Sept 20, 2022 Minutes

Update on Primrose School at Colorado Station

• Update provided by Tim and Michelle Alexander, owners & Todd Fehr, project manager

• Primrose School is located at Warren & Bellaire, and they are expanding

• Currently demand exceeds supply for childcare.

  • Waitlist for infants to enter the school is 3yrs. For toddlers it is 2 years. Early preschool, 1 year.

• Goals: keep existing 1.5 acre footprint, operate at full capacity during construction, keep one story. New construction will decrease ample playground space to add 3 classrooms, add a laundry room, and a storage area, refresh the landscaping, ultimately Increasing licensing to 202 children total.

• Permit and Site Plan Amendment are nearly finished, and under review by the city

  • Hoping for approval 15-45 days from now

  • Expect construction for 3 months

• UHNC are willing to vote to provide a letter of recommendation if that would help the permit to be pushed through.

Development in the area

• The board has not been notified by any developers since the last meeting.

• Brief discussion/recap on the property at Colorado Blvd & Evans. Last communication with property owners was last fall, but no real updates. The potential owner/developers just wanted to be connected and had questions about the good neighbor agreement that is in place.

• Question received: What’s happening with the Cameron Motel sign? Per the last annual meeting, the Cameron apartments will be saving it as a historic sign, although unclear on where it will be positioned.

Park Meeting Recap

• The first community meeting for the new park between Iliff & Warren at Bellaire was on 9/15.

  • If you missed it and would like more information, there will be a booth at the farmer’s market from 9am-1pm on 9/24.

• An initial survey requesting interest on uses of the park went out recently, and will be open until 10/15. Everyone should fill out the survey. There have been 206 replies so far.

• Looking for a park name! Laura Morales in charge of creating the name. She is taking requests at laura.morales@denvergov.org

  • One suggestion: “Groundcovers Park” to commemorate the former business at that location, a plant nursery

• Next meeting will be held in November and a 3^rd meeting in January, stay tuned if you’d like to be a part of the process. Updates always available at bit.ly/UhillsPark

• The park will be constructed in 2024, odds of having a dog park are slim, no plans to add additional parking, just street parking.

Near Southeast Neighborhood Planning Initiative

• Draft review is available at www.DenverGov.org/NearSoutheastPlan.

  • They want feedback. 4 surveys can be found on the site listed above, or at https://www.uhnc.org/call-to-action . Our community is a part of the plan; we were not originally a part of it, but we are in it. Thus, we should participate. Please take the surveys.

Other Points Discussed

• No more storage facilities or drive throughs allowed within a quarter mile of major transit stations (such as the Evans light rail station).

• Area around the light rail station is zoned for 20 stories

• The city is awarding $2M in various mini-grants and was asking for ideas in where to spend it, so Liz submitted a request for traffic calming mural funds. Have gotten some positive response from the Comcast building and Cameron Apartments, who are interested in helping.

• Question: Has the city provided any issues regarding the homeless issues re: Colo blvd & Evans?

  • When UHNC is cc’d on emails of this nature, the consistent response is always to report that to 311. The more calls the more attention the situation will receive

  • Several community members have requested, via 311, that the car wash at 4105 E Warren be considered a blighted property, which ultimately means “serves more harm than good to the community”. Please consider calling to support the cause.

  • Also discussed the property at Evans and I-25 that was a La Quinta. We will keep our eye on it. There has been talk of building either a 5-story or 9-story apartment building there. The permit was pushed through prior to the affordable housing requirement was instated. Completion date 2026.

Call to action: Jenny & Liz have enjoyed serving our board for 2 terms as co-president, and their appointment is ending. We need to find successor(s) for the job. They will be here to support the transition, but it is time for a new person to step into the role. Is it you?

• Estimated 3 hours of action per week that includes reading and responding to emails, updating social media and the UNHC website, preparing agendas, running our board meeting, and staying up to date on our beautiful ever-changing neighborhood.

Next meeting scheduled for Oct 18th, 6pm via Zoom.