Marcia Mueller wants to build a gateway to her neighborhood and downtown Denver.
“My intent has always been to knit this intersection together,” Mueller said.
Her plan is to build a 300-square-foot “jewel box” retail building on the corner of Umatilla and 29th Avenue in LoHi, where four streets meet in one of Denver’s more complex intersections.
“That’s going to be like an amazing little glass box,” Mueller said. “And as you drive up 15th Street you’ll be able to see people having a cup of coffee or sitting at a bar. You’ll see it, because it’s going to be like this little jewel box, illuminated.”
Behind the small structure would be a patio and, behind that, a four-story, 35-unit apartment building, with more retail space on the ground floor. She submitted plans to the city for the project last month. Her architect, Ted Schultz, designed the Little Man Ice Cream shop a few blocks away.
The career commercial real estate broker moved onto the corner in 1984. Speaking with a BusinessDen reporter on a sunny October morning, Mueller pointed to buildings on the intersection one by one, talking about the history of each and reminiscing about fond memories with friends.
“There was a guy named Joe DeRose in this building (on 15th) and he had the famous coffee shop that was called Muddy’s. Muddy’s was infamous,” she said. “It was pretty bohemian-style coffee, but it was one of the first (in Denver) that did cappuccinos, lattes.”
Now in her early 70s, she lives in a single-family home that she’ll have to knock down to build her apartment building. Her neighbor’s house will have to come down, too — they’re on board with the project, she said — as will the office building on the corner of 29th and Umatilla that Mueller and her husband John own. He has a photography studio there.
The entire development site is 14,000 square feet, or a third of an acre.
It’s early in the process — Mueller met with the city for the first time last week — but she hopes to be building by 2027. She is open to having another developer join her on the project.
“I have the capacity to do this and take this as far as I need … It’s going to be such a large deal, we don’t have the funds to complete it,” she said.
“The meeting went really well with the city … we were excited that the general concept is acceptable, (and) they need to have some more detail for things like door openings right by the pavilion and more clarity on certain things inside the garage,” she said.
Mueller’s “garage” will be unlike anything the city has seen, she said. That’s because she’s looking to have it be completely automated using technology from Volley Automation, a San Francisco company that uses robotic platforms to move and park cars. The tech is self-learning, remembering the driving habits of residents to position cars strategically to allow for quicker pickups. The system will enable Mueller to cram 48 parking spaces into the building, more than the 35 that is required by code.
Volley’s website said its technology is in use in three buildings in California.
Mueller hopes her building will coincide with improvements to the five-way intersection it sits on. The complicated arrangement creates headaches for some, and gets congested with rush-hour traffic as commuters take 15th Street to and from downtown.
Mueller said she was told at her meeting last week that work could begin in 2026.
Mueller hails originally from Grand Junction, studied business at the University of Colorado Boulder and said she has lived through “seven recessions.” Her mother was also a commercial real estate broker, a rarity back in those days.
She said she had her “meet cute” moment — a Hollywood term for seeing your soulmate for the first time — at the LoHi intersection, locking eyes with her future husband while crossing over Boulder Street in the late 1980s. At the time, she owned the Union Block apartments, the entire building occupied by female tenants exclusively. The two later raised a daughter there.
Now, 30 years later, she wants to continue adding to the intersection she calls home.
“This is the gateway to our neighborhood … it needs to be special,” Mueller said.
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