Construction may begin on a new tallest building in Colorado Springs. City Council members voted 6-1 Monday to reject an attempt to stop the 27-story OneVela project. The vote upholds a decision from the city’s Downtown Review Board that the 312-foot tall apartment tower complies with city code and can move forward.
“We think it will be one of the most beautiful apartment buildings in the country, in one of the country’s most spectacular settings,” said Nick Benjamin of VeLa Development Partners, who worked with local firm the O’Neil Group on the proposal.
The high-rise will go up on a lot owned by the O’Neil Group. Controversy around the project goes back years. Residents opposed to the building say it will change the character of Colorado Springs — sometimes called “the biggest small town in America.”
“We currently don't look like the same old city after city with, in my opinion, unattractive modern and ‘iconic’ skyscrapers,” resident Lisa Bigelow said. “We like the current skyline of our city, and we don’t want that to forever be changed.”
“We believe that future skyscrapers will follow this approval,” said Robert Bruce, a lawyer speaking on behalf of Dianne Bridges, who filed the appeal against OneVeLa to city council. Bridges chairs the city’s Historic Neighborhoods Partnership and has advocated putting building height limits before voters.
Different architects presented designs at several heights before landing on the current plan last Summer. The tower of luxury apartments and high-end amenities was pitched as a vibrant living option for the city’s growing downtown.
Representatives from the local Downtown Partnership to the Pikes Peak Housing Network praised the project for adding 400 high-density housing units to the city core. Colorado Springs Chamber CEO Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer said buildings like this will help the city recruit young professionals, aged 18-34, who are often not yet looking to buy a home and want to live in urban environments.
“It is about work, live and play. They want a walkable neighborhood where they can go to the dry cleaners, go to the grocery store and walk to work or bike to work,” Kleymeyer said. “We need to grow up as much as we’re looking at growing out.”
The project, which is expected to open in 2028, received unanimous approval from the Downtown Review Board in February. Bridges’ appeal of that decision directly to city council marks only the second such appeal since the 2009 form-based code that set current building restrictions.
Under that 2009 code, nearly the entire city has height limits in place. The only area without a limit is less than a half-square mile of the core downtown.
“I think it could become more and more like Denver. I am talking strictly about building heights downtown, and I don't think that is what citizens want,” said council member Dave Donelson, the lone vote against the project.
“The issue isn't that this one building will block Pike's Peak,” he said. “It's the impact it has on the skyline and the fact that it is opening the gate.”
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