Greenwood Village

Orchard Station Proposal: Redevelop 600,000 sqft of existing office space and empty land into 3,200,000 sqft of mixed-use space.

1,700,000 sqft – Residential Space – The city’s Comprehensive Plan provides that additional multi-family rental housing will not be encouraged. Per discussions with Alberta Development Partners at June 29, 2016 Open House, it is proposing approximately 1,200 rental apartment units. Greenwood Village has always had a preference for limited owner-occupied multi-family housing vs. rental apartments.

1,200,000 sqft – Office Space – Several of the office and/or apartment buildings will be over 20 stories tall.

300,000 sqft – Retail Space – Per discussion with Felsburg Holt & Ullevig (transportation engineering firm that prepared initial Orchard Rd traffic study), retail space creates four-times (4x) the amount of traffic of office space. Therefore, the traffic impact of the retail space is equivalent to 1,200,000 sqft of office space. Consequently, the total traffic impact of the proposed development is equivalent to 4,100,000 office sqft.

Proposal also includes 40 restaurants, a hotel, a grocery store and an athletic club.

600,000 of existing square footage is based on discussions with the City of Greenwood Village.

Proposed square footage listed at OrchardStationDevelopment.com.

Park Meadows Mall is 1,572,340 sqft per mall owner General Growth Properties.

Population Impact: The 1,200 proposed rental apartment units will increase both the number of households in Greenwood Village and the number of residents by 20% (assumes 2.5 people per household based on GV’s 2013 estimates of 5,900 households and 14,700 residents). This is a dramatic increase that could permanently change the interests and priorities of the electorate and may have wide ranging impacts on the city.

Traffic Impact: The initial traffic study only proposes a traffic increase of 30% – 45% on Orchard Road, which is currently over capacity and can often be gridlocked at the Greenwood Plaza Blvd. and I-25 intersections. The 30% – 45% projected increase is significant given the current traffic issues. However, it appears to dramatically understate the traffic increase and negative impact of an almost seven-fold increase in square footage in the development area (4,100,000 office equivalent sqft / 600,000 existing sqft = 6.8x).

The traffic improvement proposal appears to add only one additional lane of traffic on Orchard. The proposal also includes adding an additional stoplight on Orchard Road at the current entrance to the Marilyn Hickey Ministries property.
- This additional stoplight could have the unintended consequence of creating an additional bottleneck on Orchard; since this will reduce the holding room for cars entering Orchard trying to access I-25.
- Secondly, the new stoplight will also shorten the holding room for eastbound vehicles waiting for stoplights on Orchard between Greenwood Plaza Blvd. and I-25. Additionally, it may also increase the amount of gridlock at Orchard and Greenwood Plaza.

The proposal does not include any additional infrastructure enhancements on Quebec Street, which currently faces significant bottlenecks for northbound traffic travelling towards Belleview and southbound traffic travelling towards Orchard.

The Belleview/Quebec and Belleview/I-25 intersections currently experience significant gridlock and traffic jams due partially to the new apartment developments on the north side of Belleview in the City and County of Denver. The traffic issues at the two Belleview intersections will be exacerbated upon the completion of the apartments and office building currently under construction at Belleview and Quebec. The proposed Orchard Station development will further increase traffic entering on to Quebec from the development.

Per discussion with Felsburg Holt & Ullevig, there is currently no funding to make infrastructure improvements on Belleview at the Quebec and I-25 intersections.

Finally, the initial traffic improvement proposal does not take into account any impact of the new development at Yosemite St. and Caley Ave.

Parking: The developer’s proposed parking accommodations are currently unknown. However, the city’s Comprehensive Plan is to “promote structured parking lots to reduce land devoted to surface parking lots”. Further, the city’s plan calls to “Reduce the parking ratio requirements for new developments and encourage joint-use parking lots and structures with staggered peak demands”, which could have the unintended consequence of creating additional traffic congestion as visitors to the development struggle to find convenient parking.

Construction Timeline: The proposed development is expected to take six-years to complete. Assuming there are no construction delays or changes in the economy that negatively impact the viability of the project (e.g. what happened to the Landmark) residents will be burdened with a long and drawn-out demolition and construction process that will undoubtedly bring about separate traffic, nuisance and pollution issues.

If you have concerns about the proposed development,

please contact your City Council member prior to the July 19, 2016 Planning and Zoning Meeting.

Greenwood Village Contacts

Ron Rakowsky

Mayor

303-486-5741

rrakowsky@greenwoodvillage.com

Heather Vidlock

Community Development Director

303-486-5774

hvidlock@greenwoodvillage.com

District 1