EMBRACING A `NEW URBANISM' WELCOME WAGON OUT FOR MIXED-USE NEIGHBORHOODS

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Rocky Mountain News (CO) - Thursday, July 5, 2001

Author: Berny Morson News Staff Writer

Cinderella City was the largest enclosed shopping mall west of the Mississippi when it opened in 1968.

By the time it closed 29 years later, the mall was a mostly empty concrete hulk. Shoppers - along with Englewood's sales tax base - had fled to spiffy new shopping centers around the metro area.

But now the 55-acre site at West Hampton Avenue and South Santa Fe Drive is again on the cutting edge of a national and metro-area trend. A mix of housing, offices and pedestrian promenades is rising, literally, on the rubble.

The new community - dubbed CityCenter Englewood - will be home to nearly 1,000 people, some of whom will live in apartments above the stores. They will be minutes from downtown Denver by light-rail.

``It's really a whole new idea of what your suburb can be,'' Englewood Mayor Tom Burns said.

Suburban attitudes changing

Neighborhoods like this were unthinkable for most of the 20th century, when American suburbs adhered strictly to the principle that each piece of land should be zoned for a single use - homes, shopping, industry, offices.

But attitudes are changing under intense criticism from planners, architects and environmentalists. They say the traditional suburban neighborhoods are stifling and foster dependence on the automobile.

The result is the ``new urbanism,'' a national movement that advocates a return to the mixed-use neighborhoods that were standard in the 19th century, like those in central and north Denver. Not surprisingly, the new neighborhoods take advantage of transit, another idea from the 19th century that is making a comeback nationwide.

The new neighborhoods are built at a higher density, allowing people to walk to shopping or a coffee shop - and maybe meet their neighbors on the street.

``You can create more of a closeness, neighborhoods that really work together, rather than just having so many streets you drive down to go to your suburban house,'' Burns said.

CityCenter Englewood is the most advanced example of the movement in the Denver area. The first of the Englewood homes are scheduled for occupancy this summer.

Projects incorporating elements of new urbanism have won the support of planning officials in several Denver suburbs, and more are being planned:

* The redesigned Aurora Mall will include an old-fashioned pedestrian promenade bordered by shops, in addition to standard ``big box'' stores. It is adjacent to the new Aurora City Hall and multifamily housing, and plans call for a light-rail line to serve the area.

* Arvada officials are trying to redevelop their downtown, which dates from the early 20th century, around a light-rail line on the Regional Transportation District drawing board. Old buildings are being renovated by private owners; sidewalks are being widened; and housing is planned.

* Boulder officials are insisting renovation of the mostly boarded-up Crossroads shopping center should include housing and street-level retail. They are meeting resistance from the mall owner, and the project may end up in condemnation proceedings. The site is near a rail line that Boulder and Westminster planners hope will one day carry passengers to Denver.

* In Lakewood, construction of a neighborhood will begin in December on the 100-acre site of the dying Villa Italia shopping center. The largest of the suburban projects, it will include plazas, a theater, housing, retail, offices and the existing Foley's store. The project is not on a proposed light- rail line, but city officials say a shuttle could take riders to the line 15 blocks away.

Nostalgia playing a role

Such projects have been largely overlooked as debate by state legislators remains focuses on sprawl at the edge of the metro area. But planners and architects say the denser, more urban neighborhoods will bring profound changes to the way people live.

``People are clearly saying, `I'd like to live at a place that has some identity and that has a sense of community,' '' said John Parr of the Center for Regional and Neighborhood action , a Denver-based think tank that works with communities on planning issues.

Parr, who also teaches at the University of Colorado's Graduate School of Public Affairs, was a consultant on the Englewood project.

Some support is built on nostalgia for traditional communities - even though most of the people who will move into CityCenter Englewood never lived in an old-fashioned small town, Parr said.

But they realize it's an alternative to urban sprawl, the continual expansion into countryside, he said.

No one is predicting that Coloradans are ready to abandon their cars, but with congestion increasing, people are looking for a respite from total dependence on automobiles, planners said. And as the area's light-rail system grows, more projects like CityCenter Englewood will spring up at the stations.

For example, Arvada officials plan to surround a new light-rail station with offices, retail and a pedestrian plaza - all adjoining the city's historic downtown and new multifamily housing.

The project benefits the whole community, said City Councilwoman Lorraine Anderson.

The redeveloped downtown will be a community focal point, featuring locally owned business and restaurants, she said.

House on lot still has appeal

Some builders caution that the new urbanism may have less impact than proponents predict.

