Developers hire heavy hitters for downtown project

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 4, 2002 | by Rich Laden

Two Colorado Springs real estate giants that want to redevelop much of southwest downtown are assembling their own team of heavy hitters to help them.

Classic Cos. and Nor'wood Development Group want to transform the mostly light-industrial area into offices, apartments, restaurants and other new uses.

Classic has been one of the city's largest home builders for years; Nor'wood has been one of its most active residential and commercial developers.

But to plan and design the redevelopment of more than 100 acres of southwest downtown, Classic and Nor'wood have hired RTKL Associates Inc. , an international architecture, planning and engineering firm headquartered in Baltimore and with offices across the country, in Europe and in Asia.

RTKL's services run the gamut, and its projects span the globe.

The federal government hired RTKL to redesign the portion of the Pentagon damaged by terrorists Sept. 11. RTKL also designed the $480 million Olympic village for the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, China.

Closer to home, RTKL's Mockingbird Station in Dallas has been hailed as an imaginative blend of offices, restaurants, lofts and theaters - weaved around a rail station. The firm also designed the MainStreet retail area at the FlatIron Crossing Mall north of Denver.

Classic President Doug Stimple said RTKL was hired because of its range of architectural and planning services, and its ability to design a large downtown project - one where buildings will rise upward instead of sprawling outward.

"We talked with companies all over," Stimple said. "What we had hoped to find is a firm that is an integrated vertical architecture and land planning firm.

"A lot of firms can do the architecture or the land planning. We were looking for somebody who has a background in both."

To produce economic and financial data, Classic and Nor'wood have hired California-based Economics Research Associates.

ERA will evaluate how much of the city's office, retail and residential market the southwest downtown project can capture and absorb, Stimple said.

ERA also will analyze the project's financial feasibility and how much tax revenue will be generated by new development in the area.

While a new minor-league baseball stadium isn't yet part of the southwest downtown project, Classic officials have talked with Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Inc. (HOK) of Kansas City, Mo.

HOK designed Coors Field in Denver and Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore; it consulted on the new AutoZone Park in Memphis, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals' top minor-league farm team.

"That's ultimately the message we're trying to get across (to city officials)," Stimple said. "There is nothing inexpensive about the process we're undertaking.

"The commitment we've made is, we'll go out and try and find the best possible people for this project. We'll take the ideas that work and lend them and complement them to our existing downtown."

- On the Beat is a weekly column culled from reporters' notebooks.

Laden can be reached at 636-0228 or at rladen@gazette.com