Lowry

Lowry is the old Lowry Air Force Base, turned into a planned neighborhood on Denver's east edge. The city's name for it is Lowry Field. It runs from 11th Avenue south to Alameda Avenue, with Quebec Street on the west side. Keep going east and you're in Aurora, which holds about 11 percent of the redeveloped base.

From sanatorium to air base to neighborhood

Before the planes, this ground held the Agnes C. Phipps Memorial Sanatorium, a tuberculosis hospital that opened in 1904. Denver bought it after a 1935 bond vote, and a branch of the Air Corps Technical School opened here in 1937. The field took the name of Francis Lowry, a Colorado pilot killed in World War I. More than 1.1 million people trained at Lowry. Eisenhower used it as his Summer White House in the early 1950s, and the Air Force Academy started out here from 1955 to 1958.

The base closed in September 1994. The Lowry Redevelopment Authority took over the land, the runways came out, and new streets went in. About 30 base buildings were kept, so many of the landmarks are military buildings with new jobs.

The houses and how the streets look

Everything here dates from the late 1990s on, so skip Lowry if you want a 1920s bungalow. There are nearly 3,000 homes, a mix of single-family houses, duplexes, condos and apartments. Some of the most unusual sit in converted base buildings: the old steam plant, stacks still standing, is now 14 condos. Newer buildings borrow from the hangars with blonde brick and barrel roofs, and the Air Force star-and-circle shows up in sidewalks, fences and metalwork.

Design review, sub-associations and private streets

The Lowry Community Master Association reviews any permanent change to the outside of a member's house: paint, roofs, patios, fences, landscaping. Decisions usually come within two weeks but can take 30 days, and approved work has to be finished within a year. Some pockets also have their own sub-association, which signs off first. Streets with blue street signs are private and handled through the association instead of the city. Expect association dues on top of the mortgage, possibly two sets, and ask for the design guidelines before you plan a fence or a new paint color.

Hangars, the Great Lawn and about 800 acres of green

A 1997 plan set aside roughly 800 acres for parks and open space, and about 20 green spaces sit inside the neighborhood. The Great Lawn, a 50-acre park, opened in 2009. Westerly Creek was moved into a new channel with trails starting in 2010. Part of the public CommonGround Golf Course reaches into the neighborhood.

Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum fills the old Hangar 1 with more than 60 aircraft.

Hangar 2 and the Town Center

Hangar 2 went up in 1939 and is now where most people go to eat. Officers Club took a corner of it in 2018, after two earlier restaurants there didn't last, and serves American comfort food and cocktails. Café Mercato, in the same cluster, serves Southern Italian dishes. Lowry Town Center, about half a mile away off Quebec on 2nd Avenue, has Baekga, a Korean spot serving galbi, kimbap and banchan since spring 2024.

Getting around

Quebec Street is the main north-south road. RTD's Route 73 runs along it from Central Park Station on the A Line south to Belleview Station on the E, R and T Lines, so it's the bus to know if you want to reach the trains.