After a five-year hiatus, the redevelopment of the former
Baby Doe’s Matchless Mine Restaurant site in the up-and-coming Jefferson Park has been revived.
Now called Element 47, the project will include 265 residences in four buildings, including 15 units with ground-floor commercial space and private apartments above. The project also includes a 7,832-square-foot clubhouse and 4,000 square feet of retail. Completion is expected by the beginning of 2014.
“It’s always s struggle to bring in just a small amount of retail,” says John Binder, principal of
Kephart, the architect for the project. “We think the live/work space will work.”
The original project proposed by developer A.G. Spanos Cos. was designed by a Florida architect and had higher density. But resistance from the neighborhood and a faltering economy forced Spanos to put the project, then known as Pinnacle Station, on hold.
In 2008, Spanos dusted off the project and contacted Kephart to redesign it.
“We went back to the neighborhood with less density and respect for the view corridors,” Binder says. “We were pretty well received. They liked the lower density.”
The new project has about 100 fewer units and one less floor than the original proposal. The name is a reference to the periodic element silver in deference to the history of the site’s former restaurant named for Baby Doe Tabor, who was married to wealthy silver mine owner Horace Tabor.
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