HVAC in Five Points: Two Centuries on One Block

HVAC in Five Points is the widest split in Denver. The neighborhood was founded in the 1860s and named for the five-way intersection of Washington Street, 27th Street, 26th Avenue and Welton Street. The housing runs by era: 1870s-90s Victorian rowhomes, cottages and Denver Squares, especially in the Curtis Park blocks that sit inside Five Points, early-20th-century brick bungalows, then a sharp break to modern townhomes, loft conversions and new apartment buildings along Welton Street, the light-rail corridor and the RiNo edge. Curtis Park and RiNo are not separate official neighborhoods: Curtis Park is a portion of Five Points, and the RiNo edge overlaps it. The Five Points Historic Cultural District was designated in 2002, and the Curtis Park A and B historic districts were designated in 1995, so landmark design review applies to exterior HVAC work in those districts. The 19th-century brick homes run retrofitted gas furnaces with compromised ducts and no cooling on upper floors, sitting a block from new-build townhomes and lofts with modern forced-air or heat pumps and ductless heads. The jazz-era commercial buildings on Welton Street, including the Rossonian, run commercial rooftop and packaged systems when converted.