On Monday, Sept.23, the Denver City Council unanimously approved the rezoning application for Cherry Creek West, giving East West Partners‘ 13-acre mixed-use redevelopment project the green light to move forward.
“We are incredibly excited to bring a community to Cherry Creek that completes the neighborhood and creates a true connection to the Creek,” said Amy Cara, managing partner at East West Partners. “Approval by the Denver City Council means we can finally start bringing this vision to fruition.”
Cherry Creek West will span from University Blvd. to Clayton Lane and from 1st Ave. to the Cherry Creek waterway, which is roughly four city blocks. The endeavor will build upon the City of Denver’s planning efforts to ensure a connected, distinctive and prosperous Cherry Creek area through the creation of a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood where everything one might need is a 15-minute walk or bike ride away. Cherry Creek West is planned to offer approximately 825 residences, 600,000 square feet of office space, 100,000 square feet of retail, a reservoir of underground parking with over 2,000 spaces, and four acres of open space.
“As owners of the land underlying Cherry Creek West, our goal in reimagining the west end of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center was to find someone aligned with our history of enhancing the neighborhood while creating a sustainable cash flow for the beneficiaries of the Foundation – the children of Colorado,” said Steve ErkenBrack, president and CEO of the Buell Foundation. “The exciting new development at Cherry Creek West will strengthen the Buell Foundation’s mission to make a difference for young children in Denver and throughout Colorado.”
The rezoning application requested custom zoning through a Planned Unit Development (PUD) based on Cherry Creek North (C-CCN) zoning, ensuring the community fits into the fabric of Cherry Creek. Cherry Creek West will be incorporated as a new subarea in the Cherry Creek North Design Guidelines with design review approval from the Cherry Creek Design Advisory Board. East West Partners’ current plan calls for seven total buildings, four of which can reach the maximum height of 13 stories under the rezoning, and three of which would be eight stories.
Within Cherry Creek West, 12% of the total units (or approximately 100 units) will be affordable for those earning 60% of the area median income. In addition, the community will feature the first meaningful open space in the Cherry Creek neighborhood. Other notable elements of the plan include protected cycle tracks on 1st Avenue and Clayton Lane, and several improvements to pedestrian crossings at 1st Avenue, as well as improvements to the Cherry Creek trail.
“With the rezoning complete, now comes the fun part; we can begin to design the public spaces and the individual buildings and watch this community really start to take shape,” said Cara.
Some internal road and utility work will begin at the Cherry Creek West site at the end of this year with demolition of existing buildings expected to begin in spring 2025 and groundbreaking anticipated in summer 2026. Phase 1 is planned to deliver in 2029 and the entire project, which is anticipated to be two phases, will take nearly a decade to complete.
