Exterior Restoration of Sage Building Complete

(as seen at www.colorado.construction.com)

When developer Evan Makovsky, of Shames-Makovsky Realty Co., started the renovation and restoration of Denver’s historic Sage Building, also known as the Fontius Building, he and the design team set a goal to complete the exterior renovation before the Democratic National Convention.

“With the tenacity of our project manager, Barry Gilbert, we met our goal,” said Makovsky.

To commemorate the completion of the exterior restoration and renovation, flags and bunting—reminiscent of the building’s original 1922 grand opening—now adorn the newly restored terra cotta facade along the 16th Street Mall. The reintroduction of this building back to the public realm has taken the commitment of Makovsky and the design team led by Denver architectural firm klipp, Milender White Construction Co. of Golden and the assistance of the city and county of Denver and the Downtown Denver Partnership.

The $13-million restoration project was financed in part by Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and First Bank. Before the restoration, the dilapidated building on the 16th Street Mall at Welton Street with windows that dominated the facade and the east side of the building had been boarded up for decades.

Its delicate terra cotta, now restored to its original white with gentle red and blue accents, had been blackened after years of absorbing carbon monoxide from downtown traffic. “It’s an exciting project to work on because it had been Denver’s biggest eyesore,” said Todd Piccone, project manager of the restoration for Milender White Construction Co. “It is rewarding to bring it back to its original beauty.”

Widely known as the “Fontius Building” for its former tenant, this once-neglected keystone building is viewed as a doorway to the redevelopment of the entire block and the 16th Street Mall, according to Makovsky.

“Its restoration has set precedence for innovative city decision-making processes and solutions in restoration and adaptive re-use and, in the process, has captured the interest and imagination of the business community and general public,” he added.The architects at klipp worked from the building’s original architectural drawings for the restoration of building’s exterior detailing, including restoration of the glazed terra cotta elements and reconstruction of the base of the building in terra cotta by local artist Barry Rose.

“It’s an arcane, lost art,” said Rose, who is one of only a handful of artisans in the country who still works terra cotta by hand. “It is gratifying to be part of preserving a piece of Denver’s history.”

In a precedence-setting solution that reconciled the competing interests of historic preservation and sustainability, the building’s original windows were replaced with energy-efficient, custom-designed windows that replicated the original design, including the reuse of the original window hardware by Grabill Inc. of Almont, Mich.

“We had drawings and the original hardware to work with, so we didn’t have to entirely reinvent the wheel,” said Greg Grabill. “At the same time, we had to create a modern way of doing things.”The building’s renovation also includes new exterior lighting, canopies, and the addition of skylights for daylighting for the primary tenant, Sage Hospitality Resources, which will occupy the second through fourth floors. American National Bank will occupy 4,500 sq ft on the ground floor on the 16th Street Mall.