It has been a little while since we looked at some of the reinvestment going on around central Downtown Denver. With newer, more attractive office projects going up in Union Station and Lower Downtown, the older office buildings in the central core have started to step up their game.
1660 Lincoln is not, by any means, Downtown Denver’s most attractive skyscraper. Built in 1972 and rising 30-stories (366 feet), 1660 Lincoln has always had a closed in presence on both the skyline and street level.
However, the skyline of a city is not what makes or breaks the experience; it’s the street level. Would you rather walk by a closed up office building, with two entrance / exit doors or a bright, open lobby with glass curtain walls lining the street?
This revialization project should be wrapping up in the next couple of weeks, brightening up yet another intersection in our great city.
This building is certainly in need of a little sprucing up. It would also be nice if they could help (or replace) those poor gnarled street trees along 17th. They look like they are just planted straight in the concrete and the concrete is just strangling them at the base. I’m amazed that any of them are alive.
Thanks for showing these improvements to older buildings. Unfortunately, this one seems to be the case of lipstick on a pig. But what a perfect pig to re-skin one day. Wouldn’t that be awesome…
Is the facade poured concrete? I understand concrete tends to stain from pollution and weather. This building would have about 43 years of it, right? I wonder how much it would cost to just clean the exterior. Might be a nice way to spruce up the building without re-skinning it.
Right, Terry, lipstick on an un-finished concrete skin. As a broadcasting intern at Channel 2 when this building was finished, I shadowed a newsfilm photog, who commented, “Not bad, as toppings-out go.” The story was not worthy of a reporter’s package, and it aired as 30 seconds of silent film with anchor voice-over, in the 9 o’clock news.
Not surprising, since Denver had so many bigger, more impressive office structures going up at the same time. (Look at the 52 story Wells Fargo tower — virtually framing this nondescript office building — which has become the city’s currently most-iconic skyscraper.) 1660 Lincoln is a good example of a “background building,” part of a generic urban skyline, but not noticeable. Sadly, there are ‘way too many of these low-grade office towers in Denver, with very few worthy of being called Iconic.