If you've been to Santa Fe Drive, between 10th and 11th avenues, you've seen the construction. Workers are digging up the roads. New buildings have risen. And the old ones there will soon be gone.
What's happening?
Last year, we wrote about a building on the southwest corner of the block that was being considered for landmark preservation. Nobody fought for it, and Tortillas Mexico owner Jose Rangel sold the building and others, according to city records, to Holland Partner Group, as BusinessDen first reported.
The building, and others on the block, will be razed to make way for retail and apartments, part of a project dubbed Holland Santa Fe Phase II.
According to project plans, the proposed building at Santa Fe Dr. and 11th Ave. would including 3,214 square feet of food and drink establishments, 1,483 square feet of retail, and 151,243 square feet of residential, 123 units in total. There will also be a fitness center for people living on site.
The building will rise five stories high and include 93 parking spots.
Holland's building at Inca St. and 11th Ave. will be entirely residential with 92 units and 69 parking spots, similar to Holland's new building at 10th and Inca.
And the block is slated for a massive redevelopment -- the kind of change that is happening throughout the Santa Fe Art District.
Tortillas Mexico's factory, which caught fire in 2018, has been empty since. The company, which once offered up misshapen tortillas to anybody who came to the back door of the spot off of Santa Fe Drive, has since moved to Englewood.
Santa Fe Drive has seen a glut of apartments built in recent years and longtime cultural institutions struggling to stay.
The Chicano Humanities and Arts Council couldn't afford its longtime home, so it moved down the street. Even that space became too pricy, and now it has moved to Lakewood's 40 West Arts District.
The nearby Aztlan Theatre has protested rising property taxes, even as the owner refuses to sell, as CBS Colorado has reported.
Yet some legacy institutions remain, including Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, Museo de las Americas, Swift's Breakfast House and the James Beard Award-winning El Taco de Mexico.
