After serving home to a string of retail establishments and restaurants over the years, a large swath of property next to the Cherry Creek Shopping Center is slotted for a makeover.

Dubbed Cherry Creek West, the area will turn what is now mostly a 13-acre parking lot into a “new $1 billion community,” reports the Denver Business Journal. Current plans for development include space for offices, retail establishments, and residential units, all housed in seven buildings, each no higher than 12 stories. There will also be open outdoor spaces, a market square and other “gathering opportunities,” including a 20,000-square-foot amphitheater.

The property in question spans University to Clayton Street and First Avenue to the Cherry Creek waterway. “The project will abut against the Nordstrom side of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center and also serve as a gateway to Cherry Creek itself,” reports the Journal. It currently houses Elway’s, the Boulder Running Company and mostly vacant buildings.

The project will be undertaken by East West Partners, which developed Denver’s Riverfront Park and the Union Station neighborhood. Stilll under review, it may take two years “before any shovels go into the ground,” notes the Journal.

The property is owned by the Buell Foundation. East West Partners will lease the ground, partnering with Taubman Realty Group in development.

“A really key principle is connection,” Amy Cara, managing principal for East West Partners, told the Journal. “We intend very much to connect it and weave it into what exists for Cherry Creek. We don’t want separateness or to be an exception, we want to be additive. But we do want to connect the rest of Cherry Creek to the creek itself and make a meaningful public space.”

Rendering courtesy of Business Den