Colorado Springs’ proposed 36-story high-rise sparks debate | Business

Colorado Springs has never had much of a downtown skyline, at least, not by other cities’ standards. Call it more of a lowline.

The 247-foot, 16-story Wells Fargo Tower that opened in 1990 is downtown’s tallest building and tallest in Colorado Springs history, city planning officials say. The First Bank and Colorado Square buildings and The Antlers hotel, all 14 floors, and the 13-story Plaza of the Rockies south tower help make up downtown’s skyline, such as it is.

Compare the Springs with, say, Omaha, Neb., where insurance giant Mutual of Omaha broke ground last year on a 44-story downtown headquarters that will join the 45-story First National Bank building a few blocks away. The 801 Grand office building spans 44 floors in downtown Des Moines, Iowa.

Oklahoma City’s downtown is home to the 50-story Devon Energy Center, which would be dwarfed by a California developer’s jaw-dropping plan to erect the 134-story, 1,907-foot Legends Tower that would surpass New York City’s One World Trade Center and become the nation’s tallest building, according to multiple news reports.

But Colorado Springs has something those flatland communities can only dream of: a majestic mountain backdrop, with breathtaking views of Pikes Peak, Cheyenne Mountain and the Front Range. Mountain scenery has been the city’s trademark since it was founded in 1871 at the foot of Pikes Peak.

For years, civic leaders, government officials and business people have touted Colorado Springs’ natural beauty as what sets it apart from other cities. Residents pay extra for homes with a view and have been known to add windows in bedrooms, bathrooms and even closets to capture an extra peek at the mountains. And when poet and author Katharine Lee Bates visited Pikes Peak in 1893, she was so inspired by its “purple mountain majesties” that she penned “America the Beautiful.”

“You live here, in part, because of the mountains,” said Matt Mayberry, cultural services manager and director of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

So, when local private equity firm The O’Neil Group and an out-of-town partner late last year announced plans to construct a 36-story, nearly 500-unit apartment building in downtown Colorado Springs, it set the stage for a clash of values in a community where views are a cherished amenity.

The high-rise would stand 20 floors and as much as 153 feet taller than the Wells Fargo Tower — though an O’Neil Group official says the structure’s design isn’t final and it could wind up being a little shorter than 36 stories. In any case, in the area of downtown Colorado Springs where the 36-story building has been proposed, there are no height restrictions.

Long accustomed to unobstructed mountain vistas, however, some residents fear the solitary high-rise would dominate the city skyline — as out of place as an amusement ride at the Garden of the Gods park or an escalator adjacent to the Manitou Incline.

“I think it will be an eyesore,” said Gail Baldwin, a retired nurse and active senior who lives in the Wasson High School neighborhood in central Colorado Springs. She moved to town from Connecticut nearly 30 years ago.

“It’s 36 stories,” she said in an interview, a few weeks after expressing similar objections in a letter to The Gazette. “That’s a lot. We have a beautiful mountain. Many people buy here just to see the mountain in the morning. When I bought a home here many years ago, I had a real estate lady telling me you can add $2,000 or something like that to a home when they have a view of the mountain. I thought, ‘You’re so right,’ because there is natural beauty here.”

The high-rise risks more than views, some residents say.

They worry it would stand as an obtrusive symbol of growth in a city that’s rapidly losing its big, small-town feel. You’ve heard of FOMO — Fear of Missing Out? In Colorado Springs, some residents suffer from FOBD — Fear of Becoming Denver.

Increased development, they say, threatens to put the Springs on a too-late-to-turn-back road toward becoming another Mile High City. In Denver’s downtown, the 56-story Republic Plaza is one of more than two dozen buildings of 30 stories or more, according to information compiled by the city of Colorado Springs’ planning staff.

“When I look at Denver and all the high-rises there, do we want Colorado Springs to be like that?” Baldwin asked. “My answer is no. I like the beauty of this town.”

