Union Station North, Denver, Colorado
Neighborhoods in Denver
Union Station North
Union Station North
Union Station North is located in the United States
Union Station North
Union Station North
Location of Union Station North in the United States
Coordinates: 39°45′35″N 104°59′48″W / 39.7598°N 104.9968°W / 39.7598; -104.9968 (City and County of Denver)[1]
Country United States
State Colorado
City and county Denver[2]
Time zoneUTC–7 (MST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC–6 (MDT)
ZIP code
80202

Union Station North, formerly known as Prospect, is a neighborhood within the city limits of Denver, Colorado.[3] Previously dominated by industrial buildings, waste, railroad tracks and considered an area of the city to be avoided, today it has been rehabilitated into multi-story residential buildings, restaurants, amenities, easy access to downtown Denver, and is a short walk to the South Platte River Trail, which runs along its northern boundary.[3]

Name

Originally an area of Denver known as, "The Bottoms", "Prospect", or "Prospect Park", Union Station North is one of the oldest parts of Denver.[4][3] The name, Prospect, originated from the adjacent, "Prospect Junction" railyard located partially within and immediately to the north of Union Station North.[3][5]

In July 2016, the official name of the neighborhood was changed from "Prospect" to "Union Station North".[3]

History

View of Union Station North with Coors Field and Denver skyline in the background

Union Station North sits on land that originally belonged to the Arapaho Tribe.[6] They named the South Platte River, which flows along Union Station North, Niinéniiniicíihéhe.[6] The discovery of gold in Denver in 1858 resulted in a large increase of white settlers to the area and the native population was pushed out.[7] From the city's founding and continuing through the 1970s, the South Platte River was essentially treated as an open sewer.[8][9]

By the 1960s, Union Station North contained immigrant housing, vacant lots, railroad tracks, and industrial plants dumping discharge into the South Platte River. Along the river's banks could be found landfills, discarded cars, weeds, old tires, waste, feathers from a pillow factory, and hobo camps. The area was considered an undesirable place to live.[4][3][10]

In the 1990s and through the 2010s, redevelopment took place in the LoDo/Union Station/Riverfront Park/Confluence Park areas along with the building of Coors Field (1995) and the creation of Cuernavaca Park (2000). This redevelopment spread to the adjacent Union Station North neighborhood and residential buildings were planned and built.[3][11] In 2006, Denver developer Dana Crawford referred to Union Station North as, "a very industrial area" and Denver architect Jim Johnson added, "this is still the true-grit part of town".[12]

In 2019, the new commuter rail G Line added an additional set of tracks through the neighborhood in the guise of a bridge over both the South Platte River and BNSF rail lines in the Prospect Junction area.[13][14]

Today, Union Station North is a small, clean, thriving, primarily residential community combined with daily passages of locomotives transiting in and out of the Denver area.

Geography

1908 aerial view of Union Station North facing southwest

Union Station North is located on the north side of Downtown Denver and is wholly contained within the larger neighborhood of Five Points. It is bounded by the South Platte River to the north, Cuernavaca Park to the northwest, 20th Street to the southwest, Wewatta Street to the southeast and the Park Avenue West viaduct to the east. Union Station North is additionally surrounded by the Union Station/LoDo neighborhood to the southwest, Ballpark neighborhood to the southeast, River North Arts District ("RiNo") neighborhood to the east, and the Highland neighborhood to the north. Coors Field is adjacent to Union Station North, located on the south side of the community.

Some streets in the neighborhood, Chestnut Place, Wewatta Street, 20th Street, 21st Street and Delgany Street, follow the old Denver city grid laid down in the 1850s. The remaining streets follow the north/south configuration system of 1864 which was designed in order to comply with federal government mandates.[15]

The northern boundary of Union Station North follows the South Platte River, which has had a history of flooding in the past. Today, tall embankments run along both sides of the river which guard against infrequent, yet inevitable high water. Additionally, the walking/biking South Platte River Trail[16] skirts along the river.[17][18]

Demographics

As of 2010, Union Station North had a population of 3077 residents. The neighborhood's average age is 41 and 47% of the population are homeowners.[19]

