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This 90-story tower could become the tallest building in Denver

Mile high

This 90-story tower could become the tallest building in Denver

A proposed 90-story mixed-use residential tower by international architect Carlos Ott—in partnership with Crown Architecture, Davis Partnership Architects, and New York City–based developer Greenwich Realty Capital—has the potential to become the tallest tower in Denver.

The project is dubbed Six Fifty 17 and would contain 284 high-end condominiums, a hotel, and 22,000 square feet of retail space. The podium style structure would also feature a 13-story parking garage containing 500 stalls and retail spaces along its lower levels. Renderings for the project depict a faceted, blue-glass-clad tower topped by a sculptural crown. The tower’s upper levels feature offset and cantilevered planted terraces while the roof of the podium structure will offer an amenity level for hotel guests.

If built as currently planned, the spire would rise 1,000 feet high, dwarfing the city’s current height leader—the Republic Plaza tower, a gridded, 54-story office tower designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill in 1984, which rises 714 feet. Under these metrics, the tower would also become the 19th tallest in the United States overall, according to a recent USA Today report.

The project, first reported by The Metropolitan, the student newspaper at Metropolitan State University of Denver, comes amid a flurry of new construction across the Denver area, especially high-rise and affordable housing construction. Even so, it is unclear whether the project is really in the works or not. The Denver Post reports that the city’s planning department does not consider the tower “an active project right now,” though the agency is ready to review plans for the proposal once submitted.

Adding to the confusion, a 42-page document posted to an Issuu site maintained by Crown Architecture shows an 800-foot-tall, 85-story high structure accompanying the same renderings as those showcased on the project website.

For now, however, the tower remains an idea. The next few months will tell how real those plans might become. The team behind the project hopes to break ground on the project in 2018. See the project website for more information.

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