Twenty Ninth Street

Project replaces aging Crossroads Mall with environmentally friendly retail district

The carefully planned Twenty Ninth Street retail center - a Communication Arts, The Weitz Co. and Westcor project - aims to create a new retail, restaurant and entertainment destination in Boulder on par with the Pearl Street Mall.

By Diana Murphy

Photo by Fred J. Fuhrmeister, Time Frame Photography

When Twenty Ninth Street opens next month in Boulder, the new retail, restaurant and entertainment center is expected to spark an economic renewal in an area once dominated and then dragged down by the aging Crossroads Mall.

But the Communication Arts-designed project isn't just replacing a dated, traditional mall with a 21st Century counterpart. It's looking to become another Pearl Street Mall - a destination in its own right. A major feature of the 62-acre design is the extension of Boulder's street grid throughout the property, including a never-before "29th Street," as well as extensions of Canyon and Walnut streets.

"We're happy to be giving Boulder a retail '29th Street' for the very first time," said David Scholl, senior vice president of development for the Westcor Region of The Macerich Co. "Much like Lincoln Road, Michigan Avenue, 42nd Street, and certainly Cherry Creek North and Larimer Square are well-known destinations for shopping, dining and entertainment within their respective cities, our hope is that Twenty Ninth Street takes its place as a lively, compelling and genuine district within Boulder."

Twenty Ninth Street's central "neighborhood" includes a mix of a movie theater, restaurants and retail stores strategically placed in an outdoor, pedestrian-friendly way. Book-ended by the existing Foley's/Macy's department store on the north, and once complete, a new Century Theatres complex on the south, the area will stretch across five city blocks.

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Green from the Get-Go

Twenty Ninth Street was designed and constructed as a high-performance retail center to reflect the Boulder community's commitment to a clean environment. Westcor and the general contractor, The Weitz Co. of Denver, developed and integrated a number of green programs and procedures throughout construction. One of the anchor stores, Wild Oats, will be a LEED-certified building and the overall center will include several other sustainable structures.

This environmentally friendly approach started in October 2004 when the three-month demolition of Crossroads Mall began.

"Eighty-two percent of the existing mall was recycled or reused," said Shane Bauer, senior project manager for The Weitz Co. "Anything in the mall that had value, they allowed people to come in and salvage."

Salvaged materials included more 2,000 lbs. of steel, 40-plus solid steel and wood doors, 177 lengths of track lighting - more than enough go around the bases of a Major League baseball field nearly three times.

That fall, the Boulder-based Center for Resource Conservation also netted nearly $30,000 from "yard sales" of other Crossroads recyclables such as toilets, light fixtures and brass doorknobs.

And though the salvage efforts generated a tremendous amount of good will for the Twenty Ninth Street project, they were far from a cheap publicity stunt.

"When our demo contractor demolished the existing mall, it cost them a lot of money to go through everything," said Bauer, who estimates that the recycling and reuse of salvaged materials totaled "$300,000 to 400,000 easily."

Other Environmental Elements

Green-building strategies and technologies were implemented wherever possible to minimize the environmental impact of the development. The environmentally friendly elements found at Twenty Ninth Street include:

• The site itself - Twenty Ninth Street reuses an existing urban site with established infrastructure, which helps protect greenfields and preserves habitat and natural resources.
• "Heat island" mitigation - More than 200,000 brick pavers, not asphalt, cover the site's complex waterproofing system created to prevent water transferring from the street surface to the parking garage below. Also, half of the development's parking spaces will be housed underground or in covered parking, compared to 14 percent at Crossroads.
• "Cool roofs" throughout the project use highly emissive/reflecting roofing materials to reflect more of the sun's rays and absorb less heat. More than 50 percent of the project's perimeter will be landscaped areas or covered walkways to mitigate the "heat island" effect and improve energy efficiency.
• Parking includes special spaces for alternative-fuel vehicles, as well as preferred parking for hybrid vehicles, vans and carpools, plus more than 175 spaces for bicycles - and changing rooms for employee use.
• The center's open-air also design saves energy over and above an enclosed mall. New heating and cooling technology is more energy efficient than Crossroads' older systems and the project's north-south orientation takes full advantage of the sun's light and energy.
• The site uses two storm interceptors that filter storm runoff, improving the quality of water that reaches Goose Creek and Scott Carpenter Park.
• The development's landscaping is also dominated by drought-tolerant plants and drip-irrigation systems to reduce the use of potable water.
• Waterless urinals and water-efficient toilets were installed in the restrooms, a move expected to save 7,800 gal. per urinal per year and 800 gal. of water per toilet per year.

In effort to help preserve Boulder's night skies, Twenty Ninth Street will also comply with Boulder's "Dark Skies" ordinance. "We are not letting our lighting go off the site by keeping the lighting [fixtures] lower," Bauer said. "It's a softer effect."

Safely on Schedule

Despite the special care required by building green, the Twenty Ninth Street project progressed smoothly, Bauer said.

"Progress has been per plan, and we're on schedule," he said. "We've had a lot of challenges associated with such a complex, dynamic project … but in doing all that, the schedule has tracked with what we said we would do."

The average number of workers on site was around 250, but "now that tenant construction has started, we're probably at about 300," Bauer said. "And we've completed more than 500,000 man-hours without a serious accident."

Twenty Ninth Street will celebrate its grand opening with a preview party and benefit on Oct. 12.

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