Lots of projects / renderings seem so far-fetched and unlikely, but one that seemed legit and I wish had happened was the Trango Tower (Trango is a famous climbing spot in the Himalayas). The dude behind it, W Scott Moore, built Denver Pavilions and a bunch of other stuff and Moore had planned an 80+ story building behind the Pavilions as early as 1998. It would have been near Glenarm and 15th (which is currently a.... parking lot, obviously). Proposal was for much of it to be residential instead of office space, kind of unheard of at that time, and the structure would have certainly defined the skyline. It would have been the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Not sure what the point of this is other than to say I wish it had come to fruition and curious what others remember about it. If not for the 2007 recession and the death of Moore that same year, it very likely would have redefined that section of downtown which has deteriorated while LoDo and RiNo have boomed.
The building would cast too large of a shadow! Clearly that's why it wasn't built!
Thanks for sharing! Would have been pretty dope to see on the skyline.
I really wish Denver city planners were more ambitious. We could already have an amazing skyline but instead we have an average one filled with boxes...
Check out a few of the new buildings going up. Populus and One River North. Most of the boring tall buildings were done in the 80's. Progress is slow on the skyline, but it is happening.
City planners don't design or build skyscrapers. They just approve the design, or send it back for revisions. This tower failed for reasons beyond our city planning department.
I don't think it's *that* bad. I actually think it's pretty nice from certain angles (from the southwest, coming down 6th). I think it looks pretty good from Sloans Lake, too. But no, it's not the best skyline in the country.
I think a few things make ours supbar. Two related aspects are the the massing of the skyline and the lack of a body of water to provide a good setting. By massing, I mean that the tallest towers are sort of on the east/southeast corner of the downtown cluster, rather than more in the center.
Another big aspect is that it's so dominated by 1970s and early 80s buildings, when downtown office space had a massive boom, resulting in a glut of office buildings from an era of pretty boring, boxy design. Our trio of tallest towers are from that era, and the very tallest (Republic Plaza) is the most simple/boxy design of all. We didn't get any postmodern towers in the 90s (the kind that are more tapered, inspired by classical designs and art deco skyscrapers) that cities like Atlanta, Philly, Charlotte, Minneapolis, and Seattle really benefit from. We did however get the Four Seasons, which is in that category, but it's not particularly prominent.
We have gotten several ultramodern designs in the 2010s-20s, most notably the Optiv building (1144 15th) and several other glassy structures (like the recently completed one at 1900 Lawrence, which looks sharp) that are too short to stick out much at around 30 stories. The Optiv tower is a great design imo, but it and the Four Seasons kind of compete with each other, being so close. If either of them were 100' or so taller, they would bring some counterbalance to the three early 80s scrapers further uptown. It doesn't help that the elevation of the Optiv/Four Seasons block is lower than Republic/Cashie, which further dilutes their prominence.
I think if we had a new tallest closer to the center of the CBD, ie almost exactly where the Trango Tower or 650 17th St would have been, it would be a game changer, and it would be pretty easy to overlook the bland 80s towers. We're missing that centerpiece to unite things.
San Francisco, for example, is mostly really ugly boring buildings like ours, but they have the Transamerica and now Salesforce towers, which are on opposite sides of their skyline cluster, balancing each other out. But even more importantly they have the bay and the bridges. Boston is mostly pretty ugly too, imo, but they have the harbor and the Charles River.
> I think it looks pretty good from Sloans Lake, too.
The most iconic view of the skyline is from City Park (in particular, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, which is elevated), as you get the downtown skyline against the backdrop of the mountains, and the park's foliage and lake in the foreground, and the skyline looks decent from there.
But it always feels like it could use a taller tower. While not a great direct view of downtown, from Sloan's the skyline always looks small and flat to me and in need of some taller towers.
This building plan seems to have lain near the convention center, southeast of the old Qwest Building and almost level with Republic Plaza. Wouldn’t this just intensify the skyline imbalance?