City of Cuernavaca Park

Pedestrian bridge, Cuernavaca Park

The City of Cuernavaca Park is divided by the South Platte River, the southern section being located within the Union Station North neighborhood along with the Flour Mill Lofts. The South Platte River Commission recommended the park's construction in 1995 and it was completed in 2000.[20] The creation of Cuernavaca Park reclaimed and repurposed land that had been an industrial wasteland for over a hundred years.[21] Formerly in this area along the South Platte river were numerous mills discharging volumes of thick, black and gray soot into the sky, polluting the air and land of the downtown Denver area.[21] Denver had the largest concentration of flour mills in the western United States.[21] By 1975, as the area's industrial operations slowed, this part of Union Station North became a disused muddy stretch of the river filled with weeds and passing locomotives belching diesel smoke.[21] In 1974, the Platte River Development Committee was created with goals that included recovering the South Platte River for boating enthusiasts, creating parks and linking the entire urban river area with concrete pedestrian/biking trails.[22][23] Today, Cuernavaca Park contains large areas of grass, trees, covered picnic pavilions, a baseball diamond, paved trails on both sides of the river, tables, benches and toilet facilities. Rock sculptures are located immediately north of the Flour Mill Lofts.[20]

The dominating feature of the park is the oval walking/biking path that offers two bridges for crossing the river.[20] The bridges are reminiscent of nineteenth-century railroad trestle bridges keeping in character with the industrial-chic flavor of the area.[20]

The Mexican City of Cuernavaca is one of Denver's sister cities.[24]

Fauna

Barrow's Goldeneye are a common sight along the South Platte River

The fauna of Union Station North is rich for a large downtown metropolitan area. Barn swallow, Barrow's Goldeneye, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Cliff Swallow, Ferruginous Hawk, Forster's Tern, green heron, Northern Rough-winged Swallow all make their homes along the South Platte River and can often be seen from the South Platte River Trail.[25]

Union Station North historical images

Alphabetical list of Union Station North residential buildings


Key
† = to be determined

NameTypeAddressUnitsYear builtStoriesReferences
Ajax LoftsCondominiums2955 Inca Street4920034[26][27][28]
The CaseyApartments2100 Delgany Street18720156[29]
Diamond at ProspectApartments3001 Fox Street14020054[30]
Flour Mill LoftsCondominiums2000 Little Raven Street422000A10[31][27][32]
Griffis North UnionApartments2975 Huron Street29620165[33]
Griffis Union StationApartments2905 Inca Street40020105[34]
Inca 29 BrownstonesCondominiums2900 Inca Street2920073[35]
Jack Kerouac LoftsCondominiums3100 Huron Street6020054[36][27][37]
The Metro Apartments 1, 2, 3Apartments2121 Delgany Street41520044[38]
Watertower LoftsCondominiums2960 Inca Street962002B5[27][39]
X DenverApartments3100 Inca Street251202112[40][41][42]
3000 HuronApartments3000 Huron Street300202313[43]
21st & WewattaProposed21st & Wewatta180†12[44]
29th & FoxProposed29th & Fox124†12[44]
29th & Fox (South Corner)Proposed29th & Fox120†12[44]
2099 ChestnutProposed2099 Chestnut77†8[44]

Notes

A.^ Originally built as an industrial building in the 1920s and was later converted into a residential building in 2000.[45]
B.^ Originally built as an industrial building in 1894 and was later converted into a residential building in 2002.[46]

