A 77-year-old building that played a key role in Denver’s early history will be re-purposed to try to help address the city’s current affordable housing crisis, as the “Sloans Block 3” redevelopment project on the former St. Anthony Central Hospital site in northwest Denver gets underway this year.

The project is being developed by Sloans Block 3 LLC, a joint venture of Koelbel and Co. and Trailbreak Partners, as a residential mixed-use, mixed-income project in the West Colfax neighborhood. It includes the restoration and adaptive reuse of the Kuhlman Building to provide 49 for-rent units affordable to households earning 60 percent area median income or below.

Originally built as a nursing residence around 1940, the 5-story brick Kuhlman Building served as a nunnery, nursing school and dormitory and administrative offices for St. Anthony Central Hospital, which opened in 1893. By the early 2000s, St. Anthony began to outgrow its 19-acre campus. In 2005, plans were announced to build a new facility at the Federal Center in Lakewood and St. Anthony abandoned the Sloans campus in 2011. Demolition began on April 22, 2013, except for the 16th Avenue Chapel, a parking garage and the Kuhlman Building.

Kuhlman Building amenities will include an on-site leasing office, community room with entertainment area and kitchenette; fitness center; 30 reserved parking spaces in Block 3 with another 15 reserved spaces in the parking garage; and an adaptive re-use of a 5,800-square-foot gymnasium attached to the north side of the Kuhlman Building for retail and restaurant space.

The project also includes between 25-27 market rate town homes that will face West 17th Avenue, Quitman Street and West 16th Avenue, with each town home having either a 1- or 2-car garage for homeowner parking;  a 4,300-square-foot public plaza at the northeast corner of 17th Avenue and Perry Street, including 2,200 square feet of single-story retail and restaurant space and approximately 32 parking spaces for customers.

Pinkard Construction is handling pre-construction services on the Kuhlman Building, and work will require gutting the interior but making only minor changes to the building’s exterior.

Funding total somewhat uncertain

Financing support for the project comes from the City and County of Denver, Denver Urban Renewal Authority and Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. Funding will include developer equity, low-income housing tax credits, tax increment financing from the urban renewal authority and a performance loan from the Denver Office of Economic Development.

Denver Urban Renewal Authority Executive Director Tracy Huggins said preserving a historic building, providing affordable housing and delivering new amenities to the community are key goals of the area’s urban redevelopment plan, approved by the City Council in August 2013.

Huggins said the authority is asking City Council to amend the redevelopment plan to include Sloans Block 3 as an approved project, and to create two sales tax increment areas to provide incremental sales taxes funding assistance. That revenue from the project will be combined with some of the property tax increment revenue already being generated by the existing property tax increment area approved by City Council in August 2013. The total amount involved is expected to be $6.5 million, with a few uncertainties.

“There’s market uncertainty right now with investors, but we don’t think it should vary too much,” she told The Colorado Statesman on Thursday, Jan. 26, as well as the Council’s Finance and Governance Committee two days earlier. “The new (Trump) administration may have an effect on it, too, with any regulatory changes that could affect tax credit pricing.”

Huggins said the Sloans Block 3 project is not a large one in terms of financing. She noted projects in the Stapleton area that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars were among the largest.

“This one is a more stable size, from an investment angle,” she added.

Sloan’s Lake Block 3 will be built in phases with the expected completion of site development and the first Kuhlman Building phase in late 2017.

Enough affordable units questioned

Doug Elenowitz, principal at Trailbreak Partners, told the committee the Sloans Block 3 project’s affordable housing units will include 37 1-bedroom and nine 2-bedroom units.

Councilman Rafael Espinoza, whose district includes the Sloan’s Lake area, said size restrictions inside the Kuhlman Building limited the options in terms of the size of the housing units.

“I know it’s a pretty difficult challenge for this particular structure to include any 3-bedroom units,” he stated.

Elenowitz agreed, adding the developers wanted to maximize the number of affordable units they could build inside the building, so did not include any larger units.

But Councilman Paul Lopez said he was disappointed the plans did not call for more – and larger – affordable housing units elsewhere on the site.

“The criticism is always look at the huge need we have,” he stated. “It’s great to have 49 units, but all the others are being built for market value and I’m surprised there isn’t a bigger effort to maybe double the number of affordable units. And families need help, too, it’s not just singles who ride bikes” and don’t need a 3-bedroom unit.

Block 9 project to include medical clinic

A Feb. 13 public hearing will be held by City Council to approve amendments to the St. Anthony Urban Redevelopment Plan for the Sloans Block 3 and Block 9 projects. The later project, to be developed by the Denver Housing Authority, includes the construction of a 5- and 8-story mixed-use building to include approximately 176 units of income-restricted, permanently affordable, senior and disabled housing; up to 20,000 square feet of ground floor medical office and clinic space; a 6,500-square-foot senior activity center; a publicly accessible 5,000-square-foot amenity deck, 125 parking spaces and additional retail store front on West Colfax.

Approximately $5.5 million of the property tax increment revenue from the existing property tax increment area will support the Block 9 project, Huggins said, but no new sales tax increment financing is included.

Councilwoman Robin Kniech took issue with what she felt was a lack of follow through by St. Anthony’s officials about their former site.

“They made some very public promises that their would be a medical presence on this site after they left,” she recalled. “I don’t think they’ve been as firm on that commitment as they should be and if it isn’t St. Anthony’s in that medical building, I hope they would provide some financial support.”

Espinoza said he understood the medical center would focus on geriatric care, “And that should be a big asset to the area, with the concentration of assisted and senior living facilities in the area.”

When completely built out, the Sloans neighborhood will include an 8-screen Alamo Drafthouse Theater, Highland Tap & Burger, the Raleigh office building, a 12-story condominium tower, 7-story apartment community, a 6,000-square-foot retail strip, plus the Kuhlman development, between Sloan’s Lake and West Colfax Avenue.