Denver’s Central Platte Valley: A Dynamic Decade
New developments around Denver’s downtown are bringing the city back to its roots
By Mary Volez Chandler
Where the South Platte River and Cherry Creek
come together is where Denver first began. It is where
Native Americans and early explorers met and traded, and
where railroads found the space needed tobring miles of
tracks together that formed the city’s early urban nucleus.
And now, with majority of rail lines removed, the Central
Platte Valley is home to a new mini-city of upscale high rises,
town homes, office buildings, and amenities. It is where the
city and passionate citizens have built new parks that offer
access to open space and the rush of water, and where
sports facilities bring crowds to cheer their football,
basketball, and hockey teams. And, with the redevelopment
of adjacent Union Station into a regional multi-modal facility,
the Valley has returned to its role as a center for
transportation.
Massive sections of Denver saw redevelopment in the late
1990s, but the Valley has grown almost out of nothing. As
visitors to the 2013 AIA National Convention will see, this
former black hole of gone-to-seed space, is having a positive
impact on the vitality of downtown and the region. Acres of
land have shifted from dregs to diamonds in a decade, while
smart new connections have removed manmade and natural
Waterside lofts, designed by OZ Architecture, with Shears
+ Adkins Architects. Image courtesy of XXXX.
Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, designed by David
Adjaye, Hon. FAIA. Image courtesy of XXXX.
impediments between downtown and the neighborhoods to
the northwest. New streets have been built and others have
been extended, creating a grid that defines a dense
neighborhood. As the Valley has grown, new development
also has moved to the north, including the residential area
called Prospect.
It is the role of bridges and other connectors that makes the
Central Platte Valley “one of the great downtown success
stories,” says Chris Frampton. As president of East-West
Partners, one of the top developers in the Valley, he has
watched change come quickly.
The Denver Tramway Company Powerhouse/REI Flagship
Store, designed by designed by Stearns Rogers Company,
1901; restoration by Mithun Partners. Image courtesy of
XXX.
“The bridges have been really interesting,” he says. The
Millennium Bridge, which helps anchor East-West’s
Riverfront Park trio of residential towers, “has served a
couple of huge roles. The [South Platte] River was cut off
from downtown by train tracks. The bridge also brought
Riverfront Park closer to downtown visually, and it’s had an
important impact on the extension of the 16th Street Mall.”
One of the best vantage points to view the sweep
of development in the Valley is at the Highlands side of the
pedestrian bridge over Interstate 25. There, the
transformation becomes clear, illustrating how a tangle of
rail lines has become a community for work and play.
Brownstones at Riverfront Park, designed by Humphries
Poli Architects. Image courtesy of XXX.
The Connections: Bridges and the Platte River Park System
Beginning with the demolition of old viaducts in the early
1990s, construction of new ones, and the extension of the
16th Street Mall, numerous bridges and underpasses have
been constructed to span the old impediments of waterways
and railroad tracks.
Millennium Bridge, (16th and Little Raven streets, designed
by ArchitectureDenver, with Design Workshop, 2002): This
futuristic, 130-foot-long pedestrian bridge with a towering
white mast is a major part of the 16th Street extension and a
symbol of this reenergized section of Denver. The bridge was
followed by The Platte Valley Pedestrian Bridge (at the
Colorado Ocean Journey, designed by Odyssea, a joint
venture between AndersonMasonDale Architects and RNL
Design. Image courtesy of XXX.
Platte River at 16th Street, 2004) and the Highlands
Pedestrian Bridge (Carter & Burgess, 2006). The former is a
much more straightforward span that crosses the river at
Commons Park, the latter stretches over Interstate 25 as the
final link in the chain.
Among the first things people learn when they come to
Denver is that people here love their parks. Not as if
residents in other parts of the country don’t love their parks.
But other parts of the country are not high plains desert,
where early settlers encountered little vegetation and even
less moisture to make things grow. Some of Denver’s most
cherished urban oases are:
Confluence Park (bounded by Speer Boulevard and 15th
Street, and by Little Raven and Water Streets, designed by
EDAW, 1976; updated by McLaughlin Water Engineers in
1990s; plaza by Architerra, 2001). Confluence Park takes its
name from the fact that the South Platte River and Cherry
Creek meet at this point. Funded by the Greenway
Foundation, public interests, and the city, Confluence Park
offers urban folk a spot for reflection as well as events.
As development proceeded in the Valley, Confluence Park
has been augmented by parks including: Commons Park
(bounded by Little Raven and Platte Streets and by 15th and
19th streets, designed by Civitas, 2000), a 20-acre mix of
wild and urban landscape that serves as a “front yard” for
residents in the Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood and
the Valley, and Northside Park (west of the South Platte
River, at the eastern terminus of E. 51st Ave., designed by
Wenk and Associates, 2000), created from 70 acres of land
and elements of a former sewage treatment plant.
