1000 S Federal Blvd
The Asia Center, the strip retail plaza at the southeast corner of Federal Blvd and W Tennessee Ave in Athmar Park, remains at the center of a proposed redevelopment that has now gone through several rounds of design changes and public scrutiny.
The property previously sold in January 2023 for $5,750,000 to Asia Center Development LLC. Preliminary plans filed with the City of Denver called for the existing retail center to be demolished and replaced with a 4-story mixed-use building with ground-floor commercial space, residential units above, and parking located below grade on the 1.10-acre site.
Some current tenants include Tony Pho, Ba Le Sandwich, Golden Pho & Grill, Kim Son Jewelers, Gio Cha Cali, Millennium Wireless, Smokes & Vapes, United Insurance, Little Saigon, and Hong Kong BBQ.
Early project materials showed a redevelopment concept with 99 apartments, with 33 units on floors 2-4 above the ground-floor retail. The building footprint was listed at approximately 33,225 square feet on a 48,020-square-foot parcel, with vehicle access to below-grade parking through a 10% ramp.
The ground floor was planned with roughly 10-11 retail units. Ideally, the existing Asia Center tenants would be able to return to the new retail spaces after construction. However, that is not always possible due to the length of construction, the cost of newly built commercial space, and the disruption caused by redevelopment. Several existing tenants were also not notified of the proposed redevelopment before the plans became public.
Since then, the project has become more complicated.
After the first concept plan surfaced, the proposal received fierce community pushback, particularly around the design. Many community members criticized the original concept for appearing generic and failing to reflect the cultural identity of the Federal Boulevard corridor and the businesses currently operating at the Asia Center.
Roughly three days later, the development team submitted updated design options for the site. Those revised materials showed a more culturally inspired approach, including East Asian-influenced rooflines, more defined façade detailing, and multiple architectural variations. The revised designs appeared to be an attempt to respond to community concerns and better reflect the identity of the surrounding corridor.
However, one notable detail is the timeline of the drawings. The original concept plan was created in September 2024, while the updated, more culturally inspired design package was created in June 2025. That suggests the ownership and design team had been studying multiple design approaches well before the plans became public and before the recent wave of community pushback.
It remains unclear why the more generic design was submitted first if the culturally inspired design options were already available. One possibility is that the original concept represented a simpler or more cost-effective version of the project, while the later design package reflected an alternate approach that was already on file. We have not independently confirmed the reasoning behind the order of submittals. Ownership declined to comment when reached by Naked Denver.
Despite the design changes, the overall program remained largely unchanged. The revised plans continued to propose a 4-story mixed-use building with 93 residential units above ground-floor commercial space. The unit mix included studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments, while the ground floor featured approximately 17,000 to 18,000 square feet of retail space, six office suites, a leasing office, a community room, and a central open-air courtyard.
The latest permitting records show another shift in the project's trajectory. Denver records list the Concept Plan as “Closed - Withdrawn,” while the separate Project Master record remains “In Progress.” This suggests the Asia Center redevelopment has not been canceled outright but has instead returned to the planning stage, with the current concept abandoned and any future redevelopment likely requiring a new or revised proposal.
Zoning for the site is E-MX-3, which generally caps building heights at three stories unless a project qualifies for height incentives. Because the proposal has been shown as four stories, the project would likely need to use incentives, potentially through Denver’s affordable housing requirements or related zoning provisions.
The site also sits along the planned Federal Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit corridor. A station is programmed directly in front of the property as part of the 18-mile side-running BRT line planned from Dartmouth in Englewood to approximately 120th Avenue in Westminster. That transit investment is expected to continue drawing redevelopment interest along Federal over time.
For now, all drawings and design details should be considered preliminary. With the concept plan withdrawn but the project master still active, we anticipate the ownership team may submit a new or substantially revised concept plan in the future.