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AURORA AWAKENS

New mixed-use projects urbanize Denver suburb

BY JESSE SERWER

Alberta Development Partners is giving Aurora, Colo., a center befitting the largest city in the state. It’s not that Aurora is the largest city in the state, mind you. It’s just that some predict that within a decade, it will be.

Aurora is a sprawling, suburban city southeast of Denver with a reputation as a quiet, wealthy bedroom community. But with its population (currently 300,000) growing at a rate of 10 percent to 15 percent a year, it is poised to eclipse its larger sister city to the north. The area’s big employers — General Motors, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Stanley Aviation Corp. — have announced expansions that will include the creation of high-paying jobs. The former Fitzsimmons Medical Center is being redeveloped as the state’s premier bioscience park, and, perhaps most important, as many as 42,000 housing units are under development, mostly in the city’s southeast frontier.

Bedroom to boardroom
“For the first time Aurora is moving from a bedroom community to a boardroom community,” said Kevin Hougen, president of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce. “There is a lot of corporate housing being developed in addition to the tremendous amount of residential growth.”

The city dates back to 1904, but it has never managed to develop an urban core. Now it will make up for lost time. Enter Alberta Partners, which became sweet on the place after developing Saddlebrook Marketplace, a small power center near a new interchange on Denver’s E-470 beltway. Taking advantage of a new zoning designation that encourages mixed-use development across the highway from Saddlebrook, the Englewood, Colo.-based developer organized the purchase of seven parcels from five land owners for a total of $33 million in 2003 and set about creating the area’s first large-scale regional activity center.

The result: Southlands, a $250 million, 300-acre hybrid center containing 1.7 million square feet of retail, 263,000 square feet of mostly above-retail office space and 1,100 multifamily housing units. A Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam’s Club opened in October, and a 300,000-square-foot value retail center is set for June. The heart of the development will be a 75-store, four-block, drivable and walkable Main Street area scheduled to open in the summer of next year.

“Like a lot of large suburban communities, Aurora is trying to develop an urban identity,” said Donald G. Provost, a principal at Alberta Development and the point man behind the project. “We are not going to create a downtown city grid, but it will be a four-city-block urban environment with benches, lighting and the whole package of what creates that city atmosphere.”

For a sprawling community like Aurora, which spans 11 miles across and straddles three counties, it was important to create the “anti-sprawl,” says Provost. The firm has made an effort to include all the vestiges of a traditional downtown. The project, located in a rapidly developing zone with 16 recently built subdivisions and nine more on the way, including an Alberta project called Wheatlands, is being planned as the central meeting place for a trade area with a median household income of $92,436 a year.

“Bringing 600,000 feet of amenities and retail to a core intersection will allow people to stay in their community without having to drive 20 miles,” Provost said.

A parklike town square area will play host to a farmer’s market and film screenings, and in winter an ice-skating rink. Street vendors, sidewalk sculptures, a clock tower and an outdoor fire pit will reinforce a downtown atmosphere.

“These are all things that are very unique to this trade area and will give people who are moving here an ability to buy into their community at a level they don’t have right now,” Provost said.

The design team — Seattle’s Callison Architecture; Boulder, Colo.-based Communication Arts; and Denver-based CLC Associates — went to “unbelievable lengths in terms of place-making,” said Ian F. Thomas, chairman and president of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Thomas Consultants, a strategist on the project.

“We wanted to make sure all the senses were stimulated, from smell to sound to visual drama,” Thomas said. “You want to use the open airiness of Colorado to your advantage. Denver is close to the Rocky Mountains, so views and a view corridor were paramount. It is expansive and not overly intimate like you would find in more urban environments.”

Even the big boxes were given unique design accents — metal and fabric awnings at Wal-Mart, for instance, and brick laid in a diamond pattern at Sam’s Club.

“The idea was to make it as authentic as possible, so we used authentic Colorado material and palettes where we could,” Thomas said.

Anchored by Old Navy, Pier One Imports, Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond, the power center will serve as a launching pad for the expansion of Simply Artrageous, a home furnishings outlet specializing in custom art. Simply Artrageous already has two locations elsewhere in Colorado. Barnes & Noble, Banana Republic, Colorado Cinema and Ethan Allen have all signed on to the Main Street component.

“This is one of the first retail centers in the area where we have seen developers want to get a foothold before the rooftops and customer base are there,” Hougen said. “This is such a hot spot for development that retailers are willing to make the investment knowing it may take longer for a return. We are seeing more of that type of development all over the metro area, but this is certainly the biggest example.”

But buying into a center surrounded on all sides by new homes is just good sense for stores that sell home amenities, says Provost.

“The oncoming development and the growth story over the next five years is really what piques everybody’s interest,” Provost said. “A home electronics dealer like Best Buy or someone like Bed Bath & Beyond loves the idea of new houses being built right there. It is a great story for them.”

Alberta plans to duplicate the project on a slightly smaller scale near the Denver metro area’s northern frontier, in North Broomfield. Late last year the developer closed on a site it is calling Northlands, a 120-acre property 30 miles north of Aurora at the junction of Interstate 25 and Highway 7, which, unlike Southlands, will be partly funded by the municipality.