A bill for an ordinance designating 630-638 East 16th Avenue, the Essex Apartments, as a structure for preservation. Approves an individual Denver landmark designation for the Essex Apartments, located at 630-638 East 16th Avenue in Council District 10. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 10-16-18.
For this particular property, this is an owner initiated designation process. The owner, Ben Gearhart, is here. This property is located at the corner of 16th Avenue in Washington Street in Council District ten. It is in Blueprint Denver area of change in the current zoning is gr03. Per the Denver landmark ordinance in order to be designated a property, must meet two of the following three categories History, Architecture and geography. It must maintain its historic and physical integrity, and the LPC should consider how it relates to a historic context or theme. The designation for this property puts forward that it's a significant under history one a an architecture to be. Under history that it has a direct association with the historical development of the city of Denver, as illustrated on the three maps here. Beginning in 1887, with the Robinson Atlas and continuing through the 1924 Sanborn map, it shows the development of the Capitol Hill area. In this particular area, you can see the blocks around the building with the blue arrow showing there's not a particular amount of large development in the 1887 Robinson Atlas. It's shown before the state capitol was constructed and in the 1886 decision to construct the the state capitol, it drew a lot of additional development to the Capitol Hill area. In the 1905 based map, the building had still yet to be constructed. But you can see there's beginning to see more additional infill. And then by the 1924 Sanborn map, the property had already been constructed. This particular building represents the move in the development of the Capitol Hill area. Initially, it was the wealthy and those who could afford to move out of the urban core and away from the industry and pollution from what was down on the river. They decided they wanted to move closer to the state capitol in the area of political power and Capitol Hill mansions became a way to showcase their wealth. The middle class soon followed with apartments providing affordable options to live in a nicer, wealthier part of town. These were seen as an upgrade from boarding houses, which had been on the other ways for people to live in a multi-tenant or a multi-unit building. This particular property was located close to trolley lines, which allowed people to still commute in and out of their residence and into a place of work. And so this building has a direct association with the development of the Capitol Hill area and the ability to have a multi-unit or multifamily housing. This property is also significant for its architecture being designed by a significant are being designed by a recognized architect and being a significant example of their work. This is designed by William Fisher and here are some examples of other properties that he didn't design, including the tramway building, the state annex building. This is a good representative example of what he designed from ranging from large scale buildings to smaller residential to larger, more affluent residential properties. And these are all from the Denver Public Library's collection. William Fisher was a prominent and prolific architect. He went on to form the firm Fisher and Fisher with his brother. They designed multiple types of buildings residential, commercial, institutional and varied architectural styles. The Essex apartment building was one of the early commissions in Fisher's career, and it was one of the very first apartment buildings that we could find that he had designed. And this was a sign of the the apartment buildings that were built were designed by architects. This one wasn't it wasn't built by a builder. But in the Capitol Hill area, they paid to have an architect design their building. And finally, after meeting the criteria under history in architecture, it should be able to convey its historic and architectural significance through its historic and physical integrity, which is just a preservation way of saying, Does the building look like what it used to look like? This is a 1912 photo also from Denver Public Library that shows the building. Really, one of the only few changes on the building were that the two porches on the front and the side were removed and some of the windows and doors were changed from windows, our doors , our doors to windows. This particular project is taking both state and federal tax credits, so they are following the National Park Service Secretary of the Interior standards, and they, as part of that, have rebuilt the the central patio or porches. And overall landmark staff in the Landmark Preservation Commission found that it met the requirements of having historic and physical integrity. And then finally, the LPC considered how the structure related to the historic contexts or themes with the growth and expansion of Denver, and particularly the late 19th and early 20th century of the area around the the state capital and the development of the Capitol Hill area. The LPC reviewed it and found that it met the criteria under history. One way of having a direct association with historical development and being a significant example of the work of a recognized architect. They felt it maintained the historic and physical integrity and they considered how the structure relates to historic context and theme. And they voted unanimously to recommend approval to you. And there were no public comments that had been received in any written form for anyone for this property. