Both the October and November issues of Life on Capitol Hill have chronicled the Sembler Company’s proposal to redevelop the former Health Sciences Center at 9th and Colorado, and I wrote about it in my column in June. As the prospect of near-term redevelopment of the site by Shea Companies slowed with uncertain phasing and no final sale arrangement, the University of Colorado entered into a contract with Sembler for sale of the site. Sembler is a retail development company based in Atlanta.
Sembler first presented their initial concept for “large format” retail, a natural grocer, other small and medium sized retail shops, and a restaurant row along Eighth Avenue at the July meeting of the Colorado Boulevard Health Care District (CBHD). CBHD is a consortium or steering committee of neighborhood representatives from Bellevue-Hale, Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, Congress Park, Hilltop, and Mayfair and institutional representatives from the hospitals in the area. Sembler is also proposing multi-unit residential on the east side of the property, as Shea Properties had. Also as Shea did, they have agreed to preserve the Nurse’s Dorm and the Quad. Representatives of the Community Planning and Development (CPD) office, neighborhood representatives, and Councilwoman Susman and I worked with Sembler to make modifications to the plan – such as more buildings along Colorado, more building frontage along 9th Avenue, more pedestrian connections, preservation of street trees, and on-street parking.
Council has no official decision-making authority in this process. The zoning under the old code (Commercial Mixed Use (10) along Colorado and Residential Mixed Use to the east) is in place, and we cannot mandate uses or amount of office, residential, and retail use. CPD did determine that the General Development Plan which lays out the placement of buildings, open space, and street placement/connectivity needed to be amended as different streets are going through the site now and the open space is somewhat re-arranged. CBHD approved the amendment last month, and CPD is taking public comment. The deadline for public comment is December 1 but if you send comments to me by Monday, December 5, I will be sure that the Development Review Council sees them.
1. Link to powerpoint presentation on proposed 9th and Colorado redevelopment. http://denvergov.com/Portals/76/documents/9+CO%20CBHD%20site%20plan.pdf
2. Link to GDP Amendment and conceptual renderings of proposed 9th and Colorado redevelopment. http://www.denvergov.com/cpd/Planning/tabid/429947/Default.aspx
3. Link to Sembler Site Plan
**NOTE: Due to space constraints on the map, Colorado Blvd is at the top of the map depicted as East/West rather than North/South; 8th Ave (on the left side of the map) is depicted as North/South rather than East/West.
4. Links to Interim Site Plan for former Gove Middle School site.
Phase 1
Phase 2