From runways to mainstreet: 18 years later, Lowry redevelopment approaches final phase.

• Author: Caley, Nora
• Position: QUARTERLY REAL ESTATE REPORT

When occupants move out. of a property. they often leave behind outdated furn it tire or old appliances. When the U.S. Department of Defense closed Lowry Air Force Base in 1994, it left 1,000 vacant buildings, three runways and 12 square miles of chain-link fence. Over the next 18-plus years, it turned out that recycling the materials was easy compared to the big question: what to do with the 1,866-acre property.

Lowry Air Force Base was one of the military bases in the 1991 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) list. At the little. the cities of Denver and Aurora estimated that the area would low $295 million a year in annual spending. and 7,000 jobs. So the Lowry Redevelopment (LRA).a quasi-goycrnmen that. nonprofit entity created by the two cities, held 18 months of meetings for concerned citizens to offer suggestions on what to do with the land.

One citizen suggested returning the land "to the rabbits." The suggestion was largely ignored.

"Many people feared it would become homeless are or it would be too developed. so they said let's just have it as open space," say Tom Markham, who served as executive director of the LRA for 18 years until retiring in December 2012. "If you have open space you don't recover $300 million year."

The solution was a mixed-use residential and commercial area. Markham, an Air Force Academy graduate. says commercial developers were at first not interested in Lowry, which is bordered by llth Avenue. Alameda Avenue, Quebec Street and Dayton Street. "They said, 'We don't know because von are not till a major highway.'" Markham says. As for the residential part of the development, honebuilders wattled to build cul-de-sacs with what Markham of calls "a sea of garages."

But as master developer, the LRA's goal urban infill, and it was the first large development of its type in the Denver metro area. Stapleton. at 4.700 acres, is larger but started construction after the Stapleton International Airport closed in 1995, and welcomed its first homeowners in 2012.) "New urbanism was the driving philosophy," says Hilarie Portell, who has been with the LRA since 1996 and is director of. public relations and marketing. "We talked to builders about homes with porches and alleys and garages in back of the house. That was not the norm."

There was also mo norm for bow to pay development, but the LRA together funding from various sources. The City and County of Denver invested $1.37 million to assist with master planning...