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. We do have six individuals signed up to speak this evening. I think we can fit all six in the front row. So if you've signed up to speak on this, please come up to the front row. As soon as I call your name, your time will start to elapse. So if you choose not to relocate to the front row, you may lose some of the time that you have allocated to speak. So again, I'd ask everyone who has signed up to speak for this to please come up to the front row and be ready as soon as your name is called. First up, we have Ben Gearhart. Good evening. Thanks for having this opportunity for having us here. My name is Ben Gearhart. I live at 3931, Julian here in Denver. And this is our first historic preservation project in Colorado. We've had experience of doing these projects back in the Midwest. This will be our fifth project that we're preserving. We love opportunities to find old buildings and be able to restore them to their original splendor. And this was a fantastic opportunity to do so. I'm sure some of the folks recognize where the building was at about two years ago. Love and have an opportunity. Have anybody here to join us for our launch event in January. And really just here to answer any questions that somebody some of you may have. Thank you very much. Next up, Mariana Thompson. Councilwoman. Councilman, this is a beautiful building. Yes, very historic. But in this time and in this day and age of people that are houseless, I think that it should be used for better and serve the better public. And it should be used for people like a HUD housing, like Roanoke Apartments are on a bait and log. And so I, I do not feel that we should use it for people who already have money for houses that they could get elsewhere. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, John Paulson. Hello, counsel. My name is John Wilson. I'm with Historic Denver. I really want to take this time to to support the ownership on this project. I think this is a wonderful project for the Capitol Hill and Uptown neighborhood. This has some very unique qualities from a standpoint that was mentioned earlier by Caroline of the city that this was a multifamily property that was brought in to bring the middle class up to the areas of the mansion development. And now it can be used again for that housing. It was in really, really rough shape in the very recent history as far as the ownership just mentioned. And this has been a wonderful turnaround. And I just want to state that this is one of the tools of historic preservation, is actually these tax credits, the state and federal tax credits to be able to get this done. This is, I would say, the ownership group here as doing wonderful work. And I think they're doing it in many ways because it's the right thing to do for their project. And it's also a beautiful thing to do for the city to preserve something like this, for this neighborhood, and to have it reused again. But they're also bringing it forward because this is financially advantageous for this project and we're hoping to see many, many more of these going forward. Historic Denver has been fighting for these types of incentives for historic preservation for a long time. We are continually to fight to fight for them. We had to do that with the reauthorization of the of the tax code nationally. And we're hoping to have more incentives as well. And we want to have more developers like this who see the assets of Denver and really want this to be a part of the future of Denver as well as, you know, have this be a useful building to be able to live in. So I want to thank you. And I also want to encourage you to designate this property so all of this comes to fruition. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Jesse Paris. Good evening, members of council. My name is Jesse Paris. I'm running for City Council at large 2019 and I am neither for or against this. I just had a few questions on this proposal. What will be the EMI level for these apartments? How many people will be living at this property and. Yeah. That was it. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Chairman CQ. I just want with you. My name's Chairman Sekou. Organizers have founded Blackstar, a movement for self-defense. Champion of the oppressed. The vulnerable. Poor, working poor. Homeless folks, senior citizens. Students. And others. After listening to. What was said. And having a conversation with the owner. What we're talking about here is ten hotel rooms. And ten apartments or 11 hotel rooms. It's a small little thing here. And it's been done. In a way. That. Satisfies the need for housing for folks who can't afford it. All of this is going to be market rate. And there's some folks who can't afford market rate. Some people go to six, go to a Super eight, some people go down to the brown. But just cause you go to the Brown Palace to make you better than the folks that go to the sex, you just can't afford it. It's a part of America that if you can afford it, get it. And if you can't afford it, then you need to organize yourself so you can get what you need to get . Just like they organized themselves to get what they want to get. So what you have really here is a question of those that are organized versus those that are