For better than 120 years, the sandstone clocktower on the Loretto Heights campus has been the beacon in southwest Denver.
Over the next few weeks, its future — and that of the 72-acre former Catholic school campus it anchors — will come into better view. Opinions differ on what that future should look like.
The Denver City Council on Sept. 16 will consider the Loretto Heights Small Area Plan. The document lays out a broad-stroke vision for how the property should be redeveloped in the city’s heavily residential and oft-overlooked southwest corner, a part of town that is 66% Latino. It would be a precursor for formal site plans and development documents.
With layers of maps and a series of recommendations for developers, the plan paints a picture of a mixed-use district. Higher-density development would be clustered along South Federal Boulevard, where the campus athletic fields are now. Quieter, more traditionally suburban housing could rise on the west side of the property where Sheridan Hill drops off steeply to meet with already suburban streets.
At the center of everything will remain the clock tower-crowned administration building. Under the developers’ vision, it will open onto a campus quad lined with retail and open to everyone, not just college students.
“What we’re trying to do with this project is give southwest Denver a place that it can call theirs,” said Mark Witkiewicz, a principal with Westside Investment Partners, the developer that bought Loretto Heights for $15.75 million in the summer of the 2018. “This belltower was a landmark but the community wasn’t invited in.”
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The plan has some big fans on the City Council, specifically Councilman Kevin Flynn, whose District 2 includes Loretto Heights, and City Council President Jolon Clark, whose District 7 is directly across the street from the campus, which is officially at 3001 S. Federal Blvd.
The two voiced their support for the redevelopment at the Aug. 26 City Council meeting. They were part of the majority in an 11-1 vote approving a series of special taxing districts that will be relied on to pay for infrastructure development and other things on the campus, including programming for the May Bonfils Staton Performing Arts Center, a theater built in 1961 and left largely untouched since. Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca was the lone dissenting vote.
“Our constituents have basically demanded these buildings become our living room for southwest Denver and all of that comes with a price,” Flynn said in an interview with a Denver Post reporter ahead of last week’s vote. “Without this, my biggest concern is that those historic buildings will sit there and decay without any resources to maintain them and that’s not a good outcome for anybody.”
The council granted the combined taxing districts the right to issue debt on up to 50 mills of property taxes that will be levied on future property owners on the campus. With $97 million in infrastructure needs on the campus, city officials expect Westside to seek more tax support to redevelop the campus, including through an agreement with the Denver Urban Renewal Authority.
The special district plans indicate that by 2025 Loretto Heights could be home to as many as 2,500 people, with an expected daytime population of 1,000. At least 800 units of new housing will be required to support that vision, Witkiewicz said.
Last week’s hearing demonstrated that not everyone is on board with the vision and at least some in the surrounding community plan to fight the small area plan later this month.
Xochitl “Sochi'” Gaytan, president of the Harvey Park Improvement Association, shredded both the area plan and the special taxing-district plans in her comments. Her organization wants assurances that the campus will be designated a historic district and that no buildings taller than five stories will be built, among other things. Maps in the small are plan indicate taller buildings, as high as eight stories, may be permitted west of the administration building, on the Harvey Park side.
“We all know the higher the building, the higher the penthouse,” she said. “The higher the penthouse, the higher the prices, hence causing gentrification and unaffordability.”
Witkiewicz is quick to point out that the small area plan is the product of almost a year of effort, including steering committee meetings, public hearings and surveys that looped in around 1,300 people. The plan calls for inclusion of affordable housing. The first project Westside has announced is the redevelopment of the former Pancratia Hall dormitory building.
The veteran developer is also quick to note current zoning for the campus allows for structures as tall as 150 feet.
“It’s a big, giant downzoning because that is what the community wants,” Witkiewicz said of the small area plan.
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Sister Mary Nelle Gage has been a Sister of Loretto for 51 years and graduated from the school when it was still a Catholic girls college. She was part of the steering committee that contributed to the small area plan. As a Sister of Loretto, one of Gage’s areas of focus has been on the future of a cemetery there where 62 nuns are buried. She wants the cemetery to remain open as a place for people to visit, reflect and pray. Westside has publicly said it will not touch that portion of the property.
Gage said Witkiewicz and company have been very interested in learning the history of the campus, which the sisters lost control of in 1989. She plans to keep a close eye on how things progress.
“I’m very hopeful,” she said. “I plan to walk with Westside all along and say, ‘Yes, yes, go for that,’ or, ‘We’re going to work on that one hard to win that blessing.'”
