DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by mhays

Sounds like he's doing great for increasing supply to improve affordability and allow more to live in any neighborhood.

No, he’s not. He’s building four expensive units to replace one cheap one. I am sure a developer thinks that’s a good idea. Few other people do.

He gave you his rent number. I gave you mine. It’s not a secret, it’s just a choice. And I think you guys make the wrong one for the city. Tell me how you can build new units at the same $2400/month number - if it takes building 30 of them, not 4, I will support that. But you have to produce at comparable price points or you shouldn’t be allowed to demo at all. Go build in Aurora, demo some grass.

[mhays]

Four new living units of ANY price mean four fewer competitors driving prices up elsewhere.

The overall buyer/renter market is important. Not just one house.

Your idea results one winner and a city full of losers on a tougher overall market.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mhays

Four new living units of ANY price mean four fewer competitors driving prices up elsewhere.

The overall buyer/renter market is important. Not just one house.

Your idea results one winner and a city full of losers on a tougher overall market.

"Here's the Rub" and an important element

Neighborhood Planning

Denver's Neighborhood Planning Initiative is a long-term commitment to ensure every corner of the city can enjoy the benefits of an area plan. Since its launch in 2017, residents, neighborhood groups, and community leaders have been working alongside city planners to create a vision and plan for their areas.

What do Neighborhood and Area Plans do?

• They bring communities together to identify a vision for an area and provide recommendations on how to achieve that vision.
• They provide a level of analysis, detail, and guidance on issues affecting local areas that citywide plans cannot. They help implement citywide plans at a local level.

The Neighborhood Planning Initiative has three core values: intentional, equitable, and measurable.

Council approves Near Northwest area plan, providing a blueprint for how Northside neighborhoods will look in the future
Jan. 22, 2024 By Desiree Mathurin -- Denverite

The Northside now has a planning guide that can shape the area for the next two decades. The plan’s major focus: preservation efforts.

City Council on Monday approved the Near Northwest Area Plan, which covers Chaffee Park, Highland, Jefferson Park and Sunnyside. Created by Community Planning and Development, and based on input from residents, the plan is a blueprint for how the neighborhoods can handle growth and development in the future, something the Northside has struggled with as the area gentrifies.

I am NOT a fan of gentrification EVERYWHERE.

This is the sixth neighborhood plan CPD has completed. Neighborhood plans don’t alter policy but instead provide guidelines to what types of policies should be enacted when it comes to land-use, housing, local economy, mobility and quality of life.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by mhays

Four new living units of ANY price mean four fewer competitors driving prices up elsewhere.

The overall buyer/renter market is important. Not just one house.

Your idea results one winner and a city full of losers on a tougher overall market.

The problem with bunt's comments, as with the view SO MANY people take on this issue, is that it's a simple view that only considers the front end and isn't thought through fully on a macro scale. I'm used to the demeaning comments, that is what it is, but I'm not used to a somewhat sophisticated mind taking this simpleton approach. Blame it on the instant gratification of our society I guess.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I do much bigger construction for a living. So you're right, piddly stick built residential is not my forte.

But you are still comparing a new McMansion vs. a new four-plex. That's the wrong comparison. I don't need to be an experienced small-time developer to know that the lot I buy probably has an existing asbestos hovel sitting on it, which in today's Denver will rent for a substantial sum. And it doesn't take a lot of experience to muddle through Denver's new residential inspection process. I think I had to jiggle a ventilation pipe to make the house I am referring to in this hypothetical compliant.

Aren't you the one always preaching that there's no vacant land left in Denver? Then don't preach fake developer math assuming vacant land!

(EDIT: Not to go full RNO NIMBY... but you sound like the vampire developer everybody is afraid of. You don't even bother to compare the ROC on the rental value of whatever shack (read: affordable housing) is already on the property you buy, versus ROC on whatever you can build. Because your business model is to build and get out, even if keeping the existing makes more mathematical sense. Scrape is preordained. I get it, you're not an operator, you're a builder. But your shady developer math is exactly why y'all are hated. You're a displacement engine, even when your math is suspect.)

