If you've walked by the Mountain States Employers Council building at 18th Avenue between Pennsylvania and Logan streets you've seen the fencing.
It's been that way for awhile, and it has Denverite readers like Sarah Mattingly wondering: "What is going on with the Employer's Council building at 18th and Penn? Several months ago, fences went up and there's a porta-potty outside"
Well, we finally have an answer. (Not about the porta-potty, because that's pretty self-explanatory, but about the building.)
Environmental remediation has been ongoing, and a new affordable housing community is coming.
Soon, demo crews will knock down the longtime home of the Mountain States Employers Council.
(Full disclosure: Denverite and Colorado Public Radio contract with Employers Council for some human resource services.).
The lot will soon boost an affordable housing project, The Tapestry, a project of the Colorado Health Foundation. The organization purchased the building across the street from its headquarters back in 2021.
Gorman & Company will handle the development. Hope Communities will offer services at the building. And Urban Ventures has been working on community engagement that will shape the future of the site.
Gorman & Company has already built 1,600 affordable and workforce apartment homes in Colorado. It will start looking for project financing in 2025 — a process that can take years.
Construction will begin when the company has money in hand.
So what will this building offer?
The Colorado Health Foundation is branding The Tapestry as "a multi-phase, multi-generational, family-centered housing community." Its goal: "promoting health equity and fostering environments of possibility and belonging."
The project will serve people making between 30 and 80 percent of the area median income. Currently, that's $35,200 and $92,400 for a household of three.
"It will be built in phases with two buildings in the first phase that will be built along Logan and Pennsylvania streets at 18th Ave.," wrote Urban Ventures President Susan Powers to Uptown community members. "Each will consist of approximately 90 units of affordable housing, designed to serve working families."
The building will include gardens, community spaces for events and arts and culture programming. There will also be a childcare and early education center, a small health clinic, workforce training and retail, according to Powers' letter to the community.
Why is the Colorado Health Foundation involved in housing?
The Colorado Health Foundation is getting into developing affordable housing in response to its annual Pulse poll.
Coloradans have consistently described housing affordability as a top worry.
"Adding affordable homes will disrupt the cycle of gentrification and displacement that has been occurring in Uptown over the past couple of decades,” said Karen McNeil-Miller, president and CEO of The Colorado Health Foundation, in a statement.
