A bill for an ordinance designating 5001 Packing House Road, the Armour & Company Administration Building, as a structure for preservation. Approves an individual Denver landmark designation for property located at 5001 Packing House Road in Council District 9. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 1-15-19.
813 IES Council Bill 1477 has passed. Councilman Cashman, will you please put Council Bill 1539 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President. I move the council bill 18 dash 1539 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Has been moved and seconded. The public hearing for Council Bill 1539 is open. May we have the staff report? Good evening. My name is Karen with Community Planning and Development and we are here for 5001 Packing House Road. It's also known as the Armor and Company Administration Building. Landmark Designation was established in 1967, which provides you the authority to designate properties within the city and county of Denver. Approximately 4% of the structures in the city are designated, or about one in 25 buildings. For this particular property, the owner is the city and county of Denver and it is in the National Western Center, as you can see, as highlighted on the map in red. If you look down towards the bottom of the map, you can see the outline of the stadium arena. That is also a Denver landmark. This particular property is in an area of change with its current zoning as I am x five with a use overlay of two. There is plain support for the designation in both the National Western Center Master Plan and the Elyria Swansea Neighborhood Plans, which both call out for the designation of historic structures. Specifically the designation of structures within the National Western Center. And as you can see, the red box down there at the bottom is the stadium arena. And the small diamond up at the towards the top is the property that we are looking at for a property be designated per ordinance. It needs to meet a designation criteria in at least two of the following categories history, architecture and geography, and to maintain its historic and physical integrity. And then the LPC needs to consider how it relates to a historic context or theme. So for this particular property, it meets two criteria under history one under architecture and three or two under geography. In the first under history, it has a direct association with the historical development of the city, state or nation. This particular property is strongly associated with the meat processing facilities at the Denver Union Stockyards. The armor building was the administration building for the Armor and Company. The in this particular area, the meat packing processing plants had a huge amount of authority and power within the city and county of Denver, and the industry was incredibly strong. They oftentimes not only owned the meat processing plants, but they also owned some of the yards, they owned the cattle, they owned the ranches. So this is one of the last remaining buildings that's associated with the meat processing plant, which was so intrinsic to the development of the city and county of Denver. It is also significant under history for having a direct and substantial association with a person or groups of persons who had influence on society. So this particular building is associated with a couple of different groups. The first is the Gephardt family. The Gephardt family is the is the family that started the armor company. Henry and then his son, Charles, were the two that were the instrumental members of the Gephardt family within the armor packing industry. Henry founded the Colorado Packing and Provision Company, and then he was really instrumental in the Denver Union stockyards. He was an executive of the Western Stock Show, and he present he helped produce the National Western Stock Show. It was then passed onto his son, Charles Gephardt, and he was there when the Armor Company ended up purchasing what had initially been the Colorado packing and provision company. And then they allowed the Gephardt family to continue to run the business. And this is the building that was constructed for the administration of it. But since so much else has been lost, this is the one of the buildings that's associated with the Gephardt family. This property is also associated with the the neighborhood that surrounds it, that the meatpacking and the meat processing was one of the stable positions that could be gained by the immigrants who came over. And so it is primarily blue collar employment for the immigrants who are primarily Russian, Slavic and Eastern European, east from Eastern European countries at this time. And so the meat processing plants provided stable employment for the populations that lived in the neighborhood. And so this is a representative of the ability to maintain and live in that community was through the meat processing plant and so it provided stable employment for the population. The property is also significant for its architecture, for embodying distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style or type. And this is a neoclassical style. It was constructed in 1917, and it can be seen through its cobbled cornice at the top. From the simple geometric designs on the brick walls. The very regular and symmetrical form. And in the fenestration pattern. And then the one story porch. Oftentimes on a neoclassical, you'll actually see a two story porch. In this case, it's a slightly stripped down version with the one story classical columns. And then finally, it's significant for its geography for promoting an understanding and appreciation of the urban environment by means of a distinctive physical characteristic or rarity. In this particular instance, it's rare for being the sole remaining building that's related to the meatpacking industry of the swift and armor plants that had been demolished. And so as you look at the 1961 Sanborn map, you can see the arrow that points to the the one admin building. All of those other buildings that are on there were associated with the with the with a swift in armor plate or with this with the armor plants. And they have since been demolished. And so this is the a rarity for being one of the only remaining meatpacking industry plants in the city. And finally, it's a significant under geography for making a special contribution to Denver's distinctive characteristic. This isn't something that is used or is there aren't many properties that are designated under this. It's the designation that is what makes Denver. Denver and the National Western Stock Show and the Denver Union stockyards are intrinsic to the character of Denver, and they have defined Denver as a major livestock hub since the early 20th century. And so this building is strongly associated with the intrinsic nature of Denver's history. After meeting all of the criteria, a property still has to