The mast of Millennium Bridge (designed by
ArchitectureDenver, with Design Workshop) rises next to
DaVita Headquarters, designed by MOA Architecture.
Image courtesy of XXX.
The Mark Falcone residence, designed by David Adjaye,
Hon. FAIA. Image courtesy of XXX.
Historic Buildings
Not everything in the Central Platte Valley is new. Historic
buildings include:
Moffat Depot (2101 15th St., designed by Edwin H.
Moorman, 1906): This small, Neo-Classical structure was the
Denver terminus for David Moffat’s short (and short-lived)
Denver, Northwestern and Pacific railroad. Empty for years,
ONE Riverfront Park, designed by 4240 Architecture Inc.
it is now being developed into a senior care complex, and is
on the National Register of Historic Places.
Image courtesy of XXX.
Denver Tramway Company Powerhouse / REI Flagship
Store (1416 Platte St., designed by Stearns Rogers Company,
1901; restoration by Mithun Partners, 2000): A purely
industrial structure meant to create electricity for the
Denver Tramway, this building features elaborate decorative
elements. After years of housing a museum, the powerhouse
was restored to host outdoor equipment outfitters REI.
New Buildings North of 15th Street:
Riverfront Park Towers, designed by 4240 Architecture Inc.,
2002: This group of high-rise towers (Riverfront Tower,
Riverfront Plaza at Little Raven St., Promenade Lofts, and
Park Place Lofts set the tone early on for the design
vocabulary in the Central Platte Valley. All rely on brick,
glass, and stone used in ways that stress Modernist design
and the forward-thinking nature of this reclaimed
neighborhood.
Brownstones at Riverfront Park (Little Raven and 18th
streets, designed by Humphries Poli Architects, 2005): This
16-unit development farther up Little Raven displays a
human scale and intriguing geometric compositions
expressed in polychrome buff brick, metal, and glass forms
and planes.
DaVita Headquarters (2000 16th St., designed by MOA
Architecture, 2012): The corporate home of this healthcare
company stands out as the flashier younger brother of
nearby 1900 16th St., with a tilted roof and a wedge-shape
element on one façade.
New Buildings South of 15th Street:
Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (1485 Delgany St.,
designed by Adjaye Associates, with Davis Partnership,
2007): From the outside, this serene cube-like structure
reads as a smoky gray-black glass container, but the interior
of David Adjaye’s, Hon. FAIA, first U.S. building tells a
different story: Those glass walls are lined with white
MonoPan, a polypropylene sandwich panel that allows the
1900 16th St., designed by Tryba Architects. Image
courtesy of XXX.
hallways and galleries to glow within during the day, and
emit diffused light at night. Clear windows are strategically
placed to frame city views.
This tight site also holds three residential complexes that
appear to caress the museum. They include the ArtHouse
Town Homes (1460 Delgany St., designed by Studio
Completiva and Adjaye Associates, 2007); Monarch Mills
(1475 Delgany St., designed by Studio Completiva, 2007),
and the nearby Delgany Lofts (1401 Delgany St., designed by
4240 Architects Inc., 2005). Adjaye designed a Corten steelclad town home for the developer who donated the land for
MCA, Continuum Partners CEO, and founder Mark Falcone.
Waterside Lofts (1401 Wewatta St., designed by OZ
Architecture, with Shears + Adkins Architects, 2002): This
early project forms an edge on Speer Boulevard; its design
and materials help link the historic buildings of lower
downtown with the contemporary design ethos of the
Valley.
Colorado Ocean Journey/Downtown Denver Aquarium (700
Water St., designed by Odyssea, a joint venture between
AndersonMasonDale Architects and RNL Design, 1999): With
its mix of brick, steel and glass, Colorado Ocean Journey
helped set a contemporary design standard for the area,
with curving walls, vast expanses of windows, and a
wraparound observation deck. Ocean Journey, however,
went belly up, and was acquired by a prominent restaurant
chain in 2005. Modifications ensued, but the structure
remains one of the most successful buildings constructed in
1990s Denver.
Denver resident Mary Voelz Chandler has written about
architecture, preservation, art, and design for more than 20
years. She is the author of the Guide to Denver Architecture,
and was formerly the architecture writer at the Rocky
Mountain News. She was also a writer at Fentress Architects,
where she completed two books on the firm’s work, and is
currently a business development communications specialist
at GH Phipps Construction Companies. Chandler received the
AIA Colorado 2005 award for Contribution to the Built
Environment by a Non-Architect, and was honored by the
Denver Art Museum in 2012 with the DAM Contemporaries
DAMKey Award.
Recent Related:
Civic Center: Denver’s Civic and Cultural Heart
Modernist Ideals Thrive in Suburban Denver
Reference:
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See the AIA Convention full schedule.
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