Multifamily developer Adam Fenton is seeking a rezoning for a site along Interstate 25 in West Wash Park.
Fenton’s firm, Denver-based Narrate Cos., wants to build a three-story, 63-unit project at 1000 S. Logan St. It would incorporate 63 underground parking spaces.
The site is two-thirds of an acre and has a smaller residential building on it. It is zoned U-RH-3A, which allows for a residential project up to 38 feet.
Narrate has asked the city to rezone it as U-MX-3, which allows for a mixed-use project up to 45 feet — although the company does not plan to take advantage of the seven additional feet.
Narrate bought the property in December, paying $4.13 million, according to public records. That works out to $140 a square foot for the land.
The previous owner was also interested in constructing apartments at the site, and proposed an 86-unit project that would have involved two buildings — one on the north end of the site and one on the south, records show. But they ultimately opted not to move forward.
“We had our eye on it for close to a year,” Fenton said.
Fenton likes the area. On the other side of I-25, in Platt Park, his firm has completed Carraway at 1190 S. Pennsylvania and Aston at 1250 S. Pearl St.
Fenton said he initially submitted plans for the 1000 S. Logan site under the current zoning, but that city staff suggested the rezoning. Fenton said it allows for a more efficient design. His proposed project is just one building, and shaped like a “U,” wrapping around a small courtyard against the alley. That offers more of a buffer from the single-family homes on the other side of the alley.
While his unit count is lower than the previous owner’s proposal, Fenton said that’s attributable to larger units overall, and a lack of garden-level units, which the previous owner had incorporated. OZ Architecture is the architect on Fenton’s project.
Fenton has a community benefits agreement, or CBA, in the works with the local neighborhood association. As part of that agreement, he plans to build up to 38 feet — the level allowed under the current zoning — despite the requested zoning allowing more height.
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Three nearby residents spoke against the rezoning at a meeting of Denver’s Planning Board last month. One kept his remarks very brief.
“I would urge you to maybe spend a half hour of your time and come see the property itself, if you’re not familiar with it, and maybe see what happens around rush hour,” said Mitchell Melichar, who lives in the 1000 block of South Pennsylvania Street.
Traffic backs up along Logan at that time.
Another resident asked that the board wait to vote until the agreement with the neighborhood was finalized. And a third voiced concern about what would happen if the agreement were violated.
“Enforcement would fall entirely on the neighborhood association … This seems like heavy lift for a nonprofit neighborhood association staffed entirely by volunteers,” said Catherine Fontaine, who lives in the 1000 block of South Pearl Street.
While that is true, Peter Wall of Wall Kane Consulting, who Narrate hired, noted that the company is actually setting money aside for the association to use if needed.
“One of the unique things that we’re doing, and we’re modeling it after other CBAs, is the applicant paying for all the legal fees for them to make sure the CBA looks good and kosher on their side,” Wall said. “But also there’s going to be money put away in an escrow account, so if for any reason Adam and team are not following what’s in that CBA, they don’t have to sit there and come out of pocket to take care of it.”
Denver’s Planning Board voted unanimously last month to recommend that the Denver City Council approve the rezoning. But members also questioned what they describe as a rise in developer agreements with neighborhood associations.
“We’re continuing to implement private agreements to essentially synthetically create customized zoning. We’re doing that with CBAs and developer agreements. And they aren’t then part of the zoning, they sit in an outside agreement, the enforcement of them is cumbersome … I just want to get on the record that I don’t think that’s an effective way to operate as a city,” board member Fred Glick said.
Board member Rachel Marion said an agreement might make sense for a major rezoning like that of the parking lots around Ball Arena, but questioned whether it should be used for something like “a single parcel in West Wash Park.”
“Even in instances where the registered neighborhood organization is not asking for a CBA … City Council is holding up rezonings for a community benefits agreement that the community is not asking for and that the community may or may not have the ability to enforce down the line,” Marion said. “This feels fraught and problematic.”
Speaking to BusinessDen after the meeting, Fenton said CBAs are something “the city has pushed,” but that he was agnostic about what avenue his firm’s commitments were made through.
“It doesn’t really matter to me,” he said. “There are different ways to achieve this.”
Fenton has one project actively under construction in Denver right now. His Frameline project is going up at 4225 E. Hale Parkway, just east of Colorado Boulevard.
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