It is an exciting site plan. 

The landscaping will include 18 trees to be planted in the building setbacks along N. Weber Street and E. Madison Street. 

There will be a garden area and a rain garden, along with a 2^nd level terrace where elderly residents can sit out in good weather.  

The front entrance will have a “porte-cochere” where people arriving and leaving the building can get out of their motor vehicles under cover from inclement weather.  

We are talking about the site plan for a 50-unit senior citizen apartments project, all in one building, planned to be built by Silver Key Senior Services on a now vacant lot at 2126 N. Weber Street in the Old North End neighborhood. 

The plan for the senior apartments has been filed with the city planning department and the planning commission for future adoption. No construction date has been set. 

There will be 47 one-bedroom units and only three two-bedroom units. The one-bedroom units will be ideal for an elderly individual or an elderly couple. All the residents will be low income (have an income that is 0-60% of the Area Median Income (AMI). 

Other amenities include two parking spaces for electric vehicles (EV-ready), one bicycle parking space for every 3 units (17 bike spaces total), and all exterior lighting focused downward to avoid spilling over onto adjoining properties. 

An interesting feature of this senior citizen apartment project is that the entrance (with the porte-cochere) is not on the east side of the building on N. Weber Street. 

It is located instead on the west side of the building and accessed from a 20-foot-wide alley running between E. Madison Street and E. Jefferson Street. 

One way to get to the building entrance will be to drive up N. Weber Street, turn left into E. Madison Street, drive one half-block, turn left into the alley (between E. Madison Street and E. Jefferson Street), drive one-half block down the alley, and then turn into the building entrance. 

Does that sound complicated? It is. But it creates an entrance to the building that is very quiet and widely separated from the traffic noise on N. Weber Street, which is an arterial street. 

The western boundary of the Silver Key senior retirement project is the eastern boundary of the Old North End National Register Historic District. In fact, the historic district boundary line runs down the center line of the alley between E. Madison Street and E. Jefferson Street. 

That means that, across the alley from the entrance to the Silver Key project, are the backyards of several Victorian-era homes on N. Nevada Avenue that are in the Old North End National Register Historic District. 

Putting the major entrance to the Silver Key senior apartments on the west side of the building will impact the eastern face of the building along N. Weber Street.  

It will be a continuous building wall filled with windows and only an emergency exit door or two located on the lowest level. Keep in mind, however, that a row of trees will be planted along N. Weber Street, and the trees will help to break up the monotony of the “continuous building wall.” 

Some concerns have been expressed by surrounding neighborhoods about the plans provided so far for the Silver Key senior apartments project. 

Officials said the new building will be three stories high with a flat roof and no variation. Building height is a concern, as the tallest neighborhood buildings surrounding the Silver Key site are at most only 2 1/2 stories high. 

At three stories high, the senior apartments will tower over the other buildings in the neighborhood. 

Officials also said that building surface materials to be used on the walls and the roof of the new building will be plain rather than historical in appearance. No effort will be made to make the senior apartment building compatible historically and complement the homes south and west of the project, many of which date to the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. 

This issue is of particular concern because all of the homes to the west of the project are in the Old North End National Register Historic District and are considered historically significant. 

There is also the problem of precedent. If these Silver Key senior apartments are not compatible with the surrounding historic homes to the west, that could affect the look of future redevelopment of properties in the neighborhood. 

This project, as currently designed, will put a great deal of new automobile and truck traffic on the alley between E. Madison Street and E. Jefferson Street. Some attention should be paid to the necessity and costs of widening the alley and perhaps repaving it. 

Silver Key has a strong record of providing needed and useful services to the senior citizens of the Pikes Peak Region. Successful completion of this senior citizen apartments project will contribute to that record. 

Bob Loevy is a retired professor of political science at Colorado College. He previously served on the Colorado Springs city Planning Commission.