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/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / DECEMBER 2016

building program and the developers’ obvious objective of

profit through calculated risk. Dairy Block’s program began

with the desire to preserve and reuse the original Windsor

Farm Dairy building, which has stood on the corner of 19th

and Blake Street since 1918. The two-story red-brick structure

maintained a legacy in dairy product production until 1973,

when second owner Meadow Gold relocated its operations

out of the growing downtown core. The Dairy building is

joined along Blake between 18th and 19th streets by a collec-

tion of similar era red-brick structures in varying heights

filled with random tenants that largely amounted to an eas-

ily passed-by hodge-podge of whatever. The western edge of

the same block along Wazee consisted of two ill-maintained

surface parking lots and a low-slung bunker of a building

in dirty grey brick and glass block taking up valuable down-

town space. The result amounted to a lack of genuine pres-

ence compared to the last 20 years of area redevelopment in

much of surrounding LoDo.

“The development parcel had been something of a desert

amid so much other great activity in the area,” says Jesse Ad-

kins of Shears Adkins Rockmore Architects, whose firm was

actually a tenant in one of the Blake Street buildings for some

12 years until it relocated in 2014, making way for the new con-

struction. Like the development partnership, the Dairy Block

design team is also multifaceted. SA+R took responsibility for

the new six-story office building on the southwest corner

of the development, which sits on top of three levels of be-

low-grade parking that will accommodate up to 392 vehicles.

SA+R was joined by Denver architecture practice, Johnson

Nathan Strohe, which specializes in high-end and boutique

hospitality projects. JNS led the design efforts for The Maven,

a 172-key, one-off hotel that will join the historic Oxford and

the award-winning Crawford at Denver Union Station as one

of Sage Hospitality’s local legacy of managed assets.

Ironically, though the hotel and office buildings will be

seamlessly connected inside, they are actually designed and

constructed as two completely independent buildings. The

office building uses a structural steel frame and the hotel

is post-tension concrete. Both buildings will have indepen-

dent systems, utility connections and billings; even project

accounting for construction is completely separated. Super-

intendent Bill Bialek of office and hotel general contractor

Saunders Construction, remarked that other than the expan-

sion joint connecting them, the two buildings could have

been built five blocks apart.

Hyder Construction is at the helm for the preservation of

the Windsor Dairy building and other brick structures along

Blake Street. These properties will combine to become new

retail (41,946 square feet) and office spaces (44,453 square

feet) targeting a curated collection of American heritage

brands, Colorado originals, international retailers and in-

spired dinning. The key to tenant selection will be the

maker

theme and whether vendors produce custom time-

pieces or craft breads, beers or beans, the product must be a

passion rather than a profession to fit the vibe.

While every development begins with a program, the