The Cherry Creek Shopping Center has renovated the children's play area in the interior mall outside of an entrance to Macy's.  The former breakfast food oriented "furniture" in the area has been replaced with Warner Brothers "Looney Tunes" characters.  The play area is sponsored by Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children and is now called Rocky Mountain Play Park.

The Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Denver is now under the ownership of Transwestern Realty Partners, the company.  The change in ownership is the latest development around the hotel, which was the center of a lawsuit filed by Transwestern against then-owner CJS Hotel LLC for an unpaid $20 million mezzanine loan. Separately, the future of 9 condominiums that sit atop the Ritz-Carlton is to be decided by an auction on August 22nd.  Internal and location problems with the development combined with the downturn of the national economy undermined its success, resulting in the property being placed in foreclosure in November.  To be offered at prices well below their original list prices of $560,000 to $2.4 million, the condominiums will remove their affiliation with the Ritz-Carlton hotel and be renamed The Residences at 1891 Curtis.

The Appleby's restaurant on Colorado Boulevard in Glendale was renovated in July and is the first of some 2,000 Appleby's across the country planned for renovation. Changes include new interior and exterior finish, a new menu and more efficient procedures.

The 92,000 SF 7-story Symes Building at 820 16^th Street has been purchased for $5.67 million or $62/SF.  The seller had previously foreclosed on the property which formerly included Woolworth's among its tenants.  The 1906 vintage retail/office building was 60% leased and has been renovated very little over the years.   Current retail tenants include Famous Footwear and 7-Eleven.

The former Smith & Hawken building at 264 Detroit Street sold recently and will be occupied by the women's clothing store Max.  The $2.6 million sale price includes a 2,600 SF building and is equivalent to $270/SF for the 9,600 SF site.

The construction of a new 4-story facility that will house psychiatric services for children and adolescents, as well as a kidney dialysis center and an outpatient surgery center is currently underway at the Denver Health Medical Center.  Located west of the hospital at Delaware Street/West 7th Avenue, the 78,000 SF Pavilion M building is to be completed in late 2011.

The Urban Land Conservancy has purchased a 1.2 acre site on East Yale Circle adjacent to RTD's Yale light rail station for development with 60 to 100 units of affordable apartments. The $1.33 million land price is equivalent to $25/SF.  Financing was provided by the Denver Transit Oriented Development Fund.  A development partner for the apartments has not yet been selected by ULC.  Construction is planned to start in 12 to 18 months.

Colorado State University has opened its downtown Denver campus on three levels of the office building at 475 17^th St.  The space includes continuing education classrooms, meeting space offices and a retail store.  Chancellor Joe Blake, formerly of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce will continue to occupy space at 410 17^th St. along with the University's executive MBA program.

7-Eleven has announced it plans to replace the store at the NEC Colfax/Josephine with a new store at the NWC Colfax/Josephine, and add a new store on the former gas station site at Colfax/Race Streets.

Shea Properties is renegotiating its contract for the redevelopment of the former University of Colorado Health Sciences Campus at 9^th/Colorado Boulevard with the University. Shea had envisioned developing the site with 1,200 residential units, 150,000 SF of retail space and office space totaling 500,000 SF.  However, the weakness of the economy has created difficulty in lining-up tenants for the site, and it hopes the new contract will help resolve this problem by giving them more flexibility

Wednesday, August 25^th the 16^th Street Plan Steering Committee will present its recommendation for renovation of the 16^th Street Mall that was provided to the City of Denver.  After 32 months of studying and analyzing 16^th Street, the 16^th Street Plan Steering committee has determined a recommendation for the future of the Mall.   An open house will include stations with detailed information on the history of 16^th Street and the different parts of the planning process.  The presentation that follows will summarize the Steering Committee's recommendation.

Denver City Council Member Jeanne Robb reports that several new items have been added to the Community Planning and Development's (CPD) website that might be of interest:

www.denvergov.org/cherrycreek