When is population density in Denver a good thing, and when is it too much of a good thing?
The debate over urban density has played out repeatedly in recent years — in the Highland neighborhood, in east and southeast Denver, and now at the old St. Anthony Hospital site in northwest Denver.
A similar debate has played out in the suburbs too, with developments such as Sterling Ranch in Douglas County.
If planned well, higher densities can be used to create walkable communities that support nearby retail shops and employment centers, while reducing per-capita infrastructure costs. And density near transit stations can help put passengers on those immense public investments.
But higher densities also can have a price, such as lost scenic views and more noise and congestion, even if density proponents often deny that last phenomenon. Yet evidence is clear. “In general, and quite logically,” concludes Professor Robert Bruegmann in “Sprawl, a compact history,” “congestion and commuting times tend to rise, not fall, with density.”
In the most extreme cases, high density that is abruptly plopped down within an established community can even destabilize it.
Are any of these downsides possible at the St. Anthony site just south of Sloan’s Lake Park and north of Colfax Avenue? That’s certainly what some neighbors suggest, citing what Larry Ambrose of the Sloan’s Lake Neighborhood Association foresees as a “wall of buildings along 17th Avenue 12 to 20 stories tall” containing as many as 1,745 housing units on a six-block site about 2 miles west of downtown. At a meeting Tuesday at Cheltenham School, a number of neighbors expressed similar skepticism regarding the project after an official presentation.
Cameron Bertron of the EnviroFinance Group, which purchased the property for $9.5 million this year and is preparing the land for development, maintains that the “wall” analogy is unfair and the number of new households after build-out is more likely to be between 800 to 1,200.
Why more likely as opposed to dead certain? Because EnviroFinance isn’t a developer. After razing those St. Anthony buildings that aren’t being preserved, it will sell off the blocks to individual developers, with anywhere from four to eight companies ultimately taking part, Bertron told me.
Not that those developers will enjoy carte blanche at that point. EnviroFinance also is preparing a General Development Plan (GDP) that, if approved by the city, must be followed by those who buy the tracts. The Denver Planning Board will hold a hearing on the GDP on Dec. 18.
It’s clear EnviroFinance has put a great deal of work into its proposal. And no wonder. The site boasts fabulous views of the mountains, downtown and Sloan’s Lake, and walking access to the city’s second largest park. It’s within blocks of a light-rail station south of Colfax and not far from I-25. Quality residential development there should be an urban magnet.
The company has crafted a plan to salvage a chapel, a 1940s building that was once a convent and a parking garage, while restoring most of the street grid between Colfax and the park. New residential buildings will transition from a maximum of three stories along the east and west edges of the GDP, to a second stage of five stories and a third of 12 to 20 stories. The tallest towers will be in the central block across from the park.
Bertron sketches an appealing vision of wide sidewalks, sunlit plazas and a stretch of ground-level retail that “could become the South Gaylord, or Tennyson, or Pearl Street of this neighborhood.”
But why those 12 and 20-story buildings in a single-family neighborhood, and why place them so conspicuously across from the park? The present zoning, which envisions higher density and was enacted just three years ago, allows a maximum height of five stories.
Bertron says the GDP framework needs to accommodate the market. The developer might not actually seek 20 stories, but without that option, he suggests, the neighborhood risks seeing a barren site languish for years.
Nobody wants that, by the way, since redevelopment is seen as a way to revitalize the scruffy West Colfax corridor.
Brad Buchanan of RNL Design, which is working on the project, told me the city always knew there would be more density at St. Anthony’s than the new zoning allowed. It was just a matter of what it would be. And the reason the tallest buildings front the park, he added, is to prevent the towers from casting shadows on existing homes, which they would if moved south toward Colfax.
EnviroFinance and its critics are also at odds over the amount of open space the project should include. The law says 10 percent of the GDP area must be open space, but the company insists that should be without rights-of-way — with a difference of 1.1 acres hanging in the balance. The city planning department supports the lower figure, but acknowledged to me that the open space ordinance has been inconsistently applied.
So do critics have a right to feel aggrieved? Yes and no. There’s a lot to like in the plan, and design guidelines should ensure attractive streetscapes and quality projects.
But the maximum heights are indeed a legitimate issue, not only for reasons of scale but also because of what residents had been led to expect. Neither the St. Anthony Central Redevelopment Task Force nor the West Colfax Plan — both guiding planning documents — is explicit about the height of buildings anticipated on the site, but none of the sketches or illustrative photos in those reports seem to show anything close to 20-story structures.
“I believe in density,” Bertron told the gathering Tuesday.
So does nearly everyone with an opinion about the St. Anthony site. But some clearly believe in it a lot more than others.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com. Follow him on Twitter @vcarrollDP
