CREJ - Building Dialogue - September 2015
Taking transit-oriented development to the next level in Denver's Baker neighborhood. Denizen is a new breed of apartment for the Mile High City. The slick 275-unit complex is as transit-oriented as developments get. “It’s about 20 feet from the - - front door to the platform,” says Steve Kovach, senior project manager for PCL Construction, motioning from the stoop of one of the townhomes at Denizen, the new apartment complex at Alameda Station. “This used to be an RTD parking lot.” Metro Denver’s transit agency, RTD, in recent years has taken a new tact to promote transit-oriented development (TOD) around light-rail stations by partnering with the private sector, and Alameda is the first to bear fruit. Developer D4 Urban struck a complicated deal to develop the 3.8-acre site from blacktop into something that’s much less car-centric. “We did one parking space per unit as opposed to one per bed,” Kovach explains. But there’s plenty of bike parking, as well as bike rentals, a bike workshop, trail access, a walkable neighborhood, and, of course, the light rail. For most potential residents, a car is an easily substitutable luxury – or maybe even a costly hassle. Kovach says Denizen’s proximity to the train tracks is countered by upgraded soundproofing that keeps the sounds of the light rail completely at bay. Lower rumbles from freight trains remain audible but not obtrusive. The project is a result of a years-long push toward “a more walkable, urban city,” particularly around light-rail stops, says David Gaspers, senior city planner with Denver’s Department of Community Planning and Development. “Our rail stations generally fall within our ‘areas of change,’” notes Gaspers. “For every $1 spent in the city outside of a half-mile of a rail station, over $5 is spent within a half-mile of one.” Alameda is defined as an “urban center,” he adds, as all of the rail lines converge there with adjacent vibrant communities in West Washington Park and Baker. A project like Denizen “helps us reconnect those neighborhoods.” Denizen is the first project of its kind, but don’t expect it to be the last. “[RTD] sees the value of having housing right next to the light rail. We expect to see more of those opportunities as RTD explores more public-private partnerships.” But a glimpse of the city’s more walkable future is visible at Denizen today. The first tenants took occupancy in August and the project is slated for completion in the fall. The target market? Millennials who are concerned more about convenience than square footage. In the iCloud era, many renters have compressed their books, movies, and music onto a memory wafer in a smartphone. Space to store reams of records, DVDs and books is no longer a necessity, but plenty of bandwidth and cutting-edge infrastructure most definitely is. “They don’t want cable,” says Kovach. “They want streaming video and powerful Wi-Fi.” That plays into Denizen’s 14 different floor plans. The units average about 500 square feet and the smaller units – studios and one-bedrooms – have been the most popular. “Studios and one-bedrooms are about 80 percent of the units,” says John Binder of Kephart, the architecture firm on the project. “This is geared towards a lifestyle of compact living.” Smallest of all, a few 350-square-foot “microunits” were leased almost immediately, he adds. “There’s a different mentality: ‘Maybe I don’t need all this stuff.’” But small doesn’t mean spare, as granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and private patios are the norm. Most of the two-bedrooms are more than 1,000 square feet, and the development also features 17 two-story townhomes with two bedrooms, not to mention myriad public areas: an onsite pocket park; first-floor community areas with a pair of reservable meeting rooms, pool tables and fireplaces; and a rooftop amenity deck with bocce court, barbecue grills and community garden. “You’ve got the apartment you can retreat to and other zones where you can go out and meet your neighbors,” says Binder. Denizen’s north and south buildings are connected by a second-story pedestrian bridge spanning Dakota Avenue – a nice perk for those who park in the north building but live in the south, especially in winter. Then there are the stunning city and mountain panoramas. “The views are spectacular for urban,” touts Kovach. “From the fifth level, you can see the scoreboard at the Broncos stadium. You’ve got a view from Pikes Peak all the way to Longs Peak.” From the east, the aforementioned bridge “is framing the mountains and it’s also framing access to the light rail,” says Binder, citing a stylized decorative form inspired by the Rockies. “From the light rail side, it’s a gateway to the city.” The size of the site was a hurdle for the project, says Kovach. “It’s definitely a very constrained site.” The labor market proved likewise. With a local labor shortage and a crew that peaked at 150 workers, he adds, “It becomes critical to maintain schedule.” To do so, the project took a design-build tact with Kephart handling the designing. “It was a good design-build process,” says Kovach. “They’ve been very good coming up with solutions. They brought these smaller units to life. ‘Living large’ was Kephart’s term.” “It was a design-build relationship where the architect and the contractor were a team,” says Binder. “In some ways, the contractor is calling the shots. We were constantly redesigning.” The process also helped maximize the parcel’s density. “With Kephart, we sat down and said, ‘How can we increase the number of units,’” he explains. “We were able to add 30 units to the 245 in the original bridging documents.” Another challenge was “maintaining an operating lightrail station during construction,” Kovach says. “RTD is a major stakeholder and so it the city and county of Denver.” The particulars of the public-private partnership “required building out Cherokee Street here for connectivity,” adds Kovach. It also necessitated D4 to establish a new metropolitan district to install wastewater infrastructure stretching from Interstate 25 to Broadway – an $18 million project. PCL also built a new transit plaza for the Alameda stop as part of the project. “It was all an integral design to tie the plaza with the roadway with the apartments.” It all adds up to a very sustainable development: transportation options, energy efficiency and materials that are notably green. “This will be the first LEED Platinum multifamily project in the state of Colorado,” predicts Kovach. Binder is similarly bullish on LEED Platinum certification, but says he’s looking at an even bigger picture. “What can we do to promote a green lifestyle? Is it easy to recycle? Is it easy to use alternate methods of transportation?” The entire project represents a paradigm shift in land use in the Mile High City. Today, the light-industrial area that surrounds Denizen abuts big-box stores, the Denver Design District and plenty of parking lots. Expect that to change markedly in the coming decades, with mixed-use residential taking over this area, formerly home to a minor league ballpark and an old Montgomery Ward that was demolished in the 1990s. With a hopping nightlife district just around the corner on Broadway and easy access to all points in the city, Denizen will serve as a “catalyst” for change in the immediate area, predicts Kovach, adding, “The writing’s on the wall.” D4 is already looking at a similar, even larger complex on the former bus barn site across the train tracks from Denizen, a project Kovach says PCL hopes to work on if it comes to pass. There’s also plenty of potential for redevelopment at the adjacent Broadway Marketplace retail area and the Denver Design District. “What’s it going to be like to live there in five years?” asks Binder. “It’s going to be very different.” Expect upscale grocers, boutiques, and funky pubs. “Dakota [Avenue] is going to be a wonderful street to walk on,” he adds. “It’s not there right now, but in two or three years it will be.”