KARLE SEYDEL PAPERS

Karle Stephen Seydel was born in Denver, Colorado, on December 23, 1950. He graduated from Denver's East High School and studied city planning and architecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder, graduating in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design. While attending the University, Seydel won the President’s Honorarium for his publication Interdisciplinary Community Design and a National Endowment for the Arts Seed Grant in 1972. Seydel acted as the Project Coordinator for the University of Colorado’s World Design Institute from 1973 to 1974, working on the Boulder County Planning Project in an effort to coordinate regional planning efforts throughout the county.

In 1973, Seydel and three college associates formed Synersign, a consulting firm providing planning and design services to public agencies, most notably the Town of Nederland. The firm dissolved in 1975 when Seydel won the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Fisher Traveling Scholarship and spent a year in Canada studying urban design. Upon his return to Boulder in 1976, he formed Karle Seydel Associates (also called “Karle Seydel & Associates”), a consulting firm offering planning, community development, and landscape architectural services. Seydel continued planning and community development consultant work for the Town of Nederland as well as the City and County of Boulder. Karle Seydel Associates ceased operations in 1984.

From 1984 to 1985, Seydel was a project manager at the Denver Partnership, assisting in the creation of the 1986 publication Downtown Area Plan: A Plan for the Future of Downtown. Beginning in 1985, Seydel worked as a contract urban and regional planning consultant for Design Studios West, Inc. in Denver. There, he revised zoning regulations for the town of Green River, Wyoming; formulated a downtown development strategy for Longmont, Colorado; worked on a river corridor redevelopment plan for Estes Park, Colorado; and developed components of the Larkspur Comprehensive Plan. He began pursuing a Master's degree in Planning and Community Development at the University of Colorado, Denver, in 1986.

In 1989, Seydel began attending meetings of the Larimer Square North Merchants Association (renamed the “North Larimer Business District” in 1990 and later “Ballpark Neighborhood Association” in 1994), an incorporated nonprofit organization initially composed of Larimer Street merchants who sought to resolve issues of crime and blight inhibiting business growth and development on Larimer Street between 20th and 23rd Street. Seydel’s interest in the area north of Denver’s Lower Downtown (“LoDo”) neighborhood grew. In 1989, he coined the nickname “NoDo” (“north of LoDo”) for the area that stretched east from the Platte River to Lawrence Street and extended north from 19th Street to 38th Street. During a period of unemployment in 1990, Seydel laid plans to publish a magazine called North Downtown InSite to promote the NoDo area.

In August 1990, Denver-area voters passed a sales tax increase to finance construction of a new baseball stadium in the likely event that Denver was awarded a Major League Baseball franchise. Envisioning it as a way to revitalize Denver’s downtown area, Seydel proposed locating the baseball stadium within Denver’s NoDo and LoDo neighborhoods. His proposal for a 76-acre site at 20th and Blake Streets was met with strong resistance from the Denver Metropolitan Major League Baseball Stadium District, the Lower Downtown Historic District, and Denver City Council. All three groups preferred a site owned by Philip Anschutz that was located east of Interstate 25 and west of Speer Boulevard. Construction of the Pepsi Center began on the site in 1997.

In response to the opposition he faced, in 1990 Seydel formed the North Downtown Alliance of Businesses and Residents for Baseball in Our Backyard. The Alliance was composed of members from three registered neighborhood organizations including the North Larimer Business District, Upper Larimer Neighborhood Association, and the Upper Downtown Development Organization.

Seydel undertook research on urban stadiums and created drawings of an old-fashioned ballpark, which would later serve as the design concept for Coors Field. Seydel began attending Metropolitan Major League Baseball Stadium District meetings regularly and became a vocal advocate for locating the ballpark within the LoDo and NoDo neighborhoods based on factors of cost, access, and economic impact. Seydel’s convictions were further justified by a report released in December 1990 by the Urban Land Institute. The 20th and Blake Street area Seydel promoted was chosen by the Denver Metropolitan Major League Baseball Stadium District as the official site of Coors Field in March 1991.

