Room Service: Mission Ballroom, TRVE Brewing and Luxury Amenities at Mica RiNo

Room Service is a new series that takes a look at apartment complexes and other housing options. Our first installment was on the Art Studios; keep reading for our latest:

What: Mica RiNo, apartments sitting just a stone’s throw from Mission Ballroom

Where: 4290 Brighton Boulevard

Cost: Studios start at $1,724 per month, two-bedrooms are up to $5,160 per month

Management: Willowick is the on-site property manager. Hines is the developer.

The Building: The 397-unit building is still receiving its finishing touches after opening to residents in July, but there are several levels ready to go. Mica RiNo just opened the last of its eleven floors for lease, and the brand-new building is filled with green hues and engaging artwork to go with its stellar location.

Mica is made up of more than 3,500 square feet of retail and residential space right next to Mission Ballroom — one of Denver’s best places to hear live music — and it’s capitalizing on the opportunity with a viewing deck that overlooks the concert venue's entrance.
“Watch the sunset, get some wine, and what's really cool is seeing all the crowds from Mission Ballroom starting to line up around 5:00 p.m.,” says Jessica Matthews, an analyst with Hines.

The viewing deck is right next to the building’s heated pool; the pool deck has an outdoor kitchen and plenty of views of the city.

Parking in the area of RiNo where Mica is located is notoriously difficult, but Matthews points out that residents won’t have that problem, as the building has a dedicated garage. That could be especially beneficial to music fans who want to skip the public transportation, parking and rideshare tangle that often occurs on the way to Mission Ballroom.

Matthews tells Westword that Mica has had problems in the past with rideshare drivers turning into its driveway and clogging the road. “But they added a ton of signage, and then we'll have a security guard at night when there’s shows, so that's a lot better now,” she says.

Just underneath the viewing deck is a mural that was part of this year’s Denver Walls festival, which depicts a rhinoceros with its horn transformed into a tree branch, along with other rhinos who are part of the clouds in the background.
“It's actually supposed to symbolize how the rhinos’ horn was hunted and was almost extinct but then rebounded,” Matthews says.

Underneath the rhinoceros mural will soon be a second outpost of TRVE Brewing, a heavy-metal-focused brewery at 227 Broadway. TRVE plans to open a taproom with a large patio to get in on the action of the budding space.

Nick Nunns, the brewery's owner, told Westword earlier this month that the new space will be similar to the Broadway one, but with a little more softness and sophistication.

“The playlist will not change,” Nunns reassured metal fans. “Even if you’re going to [the nearby Mission Ballroom] for some bedazzled country show, we’re still going to have the same playlist on. We’re still going to welcome you into the space just the way we would any other person.”

TRVE will be joined by the San Diego-based Full Metal Burgers on the ground floor of Mica, with the pair making the luxury residential building home to counterculture, as well. “We were nervous about being ‘metal alley,’ but those guys are so nice, and they’re very inclusive, so it will be great,” Matthews says of Hines’s enthusiasm for its headbanging neighbors. There are two more restaurant-ready retail spaces left to fill on the ground floor.

The Inside Scoop: The building has a mix of units from studios to two-bedrooms, with most units being one-bedroom apartments. There are some units on the first floor that open up to the alleyway next to Mission Ballroom.

“We call them ‘live-work’ units because you could have a business down below and then live upstairs,” Matthews explains. The leasing process for those units is the same as it is for the others.

The apartments have huge closets and stainless-steel appliances. Every master suite comes with a walk-in glass shower.
The hallways, elevators and even the mailroom are decked out with art from the likes of Leigh Suggs, David Attie, Raymond Saá, Dan Covert, Gail Albert Halaban, Sebastian Blanck and Jay Shinn, as well as custom work from Natale Adgnot. Evergreen is threaded throughout the space on the walls and decor; Matthews says it is the signature color of the San Francisco-based designer who oversaw the project.

In addition to the apartments themselves, residents at Mica will have access to common spaces, including an outdoor TV wall, an indoor-outdoor fireplace, and a hammock patio on the same floor as the pool.
There’s also a covered place for people to walk their dogs, a co-working space and an artists' space.

Soon, a rooftop lounge will be completed.

“When I first started working on this project, it was only drawings and then when I first actually got to see it, I was like, ‘This is amazing,’” Matthews says.

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