juiced

Crawford says hotel rooms on the mezzanine level will be small and efficient, inspired by old Pullman train cars. Rooms on the gallery floor will feature high ceilings and windows. "The rooms under the roof will be huge with loft ceilings," says Zach Smith, Union Station project manager for Milender White. "There will be large bathrooms with claw-foot tubs, and existing beams will give the rooms a rustic feel."

Because of Union Station's landmark status, Milender White also must collaborate with historic groups, including the Colorado State Historic Preservation Office and National Park Service, which is providing historic-preservation tax incentives for the project.

"There are lots of moving parts with historic buildings like this," says Crawford. "We feel a tremendous sense of responsibility for the future since we have a 99-year lease."

The old train station and the transforming transit hub that is growing behind it (see related story, p. 31) have already become a catalyst for private development nearby. Just north of the station, a 100,000-sq-ft, five-story office building has started construction and will house the new headquarters of IMA Financial Group Inc.

A joint venture between Colorado's East West Partners and Starwood Capital Group of Greenwich, Conn., also is developing the 110,000-sq-ft, five-story One Union Station office building nearby.

Other neighboring projects under way or expected to break ground in the near future include the $36-million, 281-unit Alta City House apartments developed by Wood Partners and East West Partners now under construction as well as an apartment-retail complex that will include a long-awaited downtown King Soopers grocery store, to be built by the Nichols Partnership and Greystar Real Estate Partners.

"The hope of the agencies that pooled their resources to redevelop Union Station was that private development would also happen, and it's come to fruition," says Kristopher Takacs, associate director at architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, New York City, and the company's Union Station transit project manager. "This is the hottest real estate market downtown Denver has seen in a long time. We're taking all the juice in Denver right now and concentrating it around this project."