Seydel remained active in Denver’s ballpark planning process, becoming a member of the Coors Field Design Advisory Committee and chairman of the Downtown Ballpark Development Committee’s Ballpark Economic Development Subcommittee. Coors Field opened on Seydel’s suggested site on April 26, 1995.

Seydel formed partnerships with both public and private institutions in his quest to create an attractive and prosperous historical area surrounding the ballpark. In 1991, Seydel became a team member for the Northeast Downtown Plan, which was later adopted by the City of Denver in October 1995. While establishing his one-man consulting firm, Urban Options, Seydel was hired as the executive director of the North Larimer Business District in 1993. In this role, Seydel worked to ensure that viaducts, transit routes, sidewalk landscaping, and electric substations in the area reflected his vision for the neighborhood. He reviewed local Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) and zoning appeals, oversaw the Larimer Maintenance District, and authored position statements on behalf of the organization’s members.

When the Denver Mayor’s Office of Economic Development designated an area of Larimer Street (between 20th Street and Park Avenue West) as a Neighborhood Business Revitalization District in 1993, Seydel became Executive Director of the Larimer Neighborhood Business Revitalization program. On behalf of the North Larimer Business District/Ballpark Neighborhood Association, he oversaw a business support office that encouraged the use of low-interest loans for business and building renovation projects until 1998.

In May 1996, Seydel was contracted by the Ballpark Neighborhood Association to serve as project director for the Ballpark Historic District Design Guidelines and Preservation Strategy Project. The project was created after the Association was unsuccessful in securing historic district designation for an area that spanned from 20th Street west to 26th Street and from Lawrence Street north to Blake Street. Denver City Council denied the designation due to the lack of established design guidelines for the area.

The Ballpark Historic District Design Guidelines and Preservation Strategy Project sought to lay the groundwork necessary for Denver’s ballpark neighborhood to earn historic district designation—a status that was crucial to have in order to preserve the many historic industrial buildings in the area adjacent to Coors Field. All exterior alterations to structures (including repair, rehabilitations, additions, total or partial demolitions, and new construction) in designated historic districts were required to be reviewed by the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission.

The Colorado Historical Fund and the Ballpark Neighborhood Association funded the first phase of the Ballpark Historic District Design Guidelines and Preservation Strategy Project. In addition, Historic Denver, Inc. provided support in the form of a Ballpark Taskforce while the Urban Design Forum dedicated an organizing committee to the project. The second phase of the Ballpark Historic District Design Guidelines and Preservation Strategy Project faced funding problems in September 1997 when it was announced that State Historical Fund and Denver Foundation grants had not been secured. This caused Seydel to aggressively seek private donations to continue his work.

Seydel filed suit against the North Larimer Merchant’s Association, Inc. (known then as the “Ballpark Neighborhood Association”) in 1998 for wages he claimed to be owed for work on the Ballpark Historic District Design Guidelines and Preservation Strategy Project. Seydel’s contract was terminated in September 1998, and he dismissed his claims against the North Larimer Merchant’s Association, Inc. in December 1999. Denver City Council designated the Ballpark Neighborhood a historic district in April 2002.

In May 1998, Seydel’s consulting firm, Urban Options, was contracted by Colfax on the Hill, Inc. to create the 1998 Colfax Business Revitalization Action Plan and the Colfax Segment Revitalization Plan in 1999. Seydel also worked on three historic building renovation projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s. These included the Burlington Hotel (2201 Larimer Street) project from 1996-1998, Airedale Building (1215-1219 20th Street) project from 1997-2001, and the Reyes Building (2109-2111 Larimer Street) project from 1997-2004.

Seydel was a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Colorado Chapter of the American Planning Association’s Legislative Committee, Architects and Planners of Boulder, and the Urban Design Forum.

Karle Seydel passed away unexpectedly on May 12, 2010.