No, mcmansion vs fourplex is not the wrong comparison because the ONLY thing possible now is mcmansion and the ONLY thing happening is mcmansion on single lot land.

Definitely not a vampire developer nor a small time developer - a happy in-between let's say. Vampire developers don't screw around with 4 units, moms and pops do and maybe some gear heads from the construction industry who don't work on computers but are flush with cash at the end of every real estate cycle.

What I am saying is that MANY people would be interested in building a four plex (or a duplex and maybe even a triplex) if the City made it easier for them to navigate and rid our code of all the insane requirements. I could see a company offering kits to people if those people were allowed some freedom from onerous regulation. If you think residential permitting/inspection is easy you either do it for a living or you've never done it at all. It's anything but easy and predictable and is very intimidating to the average person.

Over time, many people building small quantities of homes is a good thing, not a bad thing. If you told a property owner you can make 8% instead of 5%, I'm inclined to think many would be interested in that risk/reward. I speak nothing to my own motivations, simply to what is possible or likely.

Are you in the construction biz? Thought you were an attorney?

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by laniroj

What I am saying is that MANY people would be interested in building a four plex (or a duplex and maybe even a triplex) if the City made it easier for them to navigate and rid our code of all the insane requirements. I could see a company offering kits to people if those people were allowed some freedom from onerous regulation. If you think residential permitting/inspection is easy you either do it for a living or you've never done it at all. It's anything but easy and predictable and is very intimidating to the average person.

In addition to what you describe as red tape difficulties, the other item I'd agree with you on is Colorado trying to one-up California for insanity.

Check this out

Even assuming little actually passes 'this time' how many companies considering Colorado for expansion/relocation are quickly doing a U-turn and heading in other directions. After years of Denver's 'cost of doing business' getting higher and higher - and not just because of inflation but relative to other states, this could scare off a lot potential business. Perhaps not what downtown Denver wants to hear.

[TakeFive]

Just curious?

Originally Posted by mhays

Four new living units of ANY price mean four fewer competitors driving prices up elsewhere.

The overall buyer/renter market is important. Not just one house.

Your idea results one winner and a city full of losers on a tougher overall market.

Have you ever put your own half a million $'s at risk to build multiple units? As always it's easier to tell someone else what 'they' should do; no risk in that.

In the old days - when it wasn't so much a Wall Street game but left to local developers - those that did the best often developed and held long term. Currently, San Francisco based Carmel Partners is building nice large apartment projects in Denver. CEO Ron Zeff 's dad was a long-time local Denver developer that grew his wealth by holding properties. So his son learned from one of the better success stories.

And laniroj is right; bunt is an attorney and not a developer.

[rds70]

Latest urban design submission for the 22nd and Stout project by CMK. The architect is Perkins & Will.

Three towers (26 [265 feet], 26 [265 feet], and 23 [240 feet]), 897 units, 12,200 square feet of retail:

[TakeFive]

Sometimes there are things more important than adding housing

How a Denver neighborhood came together to buy their first community-owned green space
Mar 04, 2024 By Angelika Albaladejo

DENVER — The community in Denver’s Globeville-Elyria Swansea neighborhood have long dreamed of swapping out industrial pollution for more parks and trees. Now, they’re banding together to make it happen.

A community land trust known as Tierra Colectiva is buying a plot of land, bordered by railroad tracks and a metal manufacturing plant, to convert into a community-owned green space and urban food forest. It’s a first for the neighborhood.

This is a nice story for a neighborhood which already has affordable housing.

Side Topic:

I couldn't help but notice the author's unique, interesting name.

Angelika Albaladejo joined Denver7 in January 2023 as part of the Scripps News Journalism Journey Initiative aimed at bringing print journalists into the world of TV news.

Albaladejo is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has been published by outlets including USA Today, the Guardian, Univision, CNN, the Miami Herald and Mother Jones.

----------------------------------------

Originally Posted by rds70

Latest urban design submission for the 22nd and Stout project by CMK. The architect is Perkins & Will.

