What's more Cherry Creek than a complete facelift to get rid of a zit?
Part of the Clayton Lane development, anchored on one end by Whole Foods, is going to be torn down and rebuilt even though it was completed in 2005.
Clayton Lane stretches from First Avenue to Second Avenue and from Josephine Street east to Detroit Street.
The part of Clayton Lane that is about to go through a facelift includes Whole Foods, Wells Fargo, Peet's Coffee and the parking structure. The JW Marriott, Crate & Barrel, Janus building and condos are not going to be razed.
The zit is the Sears building that Clayton Lane built itself around. Sears closed the Cherry Creek location in March 2015.
"It reminds me of an overzealous cosmetic patient," said Dr. Ken Oleszek of La Fontaine Aesthetics.
Oleszek is on the top floor of a building just a block away and suspects his office space won't be far behind on the chopping block.
"Taking down Clayton Lane, which was just brand new 15 years ago, and is still in pretty good shape, seems like it could be one of those imperfections that you don't need to deal with," Oleszek said. "I see patients all the time and they see these little lines or these little imperfections that no one else sees. I use this phrase a lot to help them understand, I say, 'the enemy of good is great.'"
Ahead of the construction, Peet's Coffee is closing on Friday. The Cherry Creek Peet's location is home to the 2017 barista champion for all Peet's nationwide. That barista, David Ellis, is out of a job on Friday.
"A lot of this whole area has just been rezoned so as to give greater investment in this whole block. I don't think age has a thing to do with it," said Wayne New, the Denver city councilman whose district covers Cherry Creek. "They want to do 1,300 parking spaces underneath, and they want to move the Whole Foods out to University."
He said that the project could begin in the spring. He believes the Sears will get torn down first, to make way for temporary parking for Whole Foods. Then, a new Whole Foods will start being built in the current Whole Foods parking lot. You know, kind of like when new Mile High Stadium was built right next to old Mile High Stadium before old Mile High was torn down.
"I think they've got plans for three eight-story buildings going behind a plaza after the new Whole Foods is constructed," New said. "We've got 12 projects going on simultaneously right now. We never anticipated, when we did the zoning about three years ago, all of this would happen at one time."
The most recent project proposal submitted to city planners this summer shows that the new development will allow Columbine Street to go through from Second Avenue to First Avenue. Right now, it dead ends into underground parking. It will also create a "Josephine Place" that will go between First and Second Avenues.
"Sometimes when you try to do too much, it comes off as being too much," Oleszek said. "I'm not saying that Cherry Creek doesn't need some new buildings or new development, but I think there comes a point to where you overdevelop and you lose what Cherry Creek is."
