Skyscraper's makeover worth a look.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Attitude at Altitude - Wells Fargo Center, Denver - Brief Article

ANYBODY WHO HAS ENTERED ON THE Sherman Street side of Denver's signature skyscraper, the cash-register-shaped Wells Fargo Center, probably has wondered over the years why its architects chose Dickensian dark as the lobby's primary color.

The new landlord of the building has given that space a much brighter, new look.

CommonWealth Partners Management Services, a Los Angeles real-estate investment firm, is, in fact, at the tail end of a $1.5 million lobby remodeling that actually uses the sun to put a little dance in the shadows, and that casts light on some of the finer ceiling features of the block-long corridor.

The first year of the project, according to building General Manager William Owen, was spent adding planters, new lights -- Did you know there were only 12 lights in that (old) long lobby?" Owen asked -- wood trim (to soften all the stone) and more welcoming furniture to the space.

The last few months, and especially five days in June, were spent adding art to the lobby, including installation on the Lincoln Street end of a sculpture by Oregon artist Ed Carpenter. His Alta flora, made of fabric and glass, sweeps 88 feet up into the glassed-over sky, takes the sunlight and reflects it back in different colors.

Beautiful and huge glass vases were added to the elevator alcoves, and in...