River North: urban, artistic, gritty; Platte riverfront community emerges from industrial-warehouse district.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: Who owns Colorado

Like rainwater rolling down mountains, the areas surrounding Downtown Denver are flooding with redevelopment as demand for new residential space spurs growth in former industrial areas.

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Examples abound: The Platte River Valley, once a lowland, weed-choked haven for the homeless, is now an upscale neighborhood with a central park, retail services, offices and plenty of living space in walking distance to downtown. The Golden Triangle is another once-neglected but promising area blooming with new construction.

Now Brighton Boulevard, also called the River North District, a stretch of industrial and warehouse space north of Coors Field along the Platte River, is the next Golden Child for some of Denver's best known developers. "I started in LoDo before it was LoDo and the Golden Triangle before it was the Golden Triangle, and now we're doing River North," said Mickey Zeppelin, president of Zeppelin Development.

"The concept here is to keep it somewhat gritty. We don't want to turn it into a new riverfront and gentrify the place. We're developing a high-tech industrial feel and really taking advantage of the river. We see it having a series of parks and open spaces; an alternative for people who don't want to move to Lafayette or the Tech Center who want to live near the urban core."

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Zeppelin is developing Taxi, a mixed-use project on Ringsby Court that was the former home of a Yellow Cab office and a truck line. The 15-acre site will have 65,000 square feet of office space and a healthy collection of retail and service outlets serving 43 residential units and the growing surrounding neighborhood. Zeppelin has completed the first phase of offices that share an interior "courtyard" and a view of the Platte River and downtown.

Developers like Zeppelin must possess nerves of steel or great vision, or both, to undertake redevelopment in an area like Brighton Boulevard. During the day, there is heavy truck traffic, and the industrial neighbors often have fenced yards full of industrial supplies and materials that are not necessarily scenic.

"But after 5 it's quiet," said Tracy Weil, owner of Weil Works, an art gallery and Weil's home on Chestnut Place. "We like the kind of roughness. There's a lot of truck traffic, but still a lot of wildlife. Where else can you get riverfront property in Denver?"

Weil said his place was a junkyard when he bought it. Now the fenced compound is an oasis of landscaping...