A residential project that will span a full city block at the southeast corner of Sloan’s Lake Park is finally underway after a developer navigated what he calls “a truly complicated choreography of financing.”
Denver-based Zocalo Development, led by CEO David Zucker, has broken ground on a parking garage next to Sloan’s Lake Medical Center
Its completion, forecast for late April, will allow Zucker to start work on the meat of the project — 461 residential units, nearly all rentals and more than a third of them income-restricted, that will go up on a surface parking block currently utilized by the medical center.
Zucker said the groundbreaking follows 10 years of work. He first discussed the project publicly in 2018 and received the necessary rezoning the following year. But the site has sat unchanged until now.
Zucker said he has closed on $300 million of financing for what are essentially three separate projects within one.
The north end of the site, along 17th Avenue and closest to the park, will feature a 16-story tower dubbed Aliyah with 294 units: 269 market-rate and 15 income-restricted apartments, as well as 10 market-rate townhomes.
The income-restricted units are reserved for Denver Public Schools educators at 60% of the area median income, or AMI. Northwestern Mutual is both a lender and equity investor on the tower.
“It will be the nicest residential project in Denver,” Zucker said. “It is the sum of everything that we know about delivering on the goals of the residents.”
The south end of the site, along 16th Avenue, will house 158 income-restricted apartments in a four-story structure dubbed Liora. Max income will vary by unit from 30 to 60% AMI, and Zucker said there will be seven three-bedroom units for larger families.
Liora will be financed with bonds, low-income housing tax credits and $9.5 million from the Colorado Division of Housing. The building will ultimately be owned by the New York-based NHP Foundation, using funds granted by the State of Colorado through the Proposition 123 land-banking program.
The project will also include some retail space, and nine townhomes facing a newly created stretch of Meade Street that will be reserved for those making up to the area median income.
“There’s nothing as life-changing for either a former renter or for me as builder as building affordable for-sale,” Zucker said.
The 330-space parking garage currently underway is at the corner of 16th Avenue and Meade Street, at the southeast corner of the site. It will ultimately serve the adjacent medical facility once known as Beth Israel Hospital, as well as Liora.
Zocalo will both develop the buildings and manage them upon completion. A new affiliate of the company, BLDRS, is the general contractor. JG Architecture and Craine Architects were the project architects.
The smaller building is expected to take 16 months to build, and the tower 26 months. The townhomes will be completed between the two buildings, Zucker said.
“Liora at Sloan’s Lake is a model of what we can achieve when public and private partners come together with a shared commitment to making housing more affordable for Colorado residents,” Maria De Cambra, executive director of the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, which facilitated the state housing division loan, said in a statement.
Zucker had once hoped to make the tower market-rate condominiums. But those plans were jettisoned in part due to lackluster sales at LakeHouse Residences, a condo project completed in 2020 four blocks to the west.
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