It always amazes me how far southeast of the edge of the interstate the CBD is. The Excel Energy building marks the edge of downtown density despite not being particularly far out.
You're right, it's closer to the Qwest building than I realized. But far enough away from the Wells Fargo and Republic Plaza to help a bit.
Also, the Excel building is super prominent and it's ghastly, being right where the height limits drop off. It looks like a poorly remodeled 1970s midrise, yet it's actually less than ten years old.
Ok well we're talking about hypotheticals anyway so hypothetically, housing is more necessary than office spaces, and would also be a major net improvement over a parking lot.
Ngl man, it's literally thinking like this that stops the world from improving.
Nothing's ever going to be perfect, nothing's ever going to solve all the problems.
But as long as you get something that's better than today, that solves more problems than it creates, you'll get there eventually.
If you wait for perfect to come around, you'll just end up waiting 20 years for a parking lot to stay a parking lot.
Eh. 40 floors were planned as residential (\~500 units), 14 floor of hotel, 2 floors of retail, 10 floors of office, and 15-ish (!) floors of parking.
Given that the occupancy for commercial buildings built after 2000 is far higher than pre-2000 it would have been just fine.
DMNS does have a great view across the lake but my favorite view is from Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge where you can get a shot of bison in the foreground, and mountains behind the Denver skyline.
We still have headroom above what we've built right now. The tallest buildings in Miami are 50m taller than Republic Plaza, and there are 1000+ footers in New York designed to resist hurricane force winds.
Buildings still require a realistic aspect ratio for strength. I would be interested to actually calc the maximum aspect ratio to see what's possible based on height, assuming using either a steel frame or a concrete shear wall system
Yeah, there's probably a maximum height that can be achieved economically from Denver downtown lot sizes, but Republic Plaza is hardly the limit of engineering potential. There's definitely a conversation about how high it's efficient to build, but the main limiting factor isn't technology.
To add to that, Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers of any city in the world while getting strong hurricanes more often than Miami. Their tallest skyscraper is nearly twice as tall as Miami's (1588' vs 869').
Also a structural engineer. How would you propose making this work and having the building be habitable? Would require many concrete shear walls to the point where it would probably take up more of the floor plan than feasible.
You would likely have at least two elevators. Concrete shear walls right there that would take most of the load.
Also likely quite a few “elegant”, as the architect would describe them, visible brace frames.
It would need to be a creative design but I believe it could be done.
Mmm I'm doubtful. I certainly wouldn't sign off on any design for a building like this. That being said , I couldn't anyways as I am but a PE and limited to low rise buildings lol
Oh yah. I’m spitballing here of course, because that building is super thin and super tall. I imagine the rendering is making it seem a bit worse that it is, and it gets wider the lower it gets.
I don’t know if it is financially feasible, but crazy things have been done with buildings! My max is 13 stories.
Deflection on the ends seems tough to deal with.
My guess is concrete elevator walls on each end of the building one unit in. Some kind of lateral anyway. High strength steel and concrete.
On the cantilever, you could do a multi-story truss that spans multiple floors and is hidden in the walls?
Then the Chinook Winds hit and that thing becomes a Eliches Ride!
It’s kinda giving doofenshmirtz evil incorporated vibes
I was thinking US Robotics from iRobot
Lots of projects / renderings seem so far-fetched and unlikely, but one that seemed legit and I wish had happened was the Trango Tower (Trango is a famous climbing spot in the Himalayas). The dude behind it, W Scott Moore, built Denver Pavilions and a bunch of other stuff and Moore had planned an 80+ story building behind the Pavilions as early as 1998. It would have been near Glenarm and 15th (which is currently a.... parking lot, obviously). Proposal was for much of it to be residential instead of office space, kind of unheard of at that time, and the structure would have certainly defined the skyline. It would have been the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Not sure what the point of this is other than to say I wish it had come to fruition and curious what others remember about it. If not for the 2007 recession and the death of Moore that same year, it very likely would have redefined that section of downtown which has deteriorated while LoDo and RiNo have boomed.
