Drive along East Belleview Avenue past South Ulster Street these days and you'll see chain link fence, a tower crane, and a lot that used to have a nail salon in it. That's Marina Square, or what's left of it. The shopping center that anchored this corner of the Denver Tech Center for roughly 45 years has been demolished, and Shea Properties is just over a year into rebuilding the entire 13-to-14-acre site from the ground up. (Shea's own project page puts it at 13 acres; a more recent construction filing rounds up to nearly 14. Nobody's arguing over an acre at this point.)
This isn't a repaint-and-relabel situation. It's a $200 million rebuild, and the tenant list that's emerging tells you something specific about what this corner is trying to become. Not a refreshed strip mall. A direct answer to Cherry Creek, built close enough that you won't have to drive there.
What Marina Square Actually Was
Before the fences went up, Marina Square was the kind of shopping center you used without thinking about it much. The retail directory from its last years of operation lists Zane's Italian Bistro, Poke City, Which Wich, a wine and spirits shop, Great Northern Tavern, Baker's Street Pub, a Fitness Together studio, Rebound Therapy, a nail salon, and Dependable Cleaners. That's a place for errands and a quick bite, not a destination. You went there because it was close, not because it was the plan for your Saturday.
Go back further and the corner had a different identity entirely. Peter Culshaw, the Shea Properties executive who leads the company's Colorado operations from an office building right next to the site, told BusinessDen that thirty years ago the property housed Montaldo's, a high-end women's clothing retailer, and Marina Landing, which he described as a hip restaurant in its day. Shea bought the land in 2003 for $16.8 million. Whatever it's worth now, with a $200 million redevelopment sitting on top of it, that 2003 number is not it.
Three Lots, One Bet
The project, now branded On the Square, is being built in three pieces. Lot A is a renovation of the existing office building along Belleview, which will eventually house Shea's own Colorado headquarters. Lot B is the retail component, still moving through the city's approval process. Lot C is the most visible part right now: a seven-story, 481-unit apartment building under construction on about 6.9 acres, with 654 resident parking spaces, 98 retail spaces, and 126 bicycle spaces built in, according to permitting documents reviewed by Developing MyCity.
Do the math on that parking count and you get more than 1.3 spaces per apartment unit, which tells you this is still a drive-to-most-things corner even with a light rail line nearby. The retail footprint itself is shrinking relative to what stood here before. The old center ran about 94,000 square feet. What's replacing it is closer to 32,000 to 38,000 square feet of retail, according to public leasing materials, wrapped around a lot more housing than commerce.
Culshaw was direct about the intent behind the smaller, sharper retail mix. He lives five miles west of the site and told BusinessDen he doesn't want to make the Cherry Creek drive if he doesn't have to.
"The idea is to bring Cherry Creek sizzle to the Tech Center, available for folks living and working here."
That's the sentence that explains everything else about this project. It's not trying to be a better version of the old Marina Square. It's trying to be a reason not to leave the neighborhood.
The Tenant List So Far
A handful of tenants have been confirmed publicly, and the mix leans toward brands people already choose on purpose rather than businesses you only use because they're nearby:
- Sweetgreen, which will make this its eighth metro-area location, per BusinessDen's April 2026 reporting
- Solidcore, the fitness studio chain that already has three Denver locations, including one in Cherry Creek
- Mendocino Farms, opening its fourth metro location
- First Watch, the Florida-based brunch chain that already operates in Highlands Ranch, Arvada, Aurora, Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Littleton, and two spots each in Centennial and Colorado Springs
- PNC Bank
- GolfTec, which is coming back to a corner it hasn't occupied in years
- Barcelona Wine Bar, targeting an early 2027 opening
Culshaw told BusinessDen in April 2026 that the core and shell for the retail buildings, essentially the structural guts of it, was on track for delivery in early August, with tenants opening in waves from later in 2026 into early 2027. That timeline puts this month, right now, as the point where the visible change on this corner stops being demolition and starts being buildout crews and, eventually, open signs.
A Thirty-Year Homecoming for GolfTec
The GolfTec detail is the kind of thing you'd miss unless someone told you. Culshaw signed the lease for GolfTec's very first storefront on this property back in 1995. The company has since grown to more than 250 locations worldwide. It eventually closed its Marina Square shop and moved about a mile north, where it's operated since. Now it's coming back, with a 3,300-square-foot space in the new development.
Culshaw's reaction, per BusinessDen: "I think it's kind of cool that they're coming back to where they started."
The Restaurant Still Deciding What It Wants to Be
Not every space has a finished plan yet, and the uncertainty is its own kind of useful information if you live nearby. Sean Huggard, the restaurateur behind Blue Island Oyster Bar and Seafood, Oliver's Italian, and Ash and Agave, has taken a space in On the Square but is still working out the concept. He told BusinessDen what it won't be:
"It's not going to be a steakhouse. It's clearly not going to be an Oliver's, right, because we have that right down the street. I don't think it wants to be a Blue Island."
Part of his reasoning is geographic. The site sits roughly between his two existing Blue Island locations in Cherry Creek and Lone Tree, which he called "dead center." He's also been talking through the demographics of the corner with Adam Halberg, the CEO of Barcelona Wine Bar, who's opening his own concept a few doors down and happens to be a friend. Halberg told 9News the DTC site was one Barcelona wasn't actively hunting for, but that something about the location, which he called architecturally interesting, changed his mind. The Barcelona buildout alone is expected to bring about 80 new jobs to the corridor, on top of the roughly 160 people already employed at the company's two existing Denver-area restaurants.
That's two people with real track records in this market, one still deciding and one already building, both circling the same 700 feet of frontage and trying not to step on each other.
What Changes for People Who Already Live Here
If you're in Cherry Creek Vista, this corner has probably been background noise for years. Belleview is the neighborhood's northern edge, and Marina Square was never a place you planned a trip around. That's the part actually changing. The redevelopment isn't repairing what was there. It's replacing an errand-run strip center with a set of brands people drive across town for on purpose, positioned by the developer's own admission as competition for a trip to Cherry Creek proper.
The apartment tower means more neighbors and more daytime foot traffic on a stretch that used to empty out by 7 p.m. The retail mix means a fitness studio, a fast-casual salad chain, and eventually two new restaurants where a nail salon and a dry cleaner used to be. None of this is a five-minute change. Buildouts stretch into 2027 for at least one tenant, and Lot B still has city approvals to clear. But the corner you've been driving past without looking at is, for the first time in decades, worth watching.
If you're weighing what a changing corner like this does to the value and character of a home nearby, that's the kind of texture worth having in the room before you make a decision either way. Debbie Jacobs — Selling Denver tracks these shifts as part of knowing Cherry Creek Vista block by block, not just the comps. Book an appointment to talk through what's changing at the edge of your neighborhood and what it's worth to you.
