Denver-based hotel developer Stonebridge Companies is planning a seven-story, 202-room hotel for the corner of 17th and Blake street. The project includes a small addition to the rear of the adjacent historic building at 1725 Blake and functionally incorporates that structure with the new hotel while maintain the historic building’s integrity and its Blake Street facade. Stonebridge’s recent hotel projects in Downtown Denver include the conversion of the historic Colorado National Bank building into a Marriott Renaissance and the adaptive reuse of an old Xcel Energy building into a dual-branded Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites.

Here’s a Google Earth aerial showing the project location at 1701 Blake:

The project was first reviewed by the Lower Downtown Design Review Board in November and received approval, with conditions, for mass and scale. The next round before the LDDRB—design detail review—is planned for February 4. All of the following images are from the project’s application materials submitted to the LDDRB for the February 4 meeting. Consequently, these images do not necessarily represent the project’s final design and are subject to further modification and refinement, with additional development review and approvals by the city planning office still to come. The project designer is Newman Architects.

View looking north at the corner, with 17th Street on the left and Blake Street on the right:

Here’s the same angle from Google Street View, showing the site’s current condition as a gaping hole in LoDo’s urban fabric:

The hotel’s porte cochere will be located where the new structure and the historic building meet, with vehicles entering from Blake and exiting via the alley. The development includes two levels of underground parking for approximately 75 vehicles. This next image, the ground floor plan, shows the porte cochere location and other ground-floor uses such as the hotel lobby/lounge and leased space for restaurant/retail in both the new and historic structures:

The upper floors of the new hotel building include a light well that allows the placement of hotel rooms around all four sides of the site. The second and third floors of the adjacent historic building will contain the hotel’s ballroom and meeting rooms. The small addition behind the historic building adds space for a fitness center on the second level and a conference room on the third. Here’s the plan for the second floor:

This view of the Blake Street side shows how the new structure’s urban form thoughtfully responds to its historic neighbor through the use of step downs from the corner and a step back on the upper levels. Vertical glass curtain wall elements above both the 17th Street and Blake Street pedestrian entries help break up the building’s massing, while the separate use of tan and gray brick on the Blake Street side also contributes to the appearance of smaller connected buildings similar in width to the historic 1725 Blake structure.

Overall, this is an exciting project for Denver! It eradicates an ugly surface parking lot and fills a void in LoDo’s urban fabric. Along with two other major infill projects in the heart of Lower Downtown—Market Station and the Dairy Block—the new 1701 Blake hotel will bring significant new pedestrian activity and vitality to the heart of LoDo.