Community in Focus: Americana Condos
With this blog, we begin a new series where we focus on the communities we manage individually.
Each HOA we manage is special, so we think this series will be a great way to celebrate the diversity contained within our management portfolio. Whether it is history or height, size or sustainability, or something completely unexpected – this new series will showcase the qualities that make our HOAs so great. The first community in Focus is…Americana!
Welcome to Americana: the first HOA to join the CAP Management family of associations in 2016. While the HOA itself isn’t new, it was quite the hot item when it was constructed in 1959 – a tall, luxury living complex. Technically a mid-rise building, the 10-story tower is one of the taller buildings in its area of Denver today. Located in the Hale neighborhood at 1121 Albion Street (approximately East 11th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard), Americana joins several other associations which together create a local skyline along the Boulevard.
The Americana Condominium Association is located in a very noteworthy area of change. Many Denver residents, longtime or newly arrived, are familiar with the debates and discussions on what to do with the land located at (colloquially) “9th and Colorado.” For some time, it looked like there might be a Walmart constructed at the site of the former CU medical center. And, after community protest, there is a new plan. Either way, those buildings are quite visibly being torn down (go take a look!) and there is much change happening the next block over. Americana is also steps away from the very popular Trader Joes that opened last year, and also the Rose Medical Center.
Americana has been in the papers. When it was built, the headlines read “New Luxury Apartment Set” and “Americana Costs $1.5 million.” It was such a grand opening that the local papers even advertised in bold letters that there would be an open house. At the open house? None other than beauty queen Devona Hubka, who was Miss Colorado (and a Miss USA delegate) in 1958 and who took on the title of “Miss Americana” to advertise the Americana apartments on site during their open house. While the flashy glamour of the HOA may now be a part of its history, it does a fine job of preserving that image (see for yourself at www.1121albion.com), and thus the ‘Americana’ of the 1950s and 60s.