Hilltop's Quietest Project Just Beat Its Loudest One to Groundbreaking

"We all in the neighborhood agree that Colorado Boulevard is old, a mess, needs to be fixed, needs to be changed," Michael Atkins, vice president of the Hilltop Neighborhood Association, told the Denver Gazette back in April. "I think the question just becomes, 'What about it needs to change?'"

That question has now been open for three years. Meanwhile, half a mile east, a ten-story building that sat dark since 2018 has cranes on it.

Colorado Boulevard is the argument every Hilltop resident has had at a dinner party, a dog park, or a Nextdoor thread since 2023. The old VA hospital at 1055 Clermont is the thing nobody was debating that just started moving anyway. If you've been assuming the loud project is the one closest to changing your daily commute and the quiet one is still years out, the timeline says the opposite.

The Meeting That Filled an Auditorium

In May, CDOT held its second public open house on the Colorado Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit proposal at the Clayton Early Learning Center. About 300 people showed up. Some wore homemade signs. Wayne Graham, a Hilltop resident and self-described transit enthusiast, showed up with "No BRT" pinned to his shirt, telling Denverite he doubted the project would actually pull people out of their cars: "I would not spend $300 million to do it."

The plan itself would run dedicated bus lanes along Colorado Boulevard from I-70 down to the Southmoor Station near Hampden, cutting the corridor's roughly 50 stops down to 20 and speeding bus trips by an estimated 20 to 30 percent, according to reporting in Westword. It would also convert one general traffic lane in each direction to transit only, the same design choice that's already reshaping East Colfax a few miles north.

None of that is close to happening. Per CDOT's own project page, the corridor is still in alternatives analysis, a phase that runs through this year. A preferred alternative won't be chosen until 2027. Design won't hit 30 percent until 2028. Construction, per Gazette reporting, isn't expected before 2030. The Hilltop Neighborhood Association has since taken a formal position opposing the plan in its current form, but the timeline means residents will be having this same argument for at least three more years before a shovel touches Colorado Boulevard.

What's Actually Under Way a Few Blocks East

While that debate cycles through open houses, the former VA hospital building just east of Colorado Boulevard, in the Hale neighborhood bordering Hilltop, broke ground in late April. GM Development bought the 8.22-acre campus at auction in 2022 for $41.3 million after the VA relocated its operations to Aurora in 2018, leaving the building vacant for years. In May, Walker & Dunlop announced it had arranged $130 million in HUD financing to convert the historic ten-story tower into 493 apartments, calling it the largest 221(d)(4) construction loan in the firm's history.

"The ten-story landmark has watched over Denver for generations, and we are proud to bring street-level activation back to a block that has been dark for too long," GM's Ben Gearhart said, according to BusinessDen.

The plan calls for more than 50,000 square feet of retail and medical office space at the base of the building, including a public atrium opening onto East 9th Avenue, plus new pedestrian pathways connecting 9th, 11th, Bellaire and Clermont. About 8 percent of the units will be income-restricted at 60 percent of area median income. The site sits next to the growing 9+CO district and directly by Rose Medical Center, which reportedly once looked at buying the old hospital itself before GM won it at auction.

No public meeting drew 300 people for this one. There wasn't a design fight over which lane goes where. A building that had been empty long enough to accumulate break-ins is now, quietly, becoming apartments and storefronts, and it will likely be finished and leased before Colorado Boulevard's preferred alternative is even chosen.

The Third Project Nobody's Arguing About Either

There's a smaller version of the same pattern happening under the streets themselves. Denver Water has been running its Lead Reduction Program through Hilltop this year, replacing old customer-owned lead service lines with copper at no direct cost to homeowners. Per the neighborhood association's July newsletter, construction has been targeting the stretch between Colorado Boulevard and North Dahlia Street, and 6th to 1st Avenues. Residents identified for replacement get a packet, sign a consent form, and lose water for four to eight hours while crews swap the line, with sidewalk and curb restoration following one to three weeks later.

It's not a project anyone's putting a sign on their lawn about. It's also, unlike the boulevard debate, something actually happening on actual blocks this year.

The Fixtures That Don't Move Either Way

None of this changes what's already anchoring the neighborhood day to day. Cranmer Park still has its sundial and its view of the Front Range, the same spot George Cranmer, Denver's parks manager, built his own home near because he wanted to be close to it. Kids still climb it for the higher vantage point. Pete's Fruits and Vegetables, run by Pete Moutzouris for more than 40 years, is still stocking Greek specialties and imported feta a short walk from the park. Park Burger, Kazumi Sushi, Call Your Mother Deli and High Point Creamery are still the four names locals default to when someone asks where to eat, according to 5280's neighborhood rundown.

That stability is worth noting precisely because it sits next to two infrastructure stories moving at completely different speeds. The businesses on the ground don't wait for CDOT's alternatives analysis or GM Development's leasing timeline. They're open now, the same as they were before either project existed on paper.

What This Actually Tells You About the Neighborhood

The instinct is to read volume as urgency. Three years of public meetings, formal opposition letters and 300-person crowds feels like it should mean something is imminent. It doesn't, not on Colorado Boulevard. The instinct also tends to underweight the quiet financing announcement and the HUD loan closing, the kind of story that runs in a trade publication instead of a public meeting. That's the one already reshaping a full block near 9th and Clermont.

If you're trying to read Hilltop's next few years accurately, the volume of the argument and the pace of the change aren't the same measurement. The VA site will likely have leased apartments and open retail before Colorado Boulevard has a chosen design. The lead line work will be finished on most of the targeted blocks before either bigger project resolves. Cranmer Park's sundial isn't going anywhere regardless.

If you're watching either project and want to talk through what it might mean for a specific block or a specific commute, I'm happy to walk through what I'm seeing on the ground. Reach out to Kelly Mauro anytime.