LAND DEVELOPMENT:
Apartment project proposed on Spruce
A concept plan for the project, called “22 Spruce Apartments,” was submitted to the city by Land Patterns Inc., a private firm, on behalf of Challenger Homes, a local homebuilding company.
According to Michael Turisk, a planner with City Land Use Review, the proposal is likely to go before the city-appointed Planning Commission in December. After that, because a zone change is involved, the elected City Council will take up the matter.
One of the parcels is between Kiowa and the alley to the south. The second, smaller parcel is just south of the alley. The larger of the two buildings north of the alley was most recently home to a Dollar Store. Both buildings are to be torn down.
The new apartments would range in size from 450 to 950 square feet.
Building amenities would include below- and above-grade off-street parking, a small gym, a café/lobby and a “community room and outdoor deck” on the top floor, according to Land Pattern's Project Justification Document (which accompanied Challenger's application to the city).
Under the Land Pattern/Challenger proposal, the zoning would change to a more flexible planned unit development (PUD), including requests for a 60-foot building height, a zero lot line and reductions in city requirements for landscaping (from 15 percent minimum to 10 percent) and for parking (the 64 off-street spaces represent a 15 percent reduction from requirements).
The Project Justification Document, required as part of the city submittal, asserts that the project would “enhance and support the city's Comprehensive Plan through an integrated multiple neighbor use [and] decreased housing cost and provide urban services in a more cost-effective manner through a high-density development… in an established neighborhood.”
The document adds that a “6-foot-high screen wall will provide a buffer [for the neighboring properties] along the west and south property lines.”
 A view from a field alongside Skyview Lane shows how Eclipse Drive, coming out of Gold Hill Mesa, will link to 21st Street. In background right are homes being built in Gold Hill's Filings 4 and 5. Westside Pioneer photo
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Gold Hill Mesa
The steady beat of construction hammers is continuing in Gold Hill Mesa.
In Filings 4 and 5, a total of 87 homes are being built off Lower Gold Camp Road up to the corner of 21st Street and Lower Gold Camp. Filing 6 (platted for 17 homes along Raven Mine Drive) is almost ready for construction, and plans for 53 homes (plus or minus) are being discussed with the city for Filing 7 on the east part of the 210-acre development, off Cresson Mine and Lady Campbell drives.
In addition, after some delays, Eclipse Drive, a Gold Hill Mesa street, is soon to connect to 21st Street across from Skyview Lane. The project will include the creation of acceleration and deceleration lanes above and below Eclipse along the east side of 21st, where Gold Hill Mesa previously widened the right of way, according to Barry Brinton, the development's land manager.
Located in an area south of Highway 24, east of 21st Street and north of Lower Gold Camp Road, the development reported 36 home closings this year, bringing the overall number to 282, consisting of 164 single-family and 118 multifamily, Brinton said.
 In an easterly view from the south side of Fillmore Street, the nearly completed Mainstreet complex can be seen behind an area being graded. The grading is related to a simultaneous project by the property owners to fill in a former drainage swale to cover a new wastewater line. Details in story. Westside Pioneer photo
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Mainstreet
The new transitional care/assisted living facility on Fillmore Street across from Coronado High School is nearing completion.
According to Chance Benbow of the Mainstreet company, which owns the property and is handling the construction aspects, the opening will be about Feb. 1.
He said a community open house will be scheduled a short time before that, at a date to be announced.
The operator of the 84,000-square-foot, two-story complex will be the Ensign Group, which offers similar services in several states, including five in the Denver area.
Development on the 7.6-acre site started in late 2014.
The work has included filling in a former drainage swale south of Fillmore, west of the buildings. According to Steve Berry of Colorado Springs Utilities, the fill was needed to ensure the stability of a wastewater main, which the Mainstreet developers laid in above a stormwater pipe where the swale had been. The fill covers both lines. The wastewater main connects the Mainstreet complex to the public Utilities system, Berry said.
As another part of the project, a concrete sidewalk has been built (there had been none before) along the south side of Fillmore, between the west end of the property and Grand Vista Circle.
Cerberus brewpub
The owners of the planned Cerberus brewpub, on a currently unused 9,250-square-foot property at 702 W. Colorado Ave., hope to start construction in January and open for business sometime this spring.
Jerry Morris, a member of the ownership group, offered these schedule estimates after the recent City Council zoning approval.
A two-story building - a veterinary clinic until a few years ago - will be renovated for a restaurant and brewery, and improvements will also be made outside to create a parking lot and patio.
Meetings before the City Planning Commission and then council helped hammer out agreements between the Cerberus group and neighbors who expressed concerns about potential noise and parking problems.
Morris argued successfully that because of the property's tight space, breaks were needed on parking (about half what would otherwise be required) and proximity to homes (zero feet, instead of the 200 feet required for a bar). Councilmembers also liked the idea that the brewpub meets city goals for “infill” (restoring unused spaces in already-developed parts of the city).
The agreement between Cerberus and the nearest neighbor is to work together to erect a fence or wall on the retaining wall at the edge of her property to act as a kind of separator from the brewpub's patio and parking area.
In her supporting comments, City Councilmember Jill Gaebler highlighted the bar ownership's outreach to the cycling community, which includes plans for a large bicycle-themed motif on its fence that will face onto Colorado Avenue.
This means “it will be a venue where people don't just drive,” Gaebler said. Should parking overflow, she commented that “residents don't own the streets in front of their houses,” and tight parking is “one of the things that happens when you [city leaders] support infill projects.”
Westside Pioneer article