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intersection of 30th Street and Pearl Street. Jointly, they bought
an 11-acre parcel for $11 million, setting aside a 3.2-acre parcel
for RTD.
Plans were laid out for the ambitious Boulder Junction – a
multiphase, 160-acre transit-oriented urban village that trans-
formed downtown Boulder into a multi-use destination.
Then, the Great Recession. Neither the city nor the RTD had
the resources to further develop the site. But their vision for a
vibrant development connecting Boulder to the Denver metro
area stayed strong.
Uncommon Partnerships
In 2010, believing that private investment could stimulate
the development, the city of Boulder and RTD released a joint
request for qualifications to develop the first phase of the
transit village.
The request was answered by local developer, Pedersen De-
velopment Group, with an assembled design-build team that
included architecture and engineering firm SEH Inc., design
firm Larsson Design and Adolfson & Peterson Construction.
The project teamsuggested amodernmixed-use design that
met the high standards of the city and addressed the transit
needs of RTD officials.
They proposed a 50,000-square-foot, six-bay, below-grade
bus transfer facility with a parking structure directly above.
The parking structure would be wrapped with 71 affordable
housing units.
The project’s namesake, a historic train depot, would remain,
but be slated for adaptive reuse as a restaurant. A new street,
Junction Place, would be constructed to better connect the de-
velopment to the neighborhood. Designed as a “quiet street,”
with paving similar to that of the pedestrian plaza, it would
continue to a nearby city-developed pocket park.
Their approach was approved. The PDC team was selected
out of five candidate teams. Plan in place, this uncommon in-
teragency, public-private team began work.
A New Precedent
Creating a true TOD, like Depot Square, demands more than
simply developing land near a public transit station. TODs
require public transport, yes, but they also call for integrated
land uses and high-density, people-centered design.
These parameters produced a few obstacles for the project
team, due largely to the fact that the development type – ur-
ban, high density – was unprecedented in the city of Boulder.
“The goal was to create a truly wonderful place, amoremod-
ern, open environment for transit users, residents, hotel guests,
everybody,” said Pedersen, who studied architecture at the re-
nowned Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. “But it was a
little ahead of its time.”
To do it right, to create amodern TOD in Boulder, an entirely
new zoning class had to be created so the development could
have an urban character with higher density. The project team
also had to work with the community to adjust municipal
design codes, which favored a far busier, more suburban look
than the clean modern design envisioned for the develop-
ment.
Overcoming these obstacles required added efforts on the
front end of the project, but the city and developers can now
move ahead unheeded on future projects within Boulder
Junction.
Building Responsibly
Sustainable design was incorporated throughout Depot
Square. The affordable housing component, developed in co-
operation with the city of Boulder Housing Department, is
achieving LEED Silver certification.
But the project team also implemented a new LEED certifi-
cation called Neighborhood Development. Hailed as an anti-
dote to sprawl, LEED-ND certification looks beyond the scope
of individual buildings to include how entire communities
are planned and created.
“LEED-ND is perfect for a development of this nature,” said
Brooke Schubert, SEH’s sustainability coordinator. “It gave the
team a framework for making choices that resulted in a suc-
cessful, and sustainable, end result.”
Returning to Roots
Over the past hundred years, the land along Pearl Street has
hosted a variety of different uses. In addition to accommodat-
ing a train station, the land has seen rodeo grounds, even a
mall. With housing, transit, retail and shopping, Depot Square
at Boulder Junction will continue this tradition of diversity.
And soon.
Construction is on the final lap. The parking structure is
nearly complete. The 150-roomHyatt Place Hotel is slated to be
ready by the end of March, with the affordable housing and
underground BRT station scheduled to be open by August –
when rather than the sights and sounds of beeping forklifts
and hard-hatted construction crews, passersby will experience
a bustling inflow of travelers, shoppers and residents. People
on their way.
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/ Building Boulder’s Transit Vision /
Rendering of Depot Square at Boulder Junction