maintain its historic and physical integrity, which is basically does the property look like what it used to look like? And as you can see from these pictures, it is remarkably intact. Underneath the boarded out, underneath the boards, there are the windows that still remain. So overall, there are minimal changes that have occurred to this building on the right hand side, which is actually a little hard to see. It's behind some bushes on one of the windows have been turned into doors. But overall, other than the painting of the brick and the boarding up of windows, but the windows there are still underneath. It has a remarkably good integrity and staff, as well as the Landmark Preservation Commission, found that it maintained its historic and physical integrity . And finally, the Landmark Preservation Commission considered how the structure relates to historic context or themes. And they looked at how it is associated with the development of the meatpacking industry in Denver, the growth of ranching in the livestock industry, and then with the National Western Stock Show and found that it was related to multiple historic contexts in Denver's history. When the commission reviewed that, they found that history under one A and one C, architecture under two A, geography three B and three C, that it maintained its historic and physical integrity. And they found that it was eligible to be a Denver landmark. They voted unanimously, eight zero. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. We have three individuals lined up to speak this evening. So if you've signed up to speak on this item, ask you to come up to the front bench. When I call your name, step up to the podium and your time will begin to elapse. First up, we have Eric Anderson. Good evening, councilmembers. My name is Eric Anderson. I'm the design manager for the mayor's office of the National Restaurant Center. This is a very important building to our new campus. It sits right. In the middle of all the things that. Are going to happen. And we're really looking forward to seeing a new use here. So I'm here to answer any questions regarding the site or the building itself. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next up, John Olsen. Thank you very much, council members. My name is John Olsen. I'm the deputy director of Historic Denver. I'm here to absolutely support this as a designation up at the National Western Center, part of the National Western Stock Trail. I'm here as a part of of being with this historic Denver, which, of course, you're very used to seeing me from that standpoint. But I'm also here from the point of view of the National Western Citizen Advisory Committee. And in our conversations with the community members and with History Colorado and with the National Western Center, this was one of those buildings that was identified very early on as being very important to the site. We're talking about a very exciting development that's going to happen to the National Western Center and a national Western Stock Show area . But we want this to be part of Denver. And this is something that is a part of Denver. It's associated with Denver. The community members have associated with this with the meatpacking industry because they have a large history with the meatpacking industry. A lot of the descendants still live in the Globeville, Elyria, Swansea area. So from that standpoint, this is going to be very exciting. This is going to be a piece that's going to integrate, I think, very well with the development that's going to be going there. And it's really going to show what we're all about here in Denver that we're forward thinking when it comes to agriculture and urban ideas. But we understand and identify the importance of our past and the reasons why this location was so important to Denver. So thank you very much. Thank you. And next up, Jesse Pearce. Jesse Paris Black Starts a movement for self-defense. Deborah Thomas Out Loud and positive commitment for social change. And I'm also now large candidate for 2019. We are actually in favor of this. Abbie reminds me of a time when Denver was such a humble place to live and it was a cow town and you could travel through the town in 10 minutes. Now try to. It takes over an hour. So, yeah, we're definitely in favor of this. It should have been done already, but yes, we're in favor of this. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions from members of council? Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Eric. Could you tell us from the standpoint of the National Western Center project, how does the landmark designation fit into the plan overall? If you go back to the master plan that was approved 2015, there were four structures. That were historically significant. That we thought at some point needed to be kind of kept. And talked about and make sure that we we. Were clear about what they wanted to be before we did anything else. And this was one of them. Very important. Of course, the 1909 Stadium Arena Building was the first one. And then and then we also had the livestock exchange building. Which will be moving forward hopefully soon. And then, of course, the Denver Coliseum, which is to be determined at a later date. TBD. Yes, thank you. I just want to make sure that folks understood how this fit into the overall plan. We've been looking at this for a long time. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's all, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Brooks. No, it's okay. You're good. Councilwoman Ortega. I'm not sure who can answer this. I'm just trying to clarify. Is this the the residence that Tom Anthony lived in? It is. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega, seeing no other question, the public hearing for Council 1539 is closed. Comments by members of Council Councilman Brooks. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. It's it's nice to have a landmark designation where everyone is in support of designating this. So I think all parties and I think the National Lessons Center for for taking the lead on this and making this easy over this 250 acre redevelopment. So we've been talking about this for a long time, and it's always been a priority and a value from the residents in the area to make sure that these properties are historically designated and that they capture the fabric of the context in the neighborhood. And so I'm excited to support this and I hope my colleagues will do the same. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilman Brooks. Seeing no other comments, Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 1339. Yeah. Brooks. Yeah. Black tie. Espinosa I flinch. I humor. I Herndon I cashmere. I. Can each Lopez I knew Ortega I assessment i. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting in results. 1313 accountable. 1539 has passed. Councilman Cashman, will you please put Council Bill 1542 on the floor?