References

  1. ↑ "2014 U.S. Gazetteer Files: Places". United States Census Bureau. July 1, 2014. Archived from the original on February 7, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Active Colorado Municipalities". State of Colorado, Department of Local Affairs. Archived from the original on December 12, 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Calhoun, Patricia (20 July 2016). "Welcome to Union Station North, a New Neighborhood in Old Denver". Westword. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  4. 1 2 Noel, Thomas J. (15 April 2015). "LoDo (Lower Downtown Denver)". Colorado Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  5. ↑ Armstrong, Jack (January 2011). "Union Station North 007.jpg". Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
  6. 1 2 d'Elgin, Tershia (22 February 2017). "South Platte River". coloradoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  7. ↑ "Indigenous Tribes of Colorado". ala.org. American Library Association. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  8. ↑ "A Short History of Denver and the South Platte River". web.mit.edu. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  9. ↑ "Case study: South Platte River, Denver, Colorado, USA" (PDF). cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/wp.wpi.edu. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  10. ↑ Simmons, Thomas H.; Simmons, R. Laurie; Anstey, Mary Therese. "Tops Down and Bottoms Up Intervention—The Great Depression, Federal Relief Programs, and World War II, 1930-45" (PDF). discoverdenver.co. Section 5.2. p. 2. Retrieved 17 June 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  11. ↑ "LoDo ~ Denver's Lower Downtown Success Story". Denver Public Library. 29 October 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  12. ↑ Buchholz, Jan. "Kerouac Lofts attract eclectic mix". bizjournals.com. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  13. ↑ Sachs, David. "With the G Line opening, RTD and transit riders will be partying like it's 2016". denverite.com. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  14. ↑ Armstrong, Jack (23 June 2021). "Union Station North, South Platte Bridges". commons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  15. ↑ Taylor, Mike. "A Tale of Two Grids: Confusion Aside, Diagonal Streets Distinguish Downtown Denver". Confluence-Denver.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  16. ↑ "regional_trails_web.pdf" (PDF). Denvergov.org. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  17. ↑ Prendergast, Alan (13 March 2020). "South Platte Flood of 1965". Colorado Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  18. ↑ "South platte river Globeville and north areas" (PDF). casfm.org. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  19. ↑ "Prospect Park, Denver". Nextdoor.com. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  20. 1 2 3 4 "City of Cuernavaca Park". The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Fletcher, Harrison (5 March 1998). "Building for the Future". Westword. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  22. ↑ "Greenway Foundation History:1970s". thegreenwayfoundation.org. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  23. ↑ "Valley Highway EIS" (PDF). www.codot.gov. p. 4.9-5. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  24. ↑ Hughes, Jessica. "Denver's Sister Cities". uncovercolorado.com. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
  25. ↑ "Important Bird Areas, South Platte River Corridor". audubon.org. 12 September 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  26. ↑ "Ajax Lofts". condo.com. eRealEstate Holdings, LLC. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  27. 1 2 3 4 "Denver Lofts and Condos by Area". Denver's Real Estate. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  28. ↑ "About Ajax Lofts". Highrises.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  29. ↑ Dravitz, Ryan. "The Casey Update #3". Denver Infill. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  30. ↑ "Diamond at Prospect Apartments". Apartments.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  31. ↑ "Flour Mill Lofts". condo.com. 2022 eRealEstate Holdings, LLC. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  32. ↑ "Flour Mill Lofts". RiverFrontDenver.com. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  33. ↑ "Griffis North Union". Apartments.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  34. ↑ "Griffis Union Station". Apartments.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  35. ↑ "About Inca 29 Townhomes". Highrises.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  36. ↑ "Jack Kerouac Lofts". highrises.com. highrises.com. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  37. ↑ "Jack Kerouac Lofts". Johnson Nathan Strohe Design. 8 July 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  38. ↑ "The Metro Apartments". Apartments.com. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  39. ↑ "WaterTower Lofts". Apartments.com. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  40. ↑ Dravitz, Ryan. "Union Station North Roundup AUG 2020". Denver Infill. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  41. ↑ "The Co-Living Trend Heats Up in the Mile High City". 5280.com. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  42. ↑ "A Final Look at X Denver". denverinfill.com. denverinfill. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  43. ↑ "Union Station North Roundup AUG 2022". denverinfill.com. denverinfill. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  44. 1 2 3 4 "Union Station North Roundup AUG 2022". denverinfill.com. denverinfill.com. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  45. ↑ Kindesign, One (17 June 2015). "Historic flour mill converted to industrial style loft in Denver". onekindesign.com. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  46. ↑ "Watertower Lofts". riverfrontdenver.com. Retrieved 15 June 2021.

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