Back in January we took a look at the 1801 California renovations and learned that the entire ground floor was being remodeled. Brookfield Properties put down 50 million dollars with a vision; to make the second tallest building in Denver more inviting at the street level by opening up the lobby and including street facing retail.

What’s different since the last time we checked in? Glass. This will open the lobby up to much more natural light. You can also see the new ground floor retail space to the right of the lobby entrance. The plaza area is being cleared off so we should see the plaza itself getting rebuilt soon.

 

This renovation adds a whole new face to 1801 California. You may not see anything different on the skyline but, a real city is not measured by its skyline. It’s measured by how a pedestrian interacts with the built environment at the street-level.

There are a lot of reinvestment and adaptive reuse projects going on around central downtown and I’m going to keep covering them as they come along. On my next post we will take a look at the completed adaptive reuse project at 550 15th Street.