City Councilman Dave Donelson sees one thing when he visualizes the proposed 36-story tower: “a big middle finger in downtown.”

That’s not just a colorful descriptor of a high-rise that would stand head and shoulders above other downtown buildings; it’s a metaphor for ignoring the wishes of local residents, said Donelson, who predicts the public would embrace building height limits if they were put to a vote.

“There’s a character to Colorado Springs,” said Donelson, who represents portions of northwest and north central Colorado Springs. “We’re not a big city. We’re not a Denver. And people who have moved here, been raised here, again, I think the large majority want to maintain that character. They’re not against new buildings or new buildings downtown or growth in the city, necessarily. But there is a scale that they’re comfortable with and they feel like we should maintain our character as Colorado Springs.”

But at what cost?

Colorado Springs could pay a steep price if it stubbornly clings to its small-town thinking and ignores growth that’s as inevitable as a Pikes Peak snowfall, say project supporters, downtown advocates and local business people.

The apartment tower would help attract young professionals who’ve grown accustomed to high-rise living in other metro areas and who expect to find the same opportunities in Colorado Springs, they say.

Employers might bypass the Springs and take their high-paying jobs elsewhere if the city lacks housing options to help entice Gen Z’ers and other talented young workers, the project’s backers say.

Perry Sanders Jr., the local attorney and entrepreneur who co-owns The Antlers hotel and Famous Steakhouse in downtown Colorado Springs, is a self-proclaimed lover of architecture and tall buildings. He remembers his father taking him as a child to the Empire State Building in New York City and to the Space Needle observation tower in Seattle during the 1962 World’s Fair.

Years ago, Sanders envisioned development of his own 115-story building — yes, 115 stories — in downtown Colorado Springs. Its observation deck would have drawn 2 to 4 million view-crazy visitors a year, he estimated; in turn, a special tax levied on those sightseers would have raised millions for the city to use to address its homeless problem, Sanders said of his project, which never materialized.

Not surprisingly, Sanders dismisses fears that a single building would disrupt views that he and others say can be enjoyed from multiple vantage points across the city.

“I don’t think any building like this will have any material impact on blocking our views, as citizens, in terms of trying to see the great mountains and everything else around,” Sanders said. “And I think anybody that thinks it’s a big middle finger, I would suggest they build five more of them and call it a welcoming hand.”

Colorado Springs is hardly the only city in a scenic setting, supporters of the 36-story tower say. Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Reno, Nev., and, of course, Denver, all enjoy mountain backdrops — and their downtowns each have buildings of at least 30 stories.

City Councilman Brian Risley, an architect, acknowledges the apartment tower proposal is especially controversial in the Springs, whose downtown stands much closer to the mountains than Denver and some other cities.

As Colorado Springs continues to grow, however, the community needs to figure out how to become “a little bit more comfortable with the idea of being a big city,” Risley said. By definition, big cities have dense urban centers, which help them remain viable, he said.

“Obviously, nobody likes change, the fear of change,” Risley said. “The fear of what does it mean for Colorado Springs to no longer be a small community, but to be one that’s growing toward 1 million-plus people in El Paso County.”

At one time, the community had conversations about the appropriateness of the scale and height of the Wells Fargo Tower, First Bank Building and Antlers hotel, which make up the Palmer Center complex at Pikes Peak and Cascade avenues, Risley said.

Today, those buildings have become accepted as part of “our beloved skyline,” he said.

“As the community continues to grow and evolve, whether it’s a 36-story building or a 25-story building or something lesser, those buildings over time will also become part of our beloved skyline,” Risley said. “I don’t personally believe that detracts. I’m sitting here in my (downtown) office and looking out and I can see those taller buildings and I can also see Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain very, very well. The idea that we’re obscuring the mountains as part of this type of development, that’s a misnomer. That’s an argument against not just higher buildings, but any sort of downtown development.”

