As Denver struggles to address a severe lack of affordable housing, some property owners have turned to renovating office buildings as apartments. Others, like GME LLC., have looked to abandoned hospitals.
The city’s Land Use, Transportation and Infrastructure committee — one of several lesser bodies that passes along contracts, bills and other items to the full City Council — O.K.’d a zoning change for the old Veterans Affairs hospital. Located at 1055 Clermont St., blocks away from the aorta-like Colorado Boulevard, the abandoned building is owned by GME I, LLC., and zoned to be a hospital, meaning it cannot be used for housing or mixed-use development.
The old hospital has a lot of potential for future residents, city officials said, especially considering the planned Colorado Boulevard bus rapid transit line the city hopes to implement in coming years. With LUTI’s approval, the full council will now consider the zoning change.
The rehabilitation will follow city guidelines on housing affordability, according to city staff.
The structure will not be destroyed, District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer said, but she described the inside as a “house of horrors” and recalled seeing CPR dummies still on the ground in areas.
“We’ve also had a number of community safety issues in the area and the property owner is partnering with Denver police to mitigate those,” she said. “But that’s tough because of the size of the property. The faster we get this moving, the better it will be for the community.”
The proposed zoning will allow a building of up to 12 stories. The property owner and community engaged in a lot of discussion concerning height restrictions before ultimately settling on 12 stories maximum.
Of course, Denver’s expanding housing affordability program, which set the requirements of housing affordability citywide after its adoption in July of 2022, may allow additional stories. If certain requirements set out by the city are “exceeded,” the property could support up to 16 stories with a maximum height of 185 feet, according to the Denver zoning code.
The Denver VA hospital campus began life in 1948 and construction was completed in 1951, according to the VA. Then known as the Veterans Administration, the hospital was shaped by postwar VA hospital and was constructed in a well-established neighborhood, was served by a state highway and was located close to the University of Colorado Hospital and Medical School.
It sits next to the popular 9+CO, a 26-acre urban infill development, aptly named for its location on Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Denver. The site, formerly the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center campus, was developed by Continuum Partners and CIM Group.
“The association with the medical school was vitally important to the VA’s postwar vision in which the agency worked cooperatively with medical schools,” a VA report said. “It became clear by the early 2000s that the DVAMC could no longer provide the most effective care to patients.”
The VA Hospital has since “returned to its roots” at the former site of the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora.