Skip Miller, president of Miller Weingarten Realty, said large numbers of buyers still want the traditional single-family house on a piece of land.

Miller's firm is coordinating the redevelopment projects in Englewood and Aurora. But, he said, ``Everybody doesn't want to live above a retail shop.''

While new urbanists deride ``big box'' stores, they are necessary, Miller said.

He doubts the small, street-level shops that will be part of the Englewood and Aurora redevelopments would survive without them.

Even with big boxes as a draw, Miller has doubts.

``I'm nervous about whether the small retail shops on the street are going to be viable.

``I can't sit here and tell you I am thoroughly convinced and have seen the light, and I know this is going to work.''

`I like our inside mall'

Not all suburban residents are dissatisfied with traditional shopping centers.

Rosalyn Juhl, who lives south of Villa Italia, questions the redevelopment of a mall where she has shopped for 23 years.

``As far as putting in a city, I don't like it,'' said Juhl, a homemaker. ``I like our inside mall. You can come in here and rest. You can sit.''

Ben Wilbourn, an engineer who lives near the new CityCenter Englewood, said he'll eat at some of the restaurants, but he's not so sure he likes the multifamily housing.

``Englewood is like a family community, and I don't think apartment living is pushing the family living aspect,'' he said. Residents are likely to be singles or couples, but not families with children, he said.

Englewood officials didn't think of themselves as part of a cultural movement in the mid-1990s when they started wondering what to do with a 1.3 million-square-foot shopping center that was falling ever deeper into decay.

In the beginning, Cinderella City had been a fairy-tale-come-true for the working-class suburb just south of Denver. Six years after it opened, the shopping center was generating 52 percent of the city's sales tax revenue and drawing customers from throughout the metro area.

But by 1994, the mall's tax revenues provided only 2.6 percent of the pie and were shrinking fast.

``As the metro area grew and the suburbs got larger farther out, the retailers wanted to go where the rooftops are,'' Englewood senior planner Harold Stitt said.

`Unspoken needs' getting attention

City officials initially looked to big box stores to revive the sales-tax magic. That changed when the city was approached by Parr, who saw the imminent light-rail line as an opportunity for Englewood to do something more ambitious.

Now the former Foley's store has been turned into a combination City Hall and library. It is connected to the light-rail station by a bridge. Housing and shops are going up nearby.

The project could spark additional redevelopment in a city that had long despaired of participating in the growth taking place on the edge of the metro area, Burns and Stitt said.

Mark Falcone of Denver-based building firm Continuum Partners LLC said developers for too long assumed that a roof and a lawn were enough to meet the nation's housing needs. They ignored buyers' ``unspoken needs'' for strong neighborhoods, said Falcone, who is building Lakewood's Villa Italia project.

For example, buyers may not ask for sidewalks separated from traffic by a line of trees to make walking more pleasant or to have shopping close enough to be accessible by foot, Falcone said.

But demand for those amenities is evident in the hot market for homes in historic neighborhoods, he said.

They will be part of the Villa Italia project.

Lakewood officials said the city has been looking for a central core to give it an identity. The city was cobbled together from a a group of rural subdivisions in 1969.

In recent years, the city has added shops and a civic center at West Alameda Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard. The Villa Italia project, just across Wadsworth Boulevard, will add more than 1,200 dwelling units to the mix.

Debbie Koop, who lives in the O'Kane Park neighborhood north of Villa Italia, said the redevelopment will be an ``old-fashioned downtown'' for neighbors.

``On a summer evening you look for places to ride your bike with your family,'' she said. ``If there was a little old-fashioned type ice-cream shop in this new development, I think we would choose that.''

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Caption: Photo, Map
Jose Mena, left, and Oscar Espenosa, 21, work on a project next to the light-rail station at West Hampden Avenue and South Santa Fe Drive as part of the mixed-use redevelopment of Cinderella City, dubbed CityCenter Englewood. By Barry Gutierrez / Rocky Mountain News (Photo ran in Regional edition only)
CAPTION: Locator Map / Malls under redevelopment. By News Staff
Memo: Contact Berny Morson at (303) 892-5072 or morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com.
Headline p.1A - CINDERELLA STORY / `NEW URBANISM' COMES TO LIFE AT EX-ENGLEWOOD SHOPPING CENTER

Edition: Final
Section: Local
Page: 5A
Dateline: ENGLEWOOD
Record Number: 0107060047
Copyright (c) 2001 Rocky Mountain News

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