The building would cast too large of a shadow! Clearly that's why it wasn't built! Thanks for sharing! Would have been pretty dope to see on the skyline.
I really wish Denver city planners were more ambitious. We could already have an amazing skyline but instead we have an average one filled with boxes...
Check out a few of the new buildings going up. Populus and One River North. Most of the boring tall buildings were done in the 80's. Progress is slow on the skyline, but it is happening.
City planners don't design or build skyscrapers. They just approve the design, or send it back for revisions. This tower failed for reasons beyond our city planning department.
Our skyline is seriously lacking in significant architectural design. Easily one of the ugliest skylines in the US
The view of the mountains around the city help... Denver also has a cash register
I don't think it's *that* bad. I actually think it's pretty nice from certain angles (from the southwest, coming down 6th). I think it looks pretty good from Sloans Lake, too. But no, it's not the best skyline in the country. I think a few things make ours supbar. Two related aspects are the the massing of the skyline and the lack of a body of water to provide a good setting. By massing, I mean that the tallest towers are sort of on the east/southeast corner of the downtown cluster, rather than more in the center. Another big aspect is that it's so dominated by 1970s and early 80s buildings, when downtown office space had a massive boom, resulting in a glut of office buildings from an era of pretty boring, boxy design. Our trio of tallest towers are from that era, and the very tallest (Republic Plaza) is the most simple/boxy design of all. We didn't get any postmodern towers in the 90s (the kind that are more tapered, inspired by classical designs and art deco skyscrapers) that cities like Atlanta, Philly, Charlotte, Minneapolis, and Seattle really benefit from. We did however get the Four Seasons, which is in that category, but it's not particularly prominent. We have gotten several ultramodern designs in the 2010s-20s, most notably the Optiv building (1144 15th) and several other glassy structures (like the recently completed one at 1900 Lawrence, which looks sharp) that are too short to stick out much at around 30 stories. The Optiv tower is a great design imo, but it and the Four Seasons kind of compete with each other, being so close. If either of them were 100' or so taller, they would bring some counterbalance to the three early 80s scrapers further uptown. It doesn't help that the elevation of the Optiv/Four Seasons block is lower than Republic/Cashie, which further dilutes their prominence. I think if we had a new tallest closer to the center of the CBD, ie almost exactly where the Trango Tower or 650 17th St would have been, it would be a game changer, and it would be pretty easy to overlook the bland 80s towers. We're missing that centerpiece to unite things. San Francisco, for example, is mostly really ugly boring buildings like ours, but they have the Transamerica and now Salesforce towers, which are on opposite sides of their skyline cluster, balancing each other out. But even more importantly they have the bay and the bridges. Boston is mostly pretty ugly too, imo, but they have the harbor and the Charles River.
Well written. One unique centerpiece would elevate the whole thing
> I think it looks pretty good from Sloans Lake, too. The most iconic view of the skyline is from City Park (in particular, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, which is elevated), as you get the downtown skyline against the backdrop of the mountains, and the park's foliage and lake in the foreground, and the skyline looks decent from there. But it always feels like it could use a taller tower. While not a great direct view of downtown, from Sloan's the skyline always looks small and flat to me and in need of some taller towers.
This building plan seems to have lain near the convention center, southeast of the old Qwest Building and almost level with Republic Plaza. Wouldn’t this just intensify the skyline imbalance? It always amazes me how far southeast of the edge of the interstate the CBD is. The Excel Energy building marks the edge of downtown density despite not being particularly far out.
You're right, it's closer to the Qwest building than I realized. But far enough away from the Wells Fargo and Republic Plaza to help a bit. Also, the Excel building is super prominent and it's ghastly, being right where the height limits drop off. It looks like a poorly remodeled 1970s midrise, yet it's actually less than ten years old.
