Utilizing Iconic Waypoints

Denver

Denver has grown significantly since its establishment as a small mining town and has quickly become the United States 21st most populous city. With the Denver Metro area covering about 8,414 square miles its population sits at about 2.6 million. Denver’s urban area is made up of 2.3 million residents and makes it the 18th largest urban area in the United States. With high concentrations it is no wonder planners and city officials have made transit, and transit oriented development a clear priority in the Mile High City.

In the mid nineties Denver was experiencing a growing pains. As the city grew, its increasing population crammed the highways and streets with their cars. Denver strives to maintain its reputation as being a progressive, livable city. To do this Denver has become an incredible multi-modal city, expanding its transit system to meet rising demands with a growing population. This growth has created many new opportunities around stations concerning transit oriented development. Since light-rail first opened in 1994, Denver has seen higher-than projected ridership since its inception.

By 2014, Denver’s Regional Transportation District or RTD had completed 6 different lines, over 48 miles of track, with 46 stations being serviced by 172 vehicles.

A vote in 2004, approved billions in tax dollars to fund a massive new transit network including 122 new miles of light rail line. Whereby creating the infrastructure for the new airport line and FasTracks that will open in 2016. Moreover, in 2006 Denver created a TOD strategic plan outlining 21 areas with long range plans that included reduced parking regulation and a switch to context sensitive form-based code among other opportunities that allowed for Denver to create new transit oriented communities along these additional lines of service as well as some older lines.

With both new lines and transit oriented developments nearing completion Denver’s higher than projected ridership numbers will indeed continue to rise faster than expectations as the city becomes more available for transit riders. The new light rail line servicing the Denver International Airport will bring significant economic opportunities as the already walkable city becomes even more accessible to visitors and locals alike.

Denver’s transit system is in a time of redevelopment. Many stations’ are receiving transit oriented designed buildings to create a stronger relationship with the services provided and the people wishing to live closer to transit. Two clear examples are the station’s 10th and Osage Station and Alemeda Station, which were both under heavy construction during our visit. Both of those stations were seen as blighted by many of the riders and according to our interview with Patrick McLaughlin now seems like new centers for growth, despite only being partially finished during our trip.

While the future looks bright for Denver’s transit systems, the revitalized Union Station is one of the best examples of the many TOD projects currently under way in Denver. Offering residents and visitors a hotel, a bar, restaurants, and an early 20th century lounge area in the main terminal of Union Station. The renewed union station is an intermodal hub that serves as the one the main connections as well as a destination in it of itself. Located between Denver’s Central Business District and the trendy LoDo, lower downtown, neighborhood, it also boasts a new neighborhood, called Riverfront to Union Stations’ west, where much of the new transit oriented development is occurring. Although recent development has been met with much success, past examples of TOD in Denver have not been seen as successful as they’d have hoped.

One such station is Englewood. Located on the South-West Line which was opened in 2000. Englewood was built to be one of Denver’s first transit oriented communities. However community approved design standards caused many issues and made it a challenging development. One such issue is a towering brick wall that separates the existing neighborhood from Englewood development. Surrounded by auto-oriented development creates particular barriers, however with a Walmart as the main attraction of this area it is difficult for any other retail to exist. Ground-floor commercial units struggle to stay occupied. Being one of Denver’s first transit oriented developments, it was a major learning lesson for planners. While it does boast a very high occupancy rate for residences, that is likely due to the low density of 3,209 residents within a half mile radius of the station. Englewood is a charming neighborhood because of its age and suburban location but it also incorporates many basic elements of transit oriented communities that make it a walkable gem in an auto-dependent desert.

Unlike Englewood which disperses its residents over a larger spec of land, the 20th and Welton station is home to The One Lincoln Park building. This area has many of the characteristics of a transit oriented development however because of the surrounding area, which is mostly filled with surface parking lots and roads, it is merely transit adjacent. Filled with exclusive condos and a garage for private parking, the bottom floors only occupant is a local bank. The towering building does little to match the convergence of the three neighborhoods surrounding it: North Capitol Hill, Five Points and the CBD. A strategic plan created in 2014 called Transit Oriented Denver found that this area has a medium to high market readiness for TOD and medium to low development potential, mostly due to the older Five Points’ neighborhood to the north of the station. But as the study concludes, as well as what led us to this station, was that it is given the high marks as far as transit oriented development characteristics are concerned. A planner working for RTD, Patrick McLaughlin, noted that this area was soon to be lush with new transit oriented developments.