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A downtown housing boom — finally

Whether it was the Downtown Action Plan that dates back more than three decades, Imagine Downtown in 2007 or Experience Downtown from eight years ago, public improvement plans that visualized a brighter future for downtown Colorado Springs all identified more housing as one of the area’s biggest needs.

“To truly thrive, city centers must have people living in them 24/7, enjoying shopping, dining, and cultural and recreational opportunities just outside their doorstep,” according to the Experience Downtown plan of 2016. “… Downtown has long prioritized the development of housing as an essential strategy, yet lacked the market demand to move forward with gusto. However, the tide is turning.”

In fact, it turned dramatically.

The 33-unit Blue Dot Place apartments that opened in 2016 heralded a new era for downtown housing.

Since then, more than 5,200 residences — mostly rental apartments and a handful of for-sale lofts — have been completed, are under construction, have been announced or are expected to be built in the area, the Downtown Partnership advocacy group said in its recently released State of Downtown report for 2024.

Like other cities, Colorado Springs’ downtown housing has been driven by young people and even empty nesters who desire an urban lifestyle — the opportunity to live within a short walk or bike ride of restaurants, coffee shops, bars, nightclubs and museums, many of which are in downtown’s core but others that populate trendy areas such as the New South End.

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum, the Ed Robson indoor arena on the Colorado College campus and the Weidner Field multiuse outdoor stadium that’s home to Colorado Springs Switchbacks soccer, concerts and other events are among new attractions that have added to downtown’s appeal.

State officials, meanwhile, designated downtown as a federal opportunity zone, which has made tax breaks available to investors who fund apartments and other projects inside the zone’s boundaries.

That combination of demand and financial incentives has attracted local, regional and national developers who’ve brought thousands of units to the Springs’ downtown.

Now, the Colorado Springs-based O’Neil Group wants to join them — in a big way.

The O’Neil Group owns the Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation, a downtown business park that’s a hub for aerospace, defense and cybersecurity companies. Founder, president and CEO Kevin O’Neil also has acquired real estate and defense companies and he’s part of a group seeking to make over the old Union Printers Home in Colorado Springs. One of his limited liability companies owns the former downtown bank building where The Gazette has its offices.

In October 2021, The O’Neil Group proposed a 25-story, 316-unit apartment building and an 11-story office building on a block bounded by Cascade and Vermijo avenues and Costilla and Sahwatch streets in southwest downtown. Rising construction and development costs, however, prompted The O’Neil Group to delay the project, Kevin O’Neil said previously.

He and his company returned in November with a revised plan that scrapped the office building, but proposed a 36-story, 497-unit apartment tower.

At 36 stories, the building would stand 350 to 400 feet tall, said Andy Merritt, The O’Neil Group’s chief strategy officer, making it roughly 42% to 62% taller than the Wells Fargo Tower. A final building design, however, could reduce the structure’s size by a few floors, Merritt said. He’s not sure how many stories, if any, could be lopped off. One thing’s for sure: the building won’t get any taller than 36 stories or 400 feet, he said.

The O’Neil Group has been joined by VeLa Development Partners, a Kansas City, Mo., high-rise, multifamily developer that’s an affiliate of the Post Road Group, a Connecticut-based private equity firm. VeLa has proposed high-rise apartment projects in Phoenix, Nashville, Tenn., Tampa, Fla, and Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., that would range from 26 to 38 stories; none has yet been completed.

Despite the influx of apartments in downtown and citywide, Colorado Springs still needs more housing, Merritt said. The Colorado Demography Office has estimated the Springs metro area population will swell to 1 million people by 2045.

A high-rise, meanwhile, would appeal to skilled young workers and benefit the employers who need them, Merritt said.

