DIA redesign animation

This is just part of the proposed changes.  The renovation will take 4 years and cost $1.8 billion.  For that amount of money, you could build another VA hospital.

The animation doesn't show any of the hideous apocalyptic pictures.  Maybe they will be painted over with just a white wall.

Colorado Heights University closing

Colorado Heights is scheduled to close this fall after the last group of students complete their course work in late October. The closure is sparking anxiety among neighbors and others connected to the historical campus, which was opened in 1891 by the Sisters of Loretto as Loretto Heights Academy, a Catholic elementary and secondary school for girls.  They worry a new owner of the campus will invite more development and increase local traffic. They also want any new owner to preserve the college’s main building, which was designed by architect Frank Edbrooke,who also worked on the Brown Palace, state capitol and numerous other historic buildings.  http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/28/colorado-highs-university-campus-future/

The historic campus has a twin building, called Westminster Castle, located at 83rd & Federal. 

Construction Fire

This was right next to a light rail station at 2nd & Abilene on June 19.

Buckingham Square Mall

Buckingham Square was first announced in 1965 when The Denver Business Journal announced that the Joslins Department store chain planned to build a two million dollar store in a fifteen-acre site at Mississippi and Havana streets in Aurora Colorado. The developer Robert Hayutin proposed that the development would include major department stores as well as other retail, offices and restaurants. In late 1970 plans were also announced for The Aurora Mall on East Alameda and Exposition Avenue, which would soon become Buckingham Square's lifetime competitor. The Rocky Mountain News warned that Buckingham may eventually displace Aurora East Colfax and become Aurora's new downtown. Buckingham Square was sold as a 24-hour a day community where Aurora would live, work and shop. In November 1970 the first of two office buildings was started. Called Camelot I it was eight stories tall and was Aurora's first high rise. The buildings twin was finished in 1973 called Camelot II during this time the Sherwood Apartments were built on the north west side of the mall site. The mall itself opened on August 5, 1971 The building, designed by architects Kenneth Boyle and William Wilson of Overland Park, Kansas was expected to provide over 1,500 jobs for the community. The mall had the latest technology and elegances available at its opening including 4,000 parking places, living and artificial plants, fountains and acoustical plaster ceilings accented by walnut inlay. Additionally, the mall was climate controlled, allowing shoppers to browse the stores in seventy-two degree comfort. 
 The Lancelot Restaurant was in operation a full four months before the mall opened because Hayutin felt a fine restaurant to serve the residents of Village East should be a priority. The building itself, which stood in the parking lot west of the mall, featured a main dining room with seating for 200 people and a large fireplace as well as a separate lounge with leather furnishings and a second fireplace. This building went through several changes through the years including becoming a part of the Broker chain of fine restaurants in the 1980s and a Beau Jo's pizza in the 1990s. Eventually, the building was razed to make way for a McDonald's.
http://deadmalls.com/malls/buckingham_square_mall.html

The area southeast of Havana & Mississippi once had ambitions of being Aurora's downtown.  It was elegant and futuristic and climate-controlled. It was British-themed and you could listen to Scottish bagpipes and pretend you were in an English village shopping for a kilt before you stop off in The Lancelot for a spot of tea.

Today?  You could shop at Toys'R'Us or Petco, or pay your bill at Comcast before eating at McDonald's  The high-rise buildings are mostly empty, but just scored by getting the Guatemalan consulate to locate there.  The most exciting thing going on there today may be yogurt shop.  I'm sure people living 50 years ago thought the future would be more exciting than it is today.

Out with the old

This old folks home at , called the Lowry Park Independent Assisted Living Center, is being demolished to build upscale apartments.  Here is an article from March 2016:

DENVER -- Elderly residents living at Lowry Park Independent Assisted Living Center have until the end of June to find a new place to live. They were notified a few days ago that their building had been sold to a developer who plans to demolish it and create new, upscale apartments. A New Jersey-based company owns Lowry Park. According to the group that manages the building, Vivage Senior Living Solutions, the owners received an offer they couldn’t refuse.
http://kdvr.com/2016/03/30/106-elderly-residents-in-denver-forced-to-find-new-homes/

The A-Line will never be fixed

After more than a year of trying to address problems at crossing gates along RTD's A, B, and G commuter-rail lines, the systems that control the timing of the gates are the best they can be, even though that may not satisfy federal and state regulators, the contractor operating the trains has told the transit agency.  And with Denver Transit Partners (DTP) saying there is no improvement in sight, or even possible "with available technology," the contractor told the Regional Transportation District in a May 26 letter to quit levying fines against it for problems beyond the contractor’s control.   http://www.9news.com/money/business/disagreement-emerges-between-rtd-contractor-over-rail-line-problems/446631294

I think the problem is that they got entranced with technology that is too complicated.  Instead of having sensors in the track that are connected to the crossing arms, they have GPS systems on the trains that go up to satellites, then to a command center, then internet over radio to the crossing arms.  I think they should scrap the whole system and do it the old way.  Yea it will cost more, but RTD is spending $6 million per year just on extra crossing guards and police protection.  This is ridiculous.

Cursed

I think this empty church at the corner of Leetsdale and Colorado Blvd (50 S Colorado Blvd) is cursed.

It once housed Denver Temple Baptist Church.  A 1995 article said that it was Denver's oldest Southern Baptist Church and it was debt-free.  And the property was shared by 4 congregations - Anglo, Hispanic, Korean, and black.  A cellular phone company rented the steeple to house an antenna.  Then something happened to make them sell the debt-free property to the Universal Church.  The Universal Church evidently had trouble spreading their message (since if you don't believe in hell, why go to church) and it folded sometime around 2011, I think.

Then in 2014 it was purchased by McKinnon & Associates who had plans to build either 40 or 54 condos/townhouses on the 1 acre site.  However, the neighborhood association would not agree because they said it was too dense and because of the awkward entrances and exits.  The developer would not agree to less units because of the cost of building an underground parking garage.  So the city council denied the re-zoning request.

So now it sits empty with a fence around it as you can see.  There aren't any broken windows or graffiti, but it is just a matter of time.  Unless either the city or the developer changes their minds, the property will sit abandoned, while hundreds of thousands of cars zoom by every day, only 1/2 mile from one of the most booming areas in the country (Cherry Creek).

Update 7/8/17:  I was wrong about no graffiti.  The side facing Colorado Blvd has a lot of graffiti on it.