LoDo

LoDo, short for Lower Downtown, is the old warehouse district next to downtown Denver's core. On the city's neighborhood map most of it falls inside Union Station, the official neighborhood that runs from the South Platte River southeast to Lawrence Street, between 20th Street and (mostly) 14th Street. The historic district people mean by LoDo is bordered by Cherry Creek and Speer Boulevard, 20th Street, Wewatta Street (not counting Union Station itself) and the alley between Market and Larimer Streets. Larimer Square is just across that alley, and the newer condo blocks between the tracks and the river round out the official neighborhood.

Where Denver started

Denver was founded here in November 1858, where Cherry Creek meets the South Platte, after a small amount of gold turned up. A fire in 1863 and a city ordinance that followed moved builders to brick and stone, which is the look you see on every block. The railroad arrived in 1870, wholesale warehouses filled in, and Wynkoop Street picked up the nickname Warehouse Row.

After World War II, rail traffic dropped and highways grew. Most hotels closed or became flophouses, and the area turned into Skid Row. Urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s took down roughly a fifth of the buildings. In March 1988 City Council created the Lower Downtown Historic District, which protected the 127 historic buildings still standing.

Warehouse lofts and riverside condos

Nearly everything for sale is a unit in a building. Inside the historic district that usually means a loft in an old warehouse. Edbrooke Lofts, at 1450 Wynkoop, is a good example: Frank E. Edbrooke designed it as a warehouse in 1905, and it gained another floor in 1911.

Between the tracks and the river, the land was a Burlington Northern rail yard until 1991. Riverfront Park's first buildings opened there in 2001, and it now has 1,859 homes in 14 buildings, rentals and condos mixed together. The redevelopment around the station, begun in 2002, added more apartments, a 334-unit condo complex and two grocery stores.

Ask for the association's budget, rules and meeting minutes before you make an offer, because the monthly dues and the rules on what you can change are part of what you're buying. Near the river, also ask whether the unit falls inside the Central Platte River Metropolitan District and what that adds to the tax bill.

Design review

The historic district has its own height limits and design guidelines. The Lower Downtown Design Review Commission reviews new construction, alterations, additions, signs and demolitions, and a new building goes through two stages: mass and form first, then the details. As a loft owner, you'll mostly feel this as a limit on what your building can change on the outside.

The station, the ballpark and a few standbys

Union Station opened in 1881, and the Beaux-Arts center you see now dates to 1914, after a fire took the middle section. It reopened in July 2014 with the Crawford Hotel and restaurants. Tavernetta, in the station building at 1889 16th Street, is the Frasca group's Italian restaurant, known for handmade pasta and listed in the Michelin Guide. Around the corner at 1612 17th Street, the Cruise Room is the Oxford Hotel's Art Deco martini bar, modeled on a lounge aboard the Queen Mary.

Coors Field opened in 1995 at the district's 20th Street edge. If a loft near 20th is on your list, spend an evening on that block during a home stand before you offer. Wynkoop Brewing, at 1634 18th Street, was Colorado's first brewpub when it opened in 1988. On Wazee Street, Rockmount Ranch Wear has sold pearl-snap Western shirts since 1946.

Commons Park and the trains

The Millennium Bridge carries 16th Street over the rail lines to Commons Park, 20 acres along the Platte, about 40 percent of it restored as cottonwood and willow wetland. The Cherry Creek Trail follows the creek at the district's southwest edge.

Union Station is where Denver's rail lines begin. The A Line runs to the airport, the B, G and N commuter lines and light rail start there, and the station has a 22-gate bus concourse and Amtrak's California Zephyr. The free 16th Street FreeRide covers the 1.25 miles to Civic Center down the center of 16th Street, which reopened in October 2025 after a three-year rebuild.