DOWNTOWN BUZZ

Developers Take a Shine To Western Downtowns

By Headwaters News, 11-14-05

Much of what is written about new development in Western cities focuses on sprawl. Cities and counties quarrel about subdivisions that stretch across acres of land miles away from urban centers and how to serve those new communities with schools, roads and other services.

But there's a new trend afoot in some urban centers and it's a move toward downtown.

In Golden, Colo., a building that housed a department story 18 years ago but has been vacant since will soon become a mixture of housing, office and retail spaces.

The Denver Post reports NexCore Group plans to spend about $25 million to turn the 25,000-square-foot former Hested's Department Store building into 35 residences, 12,000 square feet of offices and up to 18,000 square feet of stores.

Less than a block away from that project is the new office building built by the Denver architect group Dauer Haswell, which intends to relocate its business from downtown Denver.

A group of developers in Utah aptly named Cowboy Partners are turing the tide of development downtown in Salt Lake City.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports today that Dan Lofgren, Scot Safford and Mark Cornelius first conceived of a mixed-use development in Salt Lake City more than five years ago. But that was then and there was little interest in such a project.

But the Cowboy Partners cowboyed up and persevered and finally secured a loan to complete the Parc at Gateway, a 152-unit, high-rise condominium complex targeted at a wide range of incomes. Their perseverance paid off, as the project sold out in less than a year and set skeptics on their collective ears.

Although the Parc at Gateway is the Cowboy Partners' first condominium project, the group has done a number of projects along the Wasatch Front. They teamed up with the Utah Housing Corporation to build a 100-unit affordable housing project in downtown Salt Lake City and they are designing a second, 72-unit affordable housing project there as well.

The group has a number of different developments in the suburbs but they're true fans of downtown.

The Salt Lake Tribune quotes Scot Safford as saying, "We are huge fans of downtown and see a lot of opportunity there.
We will be back."

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