Economy & Economic Development  September 29, 2015

Developer taking pair of North Boulder projects before planning board

BOULDER — Richmond, Va.-based development firm Fulton Hill Properties will go before the Boulder planning board Thursday for a concept review of a pair of related redevelopment projects in North Boulder that planning staff preliminarily have deemed out-of-step with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.

The first development is a three-story, 83,000-square-foot mixed-use building eyed for the former People’s Clinic site at 3303 Broadway, at the northwest corner of Broadway and Hawthorn Avenue. The project, geared toward providing market-rate workforce housing, would include 94 residential units, a coffee shop, community room, fitness center, and micro and coworking offices. The apartments would include 16 two-bedroom units, 23 one-bedroom units and 55 efficiency units.

The current buildings at 3303 Broadway would be demolished. Since the site is zoned Public, the developers — led by founder Margaret Freund, who lives about half-time in a home she owns in Boulder’s Newlands neighborhood — are seeking to rezone the property as Residential High 3.

Mental Health Partners of Boulder and Broomfield counties owns the 1.3-acre property, having purchased it from People’s Clinic in 2009. Fulton Hill is under contract to buy the property, which is listed for sale at $3.2 million, for an undisclosed sum. Mental Health Partners had explored establishing a clinic and services at the site but wound up locating them elsewhere in town. The 3303 Broadway site has been vacant since People’s Clinic left.

The second development proposed by Fulton Hill is slated for a 4.8-acre site at 2801 Jay Road, the former site of the Boulder First Church of the Nazarene. That project would include demolishing the building, which is currently being leased by another church, and building 94 housing units. Those would include 21 three-bedroom row houses, 30 two-bedroom row houses, 38 two-bedroom apartments and five one-bedroom apartments. The project would also include three small parks, a community room and 142 parking spaces, plus garages for some units.

For that development, at the northeast corner of 28th Street and Jay Road, developers are seeking annexation by the city with Residential Mixed 2 zoning.

Freund said Tuesday that up to 100 percent of the Jay Road project could be designated as permanently affordable housing, though developers are still working out the details of that with the city’s inclusionary housing staff. She said that as a requirement of annexation at least 40 percent of the units must be affordable housing. The site would also include the affordable housing units required by the city for the 3303 Broadway development, which could be as many as 19, though that number could vary since the units at the Broadway site are much smaller than those planned for Jay Road.

Freund said the idea for the two projects was to create workforce housing at Broadway in a walkable setting close to public transit, while providing affordable housing options geared toward families at the Jay Road site, with the larger units, garages and parks.

“Of the affordable housing stock coming online, there’s really nothing focused on families,” Freund said.

Thursday’s concept review is aimed at allowing developers to solicit comments from planning board and the public before filing for an official site review. Freund said Fulton Hill submitted a pre-application with city staff earlier this year and has already adjusted the two projects significantly based on staff comments. The changes included reducing the number of units at both sites, placing micro offices on the ground floor along Broadway at the 3303 site, and changing the massing of the Broadway project.

Still, in the agenda packet for Thursday’s planning board meeting, city planning staff contends that the high density of the two projects remains out of character with the low-density housing that surrounds both. Staff notes that medium-density multifamily housing “could potentially be supportable” at both sites.

“We’d love to have support all along every step of the way,” Freund said Tuesday. “But I think you have to try to put your best concept forward and listen to what the planning board has to say and try to be responsive.”

BOULDER — Richmond, Va.-based development firm Fulton Hill Properties will go before the Boulder planning board Thursday for a concept review of a pair of related redevelopment projects in North Boulder that planning staff preliminarily have deemed out-of-step with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.

The first development is a three-story, 83,000-square-foot mixed-use building eyed for the former People’s Clinic site at 3303 Broadway, at the northwest corner of Broadway and Hawthorn Avenue. The project, geared toward providing market-rate workforce housing, would include 94 residential units, a coffee shop, community room, fitness center, and micro and coworking offices. The apartments would include…

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