Denver's Skyline 1801 apartments ready for leasing after renovation

Take a dingy 12-story apartment building with obsolete elevators and an outdated heating-and-cooling system in downtown Denver, painstakingly relocate the low-income residents, conduct asbestos abatement, and then renovate it inside and out.

It's a tall order, but that's what the Broe Group has done at Skyline 1801, formerly the Skyline Park Apartments, at 18th and Arapahoe streets.

The renovated building has already begun the leasing process and expects its first tenants to move in by late this month.

"One needs to simply walk in to feel the energy here," said Broe's Dave Wedmore.

Skyline 1801, on the eastern end of Skyline Park, now boasts high-end amenities granite countertops, tiled walls, hardwood floors, a community kitchen, a yoga studio, a fitness room and a cyber cafe. It also has a private courtyard with community grills, a fountain, a sundeck and a 72-space parking lot.

"It's one of the few places downtown that actually has a backyard," Wedmore said.

A year ago, Broe acknowledged growing problems in the 144-unit, 40-year-old building: malfunctioning elevators, a cranky heating-and-cooling system, inadequate accessibility for the disabled, and solid railings on balconies that allowed little light into the units.

"It wasn't great housing," Wedmore said. "Residents understood that the systems in the building were old and that the building needed to be rehabilitated. We knew we had to empty out the building to do the work that was required."

That meant finding new homes for more than 144 tenants many of them seniors or disabled, all of them with Denver Housing Authority vouchers.

"We helped place everybody," Wedmore said. "Volunteers of America had a number of high-rises that we were able to relocate people to. We took a poll of everything in a 5-mile radius, every place that had homes they might apply for."

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Denver's Skyline 1801 apartments ready for leasing after renovation