“This kind of building attracts a certain type of person for our tech companies,” Merritt said. “They’re trying to recruit talent out of the coasts and places like Chicago. There is a set of people, especially in the tech space, that want to live in a densified, urban downtown, where they have all the services and amenities, and they don’t need to own a car. They can walk to their work or work from their residence. They can go shopping. They can go to arts and cultural events and things that are all right there that they can walk to in a downtown core.”

A high-rise that becomes part of a densely packed downtown core and helps turn it into a visitor destination also would support development of more transit options the city needs, Merritt said.

In turn, that mix of transit, housing, employers and amenities would enhance downtown’s vibrancy and make it even more desirable for restaurants, stores and other businesses, he said.

“The alternative is, what, sprawl everywhere?” Merritt said. “With no central core for the city.”

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Urban vs. suburban development

In general, suburbs and suburban-like areas — such as Briargate and Northgate on Colorado Springs’ north side — are home to multiacre office and apartment complexes, with spacious parking lots.

Why aren’t similar expansive developments found in the downtowns of the Springs and elsewhere?

“That’s pretty easy,” said Gary Hollenbeck, who owns commercial brokerage Palmer McAllister. “The amount of land in an urban setting, a downtown setting, there’s just so little of it. Most downtowns are developed already. To find enough ground to park a building and to build a building is difficult in urban situations.”

A shortage of land, therefore, makes downtown property pricier than in the suburbs, he said.

Developers who eye an apartment or office project in downtown Colorado Springs — like in most other cities — will have to construct a building and parking structure on a single block, if not a single parcel.

To maximize their return on investment, developers will want to increase the number of offices and apartments they build and can rent. That means a downtown building has to go up — not out, Hollenbeck said.

“That’s the only way,” he said. “That’s how you recoup your costs.”

Over its history, Colorado Springs has never had a building taller than the Wells Fargo Tower.

That’s a byproduct, in part, of the availability of land in outlying areas over its history and the city’s tendency to move outward, said Mayberry, of the Pioneers Museum.

“If you look at annexation maps, we’ve been able to spread, and I think that has reduced the demand for high-rise buildings,” he said.

City building regulations also played a critical role in the lack of high-rises up to now.

Before 1960, the city’s zoning code capped building heights in commercial areas at 50 feet, while residential areas were limited to 30 to 45 feet, said Ryan Tefertiller, the urban planning manager for the Colorado Springs Planning and Neighborhood Services Department.

Some exceptions were allowed for hospitals, churches, schools and other places of assembly, Tefertiller said. The City Planning Commission also could waive restrictions and permit buildings of any height as long as they provided parking facilities and didn’t strain public utility or transportation systems, among other conditions, he said.

Around 1960, the city added a high-rise zone downtown that allowed construction of significantly taller buildings — though with restrictions.

To go higher, a building’s upper stories were required to cover less space than its lower floors, Tefertiller said. The first two floors of the Wells Fargo Tower, for example, form the building’s base and have larger floorplates than floors three through 13. The building’s 14th and 15th floors cover even smaller areas and the 16th floor, which houses mechanical equipment, is narrower still.

In 2009, the Colorado Springs City Council approved the form-based code — a zoning district that significantly changed the rules for downtown development.

In general, the form-based code regulates physical standards instead of land use, and encourages development that creates a bustling and walkable downtown with a more urban look and feel — or an urban form, city officials have said.

In the suburbs, buildings typically are set back off a street and separated from the sidewalk by parking lots.

The form-based code requires just the opposite; among other provisions, downtown buildings must be constructed close to sidewalks, while facades must have a high proportion of windows and glazing.

“Those two things combined, as a pedestrian, you’re walking by windows, looking in storefronts, seeing offices where people are working, it’s a comfortable and interesting place to walk,” Tefertiller said. “Whereas, walking by a big parking lot is not comfortable or interesting.”

The form-based code also divided downtown into four sectors, each with varying restrictions on building heights.

