Then there's Denver Health, also under the Webb administration. A proposed new wing there will simultaneously annihilate the character of the main entrance of the handsome 1960s Eugene Sternberg building and cause the demolition of the charming 1950s building by Victor Hornbein, an acknowledged master of the city's modern architecture.
Once again, the problem is the vision thing: Webb doesn't have one.
Another one bites the dust: The Sears building before its character was destroyed.
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If all of this isn't enough to make you run screaming out the door, how about some more bad news, this time from the private sector. Broe Companies, which owns Country Club Gardens (the sensational moderne-style housing complex on South Downing Street that was built in 1940 by the distinguished firm of Fisher and Fisher) wants to tear down parts of the gorgeous old thing and build high-rises, presumably with as little charm as Country Club Towers on nearby Bayaud Street, which Broe also owns.
Or take the former Bethesda campus in south Denver near Iliff and South Dahlia streets, a magnificent group of historic Harry Manning buildings and several compatible modern ones by Hornbein that have been linked to one another by a first-class landscape that includes a water feature. The would-be new owners, Denver Academy, though having no immediate demolition plans, have thoroughly gutted a Denver Landmark District nomination prepared by local neighborhood groups. In the worst kind of tokenism, a compromise was reached in which only the chapel and the gateway were put forward for preservation -- and nothing else but some vague guarantees. More than anyone else, Mike Henry, attorney and longtime citizen advocate, deserves the blame for this tremendous failure.
And the Lafayette Hughes Mansion, the oldest house in the Polo Grounds neighborhood, is set to be demolished by current owner Tom Shane, the diamond king. Shane is set to replace the irreplaceable masterpiece with a new residence. One can only imagine how tacky that will be. The existing mansion is as superb as it is little-known, since it can be accessed only by a private road. Shane's agents are already shopping the salvage -- like an integral pipe organ and a Tiffany glass floor. What a shame.
This is not to mention the redo set for the Shops at Tabor Center, by the Urban Design Group, wherein the 1980s postmodern structure is to be -- believe it or not -- postmodernized. Don't get me started about that. Anthony Belluschi Architects, the designer of the pedestrian changes set for the Tabor Center, are already known around here for Park Meadows. So that's what the "new urbanism" is -- the banality of the suburbs right downtown.
You get the picture. Turn around and you're not going to recognize Denver -- because it's already beginning to look the same as anyplace else.
