Men At Work, Men At Lunch Construction Site A Huge Draw For Guys

Wonderful museums. A modern library where the world’s leaders will meet next month. Beautiful parks.

To this list of attractions fighting for the attention of Denver’s lunchtime crowds, a new item now can be added: a big hole in the ground.

The Denver Pavilions retail project has become such a popular attraction, in fact, that the Hensel Phelps Construction Co. put up two sets of bleachers. And sure enough, seats are hard to come by.

“It’s mostly guys sitting there and wishing they were running construction equipment,” said Joe McDonald, project supervisor.

It does seem to be mostly guys. Some are in suits and ties. Others are in T-shirts and shorts. But they all seem to be thinking the same thing: Noisy trucks. Big hole in ground. Mounds of dirt. Coooollllll.

“There’s a lot to see,” Vernon Hall, a retired cook, said this week.

Hall had taken a look at a fact board posted at the site. One thing that caught his eye: Enough dirt and other material have been removed to cover the field at Mile High Stadium to a depth of 84 feet.

The two-block-long construction site is right in the heart of downtown Denver, on the pedestrian mall. It is just a short walk from the federal court where Timothy McVeigh is on trial in the Oklahoma bombing, and not far from the library where President Clinton will convene a summit in June.

Currently, workers are laboring on the underground parking (fact board: 807 parking spaces). Huge cranes, pickup trucks, backhoes and other equipment ride around in a crater so deep the workers are mere specks.

More than 400,000 square feet of shops and restaurants are scheduled to open in November 1998 atop the parking area. The total cost will approach $100 million.

The Seinfeld-like process of turning nothing into something seems to be part of the attraction.

John Juliano, a bit sheepishly referring to himself only as an employee of “a local store,” said he enjoys watching the trucks do their stuff.

“It’s noisy and dirty, but somewhere down there is a plan they’re all following,” he said. “That’s what gets me. All these people and huge machines are working together. But when you look at it, it just seems like they’re wheeling around and having fun.”