Belmar Sold to Starwood Capital Group

Well, it's finally a done deal. Belmar has been sold Starwood Capital Group.

As I reported earlier, the Southern Utes, faced with a downturn in gas revenue, have been looking to raise cash by selling Belmar. It's finally happened. Interestingly. Continuum Partners, the design firm that has been the driving force behind Belmar since its inception, has also announced they will sell their minority share of the downtown Lakewood development. But what do we know about Starwood Capital?

The Denver Business Journal is reporting that Starwood's interest in Belmar is focused on expanding retail, which reflects the strong economic recovery currently underway in Colorado. It wasn't that many years ago that I heard people say Belmar (and indeed the entire metro area) was overbuilt in terms of retail, but the population of the front range is expected to boom over the next decade, and downtown Lakewood is well positioned to capture its share of that growth. The Denver Post, meanwhile, quotes Lakewood's deputy city manager as saying that only 50% of Belmar's residential and 45% of its commercial development is complete. (Does that 50% include the large Trifecta building, which is almost but not quite finished? I don't know.) Starwood has a history of buying underdeveloped properties, adding value, and then selling them for a healthy profit. Taken together, this suggests Starwood sees Belmar as having lots of room to grow.

Starwood has been involved with development in Denver before, including around the revamped and bustling Union Station. But Starwood is a huge, huge investment firm. They're involved with everything. The firm owns property worldwide, including resorts in Spain, office buildings in Florida, and hotels in London. Belmar was a big deal for the Southern Utes and Continuum. For Starwood, a big deal was its 2005 acquisition of Group Taittinger for $3.2 billion. In a portfolio like that, will Belmar be just another measly $250 million property?

In Photos: Festival Italiano 2015

2015 Festival Italiano Sept. 12-13

This year's Festival Italiano starts today, Saturday Sept. 12 at 10 am and runs through 5 pm on Sunday Sept. 12.

I'll be out taking photographs all weekend-- and nibbling on cannoli.

Short Term Nursing Facility Proposed for Vacant Lot at 100 S. Wadsworth

The Denver West Health & Rehab Physicians Development Group has proposed a short term nursing facility for the vacant lot at 100 S. Wadsworth.

This long, narrow lot fronts S. Wadsworth from Pickering's Auto Service on Bayaud Ave. to W. Byers Place and the new emergency medical center currently under construction at 260 S. Wadsworth.

The plan would allow for two buildings on the lot, each fronting Wadsworth, with parking in between. Car access would be from Bayaud or Byers.

This is good design, folks. By pushing car access to the rear of the site, it's possible to run an unbroken pedestrian/bike trail along Wadsworth. Pedestrians and bikers will feel safer on account of having building facades to one side, while auto traffic on Wadsworth will be kept flowing by not having cars entering onto the street directly from the new parking lot.

Revamped Lakewood Civic Plaza Is Very, Very Quiet

The pedestrian plaza between the Lakewood Cultural Center and the Lakewood Civic Center has just reopened after a period of extensive renovation that lasted most of last year.

I was over in the plaza around noon just a few days ago and shot these photos. The plaza now features trees, grass and a fountain that are all surrounded by a ring of outdoor benches and planters. It's really a much nicer space than it was before.

The most interesting thing about the revamped plaza, however, was the lack of people. Even though it was lunchtime, no one was making use of this public space.

Lakewood Civic Plaza looking east

In my view, the problem is that the Lakewood City  Commons development (of which the Lakewood Civic Center is a part) is poorly designed. The shopping center positions its highest volume retailers east along Wadsworth, while the storefronts near the plaza on the west side are mostly empty. In between the two is a sea of parking spaces. As a result, people drive right up to their destinations on the east side, shop, and then get right back into their cars. They have no reason to explore a new store, try a new restaurant, or wander a block over to this very nice public space. And so the area feels dead.

Surface parking in Lakewood City Commons

In contrast, the new urbanist Belmar development (located right across Wadsworth from the Lakewood City Commons) has much less surface parking. High volume retailers are mixed throughout. Parking is perceived as being "harder," and yet the streets feel much more vibrant. People end up walking a bit to their destinations, and so there's less of a barrier to popping into someplace new-- after all, you're already out of the car. For much the same reason, Belmar's central plaza has people in it night and day, and the development has a lower vacancy rate than Lakewood City Commons.

Seating in the new plaza area

True, part of this vibrancy is because people actually live in Belmar, while Lakewood City Commons is mostly commercial or government usage, but there's no reason the owners of Lakewood City Commons and the city couldn't develop residential on their side of Wadsworth too. There's plenty of surface parking in Lakewood City Commons that could be built on, whether for apartments or high volume retail.

Unless that happens, though, I predict Lakewood City Commons is going to continue to play second fiddle to Belmar, and the city's lovely new civic plaza is going to stay very, very quiet.

7 Eleven at Pierce and Alameda

Construction is well underway on the new convenience store and gas station at S. Pierce and Alameda, and it will be a 7 Eleven, as I previously reported.

This will be only the second fueling station in downtown Lakewood (the other is at 5th and Wadsworth, across from the new Sprouts Market), and I think it'll be a welcome addition to the area. And while I'm sorry to see Alameda Burrito go, the old gas station on this site was an eyesore.

I'm particularly pleased with the footprint of the new building. Instead of sitting back from Alameda, the new building fronts the corner in a very visible manner. 

Large setbacks (as existed with the old gas station on this corner) are a characteristic or suburban or even rural street design. They're bad design in an urban setting, as they waste space and discourage pedestrian traffic by channeling people into an unsafe corridor between street and parking lot. 

The new building's position right on the corner will make S. Pierce feel safer for pedestrians to cross by giving the corner physical definition. This same definition will add to the streetscape, weaving the corner better into the more urban design fabric across the street in Belmar. At the same time, its height is much lower than anything in Belmar, serving as a transition into the lower density neighborhoods to the east and north.

So yes, it's only a gas station, but the design and location of it shows the behind the scenes zoning work that has been going on here in Lakewood to make the Alameda and Wadsworth area into a true urban space.