planning architect colorado doug harr pc

Manhattan Downtown Plan The firm’s president, Doug Harr, became exposed to city planning at a very early stage in his career. During the late 70’s the Dean of the College of Architecture and a few eager students to help the businessmen of Manhattan Kansas start a grass roots campaign to revitalize their downtown. Manhattan had been the historical center of the region but was fast loosing its’ retail to strip malls in surrounding towns. This ad hoc group came up with the solution of putting a mall at the end of their main street rather than allowing regional malls on the outskirts of town. The city then formed a public/private joint venture with Forest City Rental Properties and JCP Realty to develop the project. The originality of the plan brought national attention and has been very successful. It has brought commerce and revitalized the whole downtown, with the existing buildings removing applied storefronts and restoring the original limestone facades. The downtown is so exciting and inviting that the city is now building residential condominiums within the core.
Fort Worth Main Street Project The first firm that Doug worked for in Fort Worth had the Bass brothers as their client and was given the task of remaking the downtown core into the historic center of the community. The Basses bought up huge amounts of slum real estate and tore down everything with no historical significance and restored those that had. When they were done, downtown Fort Worth was the place to be with old money moving into upper story condominiums.


Glenwood Springs Downtown Plan For a long time Glenwood’s weakest asset has been it’s downtown. Remembering his experience in Manhattan, the firm immediately joined the Downtown Business Association in 1991 to listen to the needs and desires of the local businessmen. It was obvious to all the active members of the DBA there were three necessities to strengthening the core and regaining its’ prominence as the identity of Glenwood Springs. First, there is a need to increase the amount of retail/office space and the location is within the confluence area of the Roaring Fork River and the Colorado. Second, build a centrally located parking structure that would serve the existing need and the future need of the new business area. Third is to strengthen the tie with the north side of the Colorado River. To accomplish these goals, Mr. Harr brought several members from the DBA to restart the General Improvement District Committee. He represented the DBA & GID on Glenwood’s Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee and Chaired the GID’s Downtown Plan Steering Committee. After the Downtown Plan was accepted by the City Council, Doug, with the help of the Chamber Resort Association, started the Downtown Plan Implementation Committee. This committee passed the Downtown Development Authority and Mr. Harr served on its board for it’s first two years.		The Downtown Development Authority won the 2004 Governor's Award for Design Excellence with this building.
Glenwood Springs Pedestrian Mall The Glenwood Springs Pedestrian Mall was an exciting project as our clients were a group of five high school students. Our firm assisted, along with the Executive Director of the Chamber Resort Association, in selecting this project, taking it through public process, and building it. These amazing young students raised huge public support and carried the project through to completion despite strong opposition from the City Council. They rose half the funding for this public/private endeavor. Beside help in the very lengthy public process our firm was specifically responsible for design, construction documents and architectural construction supervision.



Red Table Plaza This development is the largest that our firm has put together. We took this project from the first kernels of an idea through programming, planning, public processing (both local and federal), covenants, design, construction documents, and building permit. The development was on 14 acres of sagebrush and wetlands that needed to be mitigated. It contained two major vehicular traffic intersections (one within and one access), roads, bike paths, open space, water features, 600 parking spaces, landscaping, and 95,000 square feet of residential, retail, restaurant, offices, bank, and grocery store.
	Archdiocesan Housing Committee, Inc. The four Archdiocesan Housing projects are a great success because of the partnership between all parties involved, The Archdiocesan Housing Committee, Inc., Brenner Harr P.C. ARCHITECTURE, the local elected officials, and Colorado First Construction. We did 60 unit projects in Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Gypsum, and Silverthorne. Important features in all projects was the creation of common spaces that promote community interaction and the townhouse design, with every apartment entered at ground level from their own yard, half facing out to the street and next door opening to a large interior common area.
Please look in Profile, Design Philosophy and Projects Step by Step for more detail about how our firm works.