Two “transition” sectors ring downtown’s outer edges and generally provide a transition from nearby residential neighborhoods; in those areas, buildings can be no taller than four or six stories, depending on their location. In a third “corridor” sector that’s outside downtown’s core and covers portions of Nevada and Cascade avenues and Weber street, and where wide rights of way allow for higher densities, buildings could be as tall as 10 stories, according to the form-based code.

The code’s “central” sector covers the heart of downtown — a 0.4 square-mile area bounded roughly by Kiowa Street on the north, Moreno Avenue and Rio Grande Street on the south, Wahsatch Avenue on the east and Interstate 25 on the west. 

“The city’s primary goal for the central sector is to increase downtown density, create an iconic skyline and establish a high-quality pedestrian environment at street level,” according to the form-based code when it written in 2009.

To help achieve those goals, the central sector permitted unlimited heights for apartment, mixed-use and civic buildings. That’s where The O’Neil Group and VeLa Development Partners have proposed their apartment tower.

Taller buildings, according to the thinking behind the form-based code, could be supported by downtown’s existing utility and transit systems, road networks, public safety, parks and even schools — without the need to build more infrastructure.

At the same time, densely packed buildings with apartments, renters, employers and office workers would help drive downtown’s economy and vitality.

Up to now, the 11-story Hilton Garden Inn hotel that opened in 2019 at Bijou Street and Cascade Avenue has been the tallest downtown building constructed since the form-based code took effect. 

The 36-story high-rise, however, would test whether residents indeed are ready to embrace the “iconic skyline” and increased downtown densities envisioned by the form-based code — and the changes they portend for Colorado Springs as it grows.

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A generational divide?

Former City Councilman Tom Strand, who was council president in 2021 when The O’Neil Group initially proposed its 25-story building, remembers a flood of texts and emails at that time objecting to the project.

Today, he’s one of those who’s joined that opposition.

The 75-year-old Strand concedes his concern and that of others, in part, might be generational; middle-aged residents and seniors have a vision of what Colorado Springs looks and feels like, and they don’t like change, he said. A longtime west side resident, Strand retired to the Springs in 2004 after a career in the Air Force, though he first lived here for 2½ years in the 1970s when he was stationed at then-Peterson Field.

“The more senior people are struggling to get past the village that Colorado Springs used to be in the ’60s and the ’70s to the urban community we’ve become in the 2020s,” Strand said. “Because of that, having a (downtown) skyline that is not blue…but has got big buildings, doesn’t seem to fit the image that people still want to hold onto. And maybe they want to hold onto it like people want to hold onto the past.”

During her tenure as mayor from 1997 through 2003, and as a city councilwoman for 12 years before that, Mary Lou Makepeace championed downtown redevelopment. She was an early supporter of more housing, museums, hotels and other improvements that eventually came to the area.

In spite of the area’s advancements, however, a 36-story apartment tower might be a building too far for a city that prides itself on views and natural beauty, Makepeace said.

“It certainly represents change and change is always difficult,” she said. “If you have a 36-story building, you can’t argue, it’ll stick out. So then, why don’t we have four or five other buildings of 30 or 24 or 40 stories? In my mind, I can kind of see that happening.” 

The form-based code already has brought change to downtown that Makepeace questions. She’s heard from residents who are upset about downtown development, and especially critics who refer to sterile, lookalike, “Soviet style” apartments.

“No amenities, no landscaping, no setbacks, it goes on and on,” she said of complaints she’s heard. “So, I think that their skepticism is, ‘we don’t like what’s four stories or six stories, I sure am not going to like 36 stories.'”

“This is Colorado Springs,” Makepeace added. “This is a beautiful place. And what a vista. Do we want something that’s going to block the view of Pikes Peak, our most beautiful and well-known asset? I can’t answer whether it would impact it or not because I, like a lot of people I’ve spoke to, I’m a little unsure what it would look like. There’s a lot of unknowns.”

As such, Makepeace said she remains “highly skeptical” because she’s not sure a good case has been made for why a high-rise is needed.