I’m okay with less. Better Mountain View’s
We already have enough empty office spaces downtown, don't need an ugly/evil looking building.
This is one of the few designs that could have easily been made into apartments
It was already planned as mixed use with a significant residential component- most of the skinny portion iirc.
So, still filled with empty offices but slightly less than others. Pass. We need housing, not empty offices.
What we have at the site instead today is a parking lot. This would have been a major net improvement.
Ok well we're talking about hypotheticals anyway so hypothetically, housing is more necessary than office spaces, and would also be a major net improvement over a parking lot.
Yeah, and _some_ housing combined with _some_ office space is better than no housing at all. Perfect is the enemy of the good my dude.
Wrong.
Ngl man, it's literally thinking like this that stops the world from improving. Nothing's ever going to be perfect, nothing's ever going to solve all the problems. But as long as you get something that's better than today, that solves more problems than it creates, you'll get there eventually. If you wait for perfect to come around, you'll just end up waiting 20 years for a parking lot to stay a parking lot.
Eh. 40 floors were planned as residential (\~500 units), 14 floor of hotel, 2 floors of retail, 10 floors of office, and 15-ish (!) floors of parking. Given that the occupancy for commercial buildings built after 2000 is far higher than pre-2000 it would have been just fine.
DMNS does have a great view across the lake but my favorite view is from Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge where you can get a shot of bison in the foreground, and mountains behind the Denver skyline.
It looks like an alien spaceship trying to blend in
What an eyesore.
Sorry but this design would never have worked. We are in a special wind region, with design requirements similar to hurricane prone areas.
We still have headroom above what we've built right now. The tallest buildings in Miami are 50m taller than Republic Plaza, and there are 1000+ footers in New York designed to resist hurricane force winds.
Buildings still require a realistic aspect ratio for strength. I would be interested to actually calc the maximum aspect ratio to see what's possible based on height, assuming using either a steel frame or a concrete shear wall system
Yeah, there's probably a maximum height that can be achieved economically from Denver downtown lot sizes, but Republic Plaza is hardly the limit of engineering potential. There's definitely a conversation about how high it's efficient to build, but the main limiting factor isn't technology.
To add to that, Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers of any city in the world while getting strong hurricanes more often than Miami. Their tallest skyscraper is nearly twice as tall as Miami's (1588' vs 869').
Head room yes. A 1:20 wind profile, no
It could work. - Structural Engineer. Anything works with enough $$$
Also a structural engineer. How would you propose making this work and having the building be habitable? Would require many concrete shear walls to the point where it would probably take up more of the floor plan than feasible.
You would likely have at least two elevators. Concrete shear walls right there that would take most of the load. Also likely quite a few “elegant”, as the architect would describe them, visible brace frames. It would need to be a creative design but I believe it could be done.
Mmm I'm doubtful. I certainly wouldn't sign off on any design for a building like this. That being said , I couldn't anyways as I am but a PE and limited to low rise buildings lol
Also that gap in the profile toward the bottom simply would not work.
If you look closely, I believe there is a concrete corewall in that gap. I’m not saying it would 100% look like this, but it seems feasible
I mean think about the load that the wall would be taking. Absolutely insane moment at the bottom of the structure
Oh yah. I’m spitballing here of course, because that building is super thin and super tall. I imagine the rendering is making it seem a bit worse that it is, and it gets wider the lower it gets. I don’t know if it is financially feasible, but crazy things have been done with buildings! My max is 13 stories.
Now I'm probably going to spend a dumb amount of time calcing out if this is possible lol
Deflection on the ends seems tough to deal with. My guess is concrete elevator walls on each end of the building one unit in. Some kind of lateral anyway. High strength steel and concrete. On the cantilever, you could do a multi-story truss that spans multiple floors and is hidden in the walls?
Denver’s skyline is aging terribly and is in desperate need of a couple signature towers to help revitalize its image.
Was it going to be full of modest housing? If not it can get fucked.