its sprawling edge development with the 30,000-acre greenbelt that surrounds the city. “It’s quite a nice little growth boundary,” Leccese says. “Boulder had the foresight to buy the land when it was still cheap 30 to 40 years ago.” As a result, Boulder has seen a number of infill projects in recent years. Tom Lyon notes that the city’s Business Main Street zoning district has encouraged a mix of uses in new development in downtown Boulder. Wolff Lyon has designed two projects, Eighth and Pearl and Ninth and Pearl, which both secured more favorable parking ratios in return for mixing townhouses with retail and offices. Also prominent among Boulder infill developers is Coburn Development, which has built the projects Iris Hollow, Walnut Hollow, and 12 Maples, among others. The most anticipated infill project in Boulder right now is planned for the site of an abandoned drive-in theater on the northern edge of the city. The Boulder Housing Authority has acquired the 27 acres with help from the city, and plans to be the lead developer in collaboration with a team of experienced, local infill developers. The project is still about a year away from final approval. “It has been a very lengthy process because we are asking for variances left and right,” says George Watt of Barrett Steele Architects, the project’s designer. Watt adds that the plan aims to combine the best of traditional planning with more modern architectural styles. Renderings of the project show informal streets and public spaces, with something of the feel of a modern ski village. The plan envisions a main street neighborhood of multi-family housing, live/work units, and neighborhood retail leading to a fan-shaped park lined with townhouses. A residential neighborhood stretches out behind the townhouses. More live/work units line the edge of the neighborhood to provide a transition to adjacent commercial development. The redevelopment totals 300 dwelling units and 68,000 square feet of commercial space. A vote on the future The direction of development in Denver and in Colorado in general may hinge on the fate of a ballot initiative going before voters in November. The “Responsible Growth Initiative” is sponsored by the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, and proposes three main initiatives. First, that cities and counties prepare maps of outlying areas, outlining the general densities and uses, and submit all new development in these areas to voter approval. Second, that public agencies disclose the projected impacts of new development on traffic, schools, open space, air quality, and emergency services. Third, that development should only be allowed in areas where localities can afford the additional costs of new infrastructure. “If the ballot initiative passes, it will be a huge national issue,” Fleissig says. He adds that lenders involved in the Bradburn Village project were already so nervous about the initiative that they required a guarantee from Continuum that the firm would pay back the acquisition note, rather than just using the sale of the land as collateral. “The initiative may, for a number of years, stop anything on the edge and force infill,” Fleissig says. “But my fear is that it will just create more sprawl, because people will be voting to reduce densities. They won’t do what is really required.”