“Is it opening the door to other high-rise kind of things? I can’t answer that because I’m not in the know,” she said. “I certainly want our community to be viable and provide housing and jobs and all those good things. Is this the best way to do it? That’s the question on my brain. “

Colorado Springs always has offered a variety of lifestyle choices, said Susan Edmondson, president and CEO of the Downtown Partnership advocacy group, which backs the apartment tower project. Want to live on a full acre in a 5,000-square-foot home with a three-car garage? The Springs has it, she said.

“And many people want to live in a dense, walkable, urban environment and we need to offer that, too, in order to be a city that thrives economically and offers a variety of lifestyles to all people,” Edmondson said. “That’s a very much free-market, freedom-of-choice concept. If we eliminate a certain kind of living option that many people enjoy, we will lose out on many opportunities for our city.”

The O’Neil Group-VeLa Development high-rise probably is the first in a wave of such projects for downtown, she predicted.

“I can promise you this is not the only tall building in the works downtown,” Edmondson said. “So it won’t take long before this building will be seen in a context of other tall buildings that are in the works.”

To critics who fear the building will stick out like a sore thumb, over time, it will blend in with buildings of similar heights, Edmondson said. And whether residents live in neighborhoods such as Ivywild to the south of downtown or Flying Horse on the city’s far north side, they’ll still see the mountains, she said.

Perhaps the biggest concern about opposition to the project, Edmondson said, would be the possibility a new height limitation that could be imposed on downtown buildings.

Donelson, the city councilman, says he plans to ask his colleagues to place a measure on the November ballot that would ask city voters to consider limiting building heights to the city’s current tallest structure — the 247-foot Wells Fargo Tower.

Such action, however, would be a dangerous change of the rules for developers and investors who might have projects they’re eyeing for the area, while it could discourage employers and their workers who want to be downtown, Edmondson said.

“To literally go against the code that already exists and already was approved, to do something that drastic, we might as well put a sign up saying Colorado Springs is not open for investment, new companies, new talent or opportunity for all our citizens. Because it would have that kind of chilling effect,” Edmondson said.

Former City Councilwoman Jill Gaebler, who heads the nonprofit Pikes Peak Housing Network, said she sees the project both from the viewpoint of a public policy maker who was accustomed to hearing from constituents and as a housing advocate who believes Colorado Springs needs more housing of all types.

The apartment tower, she said, would increase supply while being an efficient use of resources; it wouldn’t require additional road, infrastructure or public safety investments by the city.

“People do not like change,” Gaebler said, echoing others. “You see that when anything is proposed now, whether it’s just adding a slight increase in housing density or a substantial increase. People push back. And they come up with reasons that often don’t make sense. That aren’t factual. They’re all emotional.”

Some of that emotion is driven by a nostalgic view of Colorado Springs, Gaebler said. But the community needs to accept the reality that “change will happen, whether we want it or not,” she said.

“Who gets to define the word character?” Gaebler said. “We all have different definitions of what we find beautiful, what we find valuable. One person shouldn’t make that decision for everyone. What one decision maker considers a middle finger, another one sees as our future. Who gets to make that decision?”

Not Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade.

If a public policy decision is made about the project, the City Council would have the final say and Mobolade would hold no vote in the matter.

But he does have an opinion. While he acknowledges the pushback by residents who worry about changes the project could represent for the community, Mobolade said he supports it. The apartment tower is permitted by the form-based code and developers are following the law, he said.

“What I hear residents say is, ‘we don’t want to lose the beauty and the majesty and the essence of what makes Colorado Springs Colorado Springs,” Mobolade said. “The views, the mountain views especially.

“We’re not going to lose that,” he said. “When we look at the footprint of what we’re talking about in terms of what’s allowable, in terms of this building height, it’s a very, very, very tiny footprint. And that’s not going to make a dramatic impact to our quality of life.”