Recap: CATALYTIC DENVER – The River Mile

The third installment in our ongoing FREE Lecture Series – CATALYTIC DENVER was on Monday, January 28, 2019. The evening focused on the The River Mile.

Panel Speakers
Steve Nalley, Neighborhood Planning Manager, City & County of Denver
Don Elliott, FAICP, Director, Clarion Associates
Chris Shears, FAIA, Principal, SA+R Architects
Kimball Crangle, Co-founder, All in Denver
Moderated by Ken Schroeppel, AICP, Assistant Professor CTT, University of Colorado Denver, College of Architecture and Planning

Program Description
The River Mile is the proposed redevelopment of Elitch Gardens and its surface parking lots in Downtown Denver’s Central Platte Valley. The 60-acre project could include as many as 10,000 housing units and millions of square feet of office, retail and community uses in dozens of buildings – some reaching as high as 59 stories – organized around riverside parks, urban plazas and streets that prioritize walking, biking and transit. What are the design features of The River Mile that will leave a mark on Denver’s future architectural legacy? How will the layout of The River Mile reduce automobile dependency? What approaches will be used at The River Mile to make it affordable and accessible to a wide spectrum of incomes? How will The River Mile embrace the South Platte River? These and other questions were discussed as we engaged with a panel of experts to explore The River Mile development as a major catalytic project for Downtown Denver.

Presented by the Denver Architecture Foundation in partnership with the Design Council of the Denver Art Museum.

Photo: Courtesy of rivermiledenver.com.