not. My job is to organize the folks. That's not. And because I'm organizing, the people that don't have it don't mean I'm opposed to the people that can get it. I'm just down for when I'm down for it and you'll be down to what you down for. So I want folks to get the wrong impression that I got this Marxist-Leninist class thing going on. I want to see young white folks go at it. You know, I'm saying they're not going to win it like, you know, we should have did in the Civil War. But that's not story. But what we have here is an opportunity to correct historical wrong. We just celebrate in an analysis the murder of press the DA. What better reconciliation is to get folks in there like press to John act like we believe in what we said and at least just get one unit. Or just get one part of the name of the president on something, something concrete other than an empty proclamation that don't carry no legal weight whatsoever. Let's make it meaningful what we do here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Your time is up. Next up, David River. David Roy Bob. Good evening, council. I live at 742 West Ninth Avenue, grew up in this neighborhood. My family were at the Children's Hospital for a long time, so I always walk through there, see the historic area. I mean, it's awesome. There's always a story there and I'm glad for all the work that historic Denver is doing. I went to the the West Side history meeting and it's bring together people that carry them stories. And, you know, I just support support the historic designation of this. And I just wonder there's any stories from our long term residents. I know it was a it was a hostel, was a boarding house, but there's a lot of stories used to be the Crusader just is right there in and a block away at the right there by their motto was where the robbery was planned. And it's also part of the district that crosses crosses Colfax. So I hope with the passing of the X Y that changes the districts, I hope back and you know, we could see more straighter lines the districts. And I hope this building brings more life to the community and more opportunities for the low income residents. And I hope to keep it affordable because that building once was affordable. So if we keep the historic designation affordable to stay the same and if, you know, to see if it's going to change after this change and if there's going to be more resilience, because I know the hospital is growing, so it'll be interesting to see if it brings more growth on that side. And Will and and I know these past the Emily Griffith and I know used to use an old buildings and I hope to see more old buildings used for housing and opportunities and bringing people back to the community safe on the streets. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions from members of the council? Councilman Flynn. Thank you. I'd like to ask the owner. The restoration that's going to occur. Are you? You're restoring the front from what I saw here, the the porticos or whatever the structure was on the front. Are you also looking at the Washington Street side and restoring that as well? Excellent. Yeah. So we actually did a entire survey of the property right from a window perspective first. Had to replace probably 40% of the windows with divided light wood windows, which is somewhat of a challenge in itself. A lot of the windows were restoring back to the original is also inside the building and all the new systems are upgraded plumbing, electrical, HVAC, wood floors or lacing and the original wood floors which were fur back in 1907. All all new trim where it needs trim, but restoring the trim and the handrails that were existing. So, yeah, it's a full, full renovation. Okay. And right now in Washington Street side, there's parking right up against the facade where there used to be a lawn. Are you what's your plan there? So that that will continue to remain parking for the project? Yeah. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Seeing no other questions. The public hearing for accountable 1160 is closed. Are there any comments by members of council councilman? Thank you, Mr. President. I and my whole district judiciary team has got some wonderful examples of historic homes, and we've done a great job of preserving them. And in remembering the history of Denver and Capitol Hill is another great area where we got some beautiful homes. And today I rode by the building checking it out to see it. And I can tell the work that you're going to do is going to really restore that building to its beauty and and the tender, loving care that you're given to. So I really appreciate what you're doing. There's going to be Capitol Hill is growing. We'll have more residential, more commercial development there. And there's going to be a wonderful asset. And and I hope we will have more historic buildings preserved in that area. So thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Knew seeing no other comments. Madam Secretary, roll call. New. Black eye. Brooks Espinosa. My. Friend I Gillmor. I Herndon High Cashman. I can eat i. Lopez All right. Ortega I assessment, Mr. President. I. I'm secretary. Please cause voting in the results. 3913 I as counts bill 1160 has passed City Council sitting ex-officio as the board of Directors for the Fort Denver 14th Street General Improvement District, Reno General Improvement District and Gateway Village General Improvement District will hold public hearings on Monday, November 19th, related to the 2018 work plans and