Progress is also being made on the so-called "wing buildings" that will flank the historic Union Station building. Controversial when they were first proposed, these five-story structures will be home to offices on the top levels and restaurants and retail on the ground floors. In front of each will be a plaza: trees, flowers and benches on the north side of the station, ground fountains and space to host a festival or farmers' market on the south side, leading right into the extended mall.
"Someday, there will be forty-story buildings all around," says Roger Sherman, chief operating officer for lobbying firm CRL Associates and an RTD pro who helped get voter approval for the massive FasTracks project and now serves as spokesman for the Denver Union Station Project Authority. He's referring to the private developments expected to spring up around Union Station like points in a crown. "Other cities would kill to build their transit hub in the middle of the most densely populated part of the city."
Before the mall, 16th Street's top attraction was Zeckendorf Plaza and its hyperbolic paraboloid, built in 1958.
Ian Marzonie (left) and John Scheck of Kroenke with an old projector at the Paramount Theatre.
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But getting to this point wasn't easy. Union Station opened in 1881 as a way to consolidate the city's train depots under one roof — though it was always more than that. The biggest building in Denver when it was built, Union Station became an icon, carrying soldiers off to World War II and welcoming presidents and queens to the Mile High City.
As auto and airline travel grew, however, the bustle of Union Station died down to a murmur. In 2001, a consortium of public entities, including RTD, the Denver Regional Council of Governments and the City of Denver, bought the station and the 19.5 acres it sits on for close to $50 million. Their vision? To turn Union Station into a busy transit hub served by buses, light-rail trains and commuter lines. The project got a necessary boost in 2004 when voters approved FasTracks, a multibillion-dollar plan to build 122 miles of new rail lines and eighteen miles of bus rapid transit along the Front Range that also allocated $208.8 million to revitalizing Union Station as a multi-modal hub. That was far short of the station renovation's $488 million price tag, but a good start, nonetheless.
The next several years saw a succession of design and development decisions, crises and resolutions of funding, disagreements and compromises. Construction finally began in February 2010. One of the first pieces of the project to be completed was the relocation of the light-rail station to northwest of Union Station and the extension of the 16th Street Mall shuttle route, so that buses now turn around at the new station.
Escalators that are today ringed by signs that read "Construction Area Keep Out" will eventually carry passengers into the underground bus depot. The depot itself will be 980 feet long and is 75 percent complete, Sherman says. The commuter rail station is 55 percent complete; when it's finished, it will be covered by a canopy made out of material similar to that of the roof at DIA. The canopy will shade certain parts of the platform but be open in the middle so as not to obscure the view of historic Union Station from higher ground.
Construction on the plazas out front, as well as the streets included in the project, is 97 percent complete, according to Sherman. Passersby won't notice much of the plaza work, however, as the finishing touches aren't done. As for the wing buildings, the one to the north, which is farther along, will serve as the headquarters of IMA Financial Group, while the south wing will be home to Antero Resources, an independent oil-and-gas exploration company.
Renovations to the historic station itself are only 11 percent complete, Sherman says. Union Station Alliance, the team in charge of the renovation that includes Sage Hospitality president and CEO Walter Isenberg, recently received word from the National Park Service that its plan to remodel Denver Union Station to include a boutique hotel meets the park service's standards, which is essential if the project wants to receive historic-preservation tax credits.
At a recent ceremony, RTD general manager Phil Washington waxes nostalgic about how far the redevelopment project has come. "On February 5, 2010, we stood where the old light-rail station used to be and there was nothing here," he says. "And look at this now."
Washington is speaking from underneath a white tent erected in an empty lot near 17th and Wewatta streets, addressing a suit-and-tie crowd gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking of the first high-rise project at Union Station. Called Cadence after the rhythm of the railyard, the building will include 219 apartments, a space to do yoga and a rooftop pool. At an average of $1,600 per month, the studios and one- and two-bedrooms won't be cheap, but the developer promises they'll be energy-efficient.
"This is really the stuff that greatness is made of," says Mayor Michael Hancock, stopping by to praise Cadence's creators. He calls it "a place-based project," one being erected "where the action is really happening, at the hub of the wheel," a development he hopes will attract hardworking, innovative (and money-spending) twenty- and thirty-somethings eager to ditch their cars and fall in love with public transit.
With the rebirth of Union Station, he says, "Denver, and our region, has really hit pay dirt." — Melanie Asmar