Three towers (26 [265 feet], 26 [265 feet], and 23 [240 feet]), 897 units, 12,200 square feet of retail:

Very nice!

[rds70]

The latest submission for the 650 17th Street project by Harbinger Partners. The architect is JNS.

39 stories, 430 feet, 273 hotel rooms, 150 apartments (The mix has changed from 223 hotel rooms [10 stories to 14] and 320 apartments [21 stories to 17]):

[mhays]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Just curious?


Have you ever put your own half a million $'s at risk to build multiple units? As always it's easier to tell someone else what 'they' should do; no risk in that.

In the old days - when it wasn't so much a Wall Street game but left to local developers - those that did the best often developed and held long term. Currently, San Francisco based Carmel Partners is building nice large apartment projects in Denver. CEO Ron Zeff 's dad was a long-time local Denver developer that grew his wealth by holding properties. So his son learned from one of the better success stories.

And laniroj is right; bunt is an attorney and not a developer.

You really aren't a good reader. I said nothing about what anyone "should" do. I said, in so many words, the four units is more beneficial for keeping prices down than keeping one unit as is.

Further, we're allowed to discuss urban policy and ideas here. You might want to get used to that.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

In addition to what you describe as red tape difficulties, the other item I'd agree with you on is Colorado trying to one-up California for insanity.

Check this out

Even assuming little actually passes 'this time' how many companies considering Colorado for expansion/relocation are quickly doing a U-turn and heading in other directions. After years of Denver's 'cost of doing business' getting higher and higher - and not just because of inflation but relative to other states, this could scare off a lot potential business. Perhaps not what downtown Denver wants to hear.

So you're pro-smog?

[TakeFive]

Thanks for the question

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

So you're pro-smog?

and reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

The biggest concern is with ozone and the best way to attack that would be to outlaw forest fires, put up a shield to block the prevailing winds as they contribute over 50% to the ozone problem. /sarcasm font off

I'm not anti-business; I'm pro-business.

General business groups like the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, and the Economic Development Council of Colorado have hired lobbyists to oppose the proposed legislation, as did the Colorado Bankers Association. In a statement, the association’s President and CEO Jenifer Waller said the group feels the proposal will hurt the state’s economy.

Organizations representing landscapers and concrete, stone, and gravel companies are working to defeat the Senate bill, too, including GCC, a Glendale-based company that produces cement and other products for the construction industry. Adam DeVo, an attorney for GCC, said the Senate bill and another one in the legislative package aimed at companies that repeatedly violate air quality rules, are unnecessary and “excessively punitive.”

Why would you guess anyone connected to business interests apposes all these proposals?

If it were important enough why not come up with incentives instead of punishment. I'm not a fan of picking winners and losers.

But it's up to the state/legislature. If they don't want no Stinkin' blue collar companies but only white glove stuff that's their choice to make - at their peril.

Originally Posted by mhays

You really aren't a good reader. I said nothing about what anyone "should" do. I said, in so many words, the four units is more beneficial for keeping prices down than keeping one unit as is.

Further, we're allowed to discuss urban policy and ideas here. You might want to get used to that.

You said what you wanted to say; I said what I wanted to say. That's Blog Life.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

So

More importantly did 650 17th Street get their curb cut?

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

OK, so you are pro-smog. Got it.

Ozone which is the biggest problem is NOT visible.

[DenverInfill]

OK, so you are pro-smog. Got it.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

OK, so you are pro-smog. Got it.

To finish my thought (from above) LOL:

Smog is a kind of air pollution. It is a mixture of smoke from various sources and fog (water droplets suspended over the surface of the earth).

https://stevespangler.com/experiment...e%20atmosphere.

Denver's location at the foot of the Rocky Mountains makes it prone to temperature inversions in which warm air traps cooler air near the ground, preventing pollutants from rising into the atmosphere.

These inversions are especially problematic over the summer but Denver's so-called brown cloud is much improved from previous decades.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/cor...0Denver%20home.

The brown cloud peaked in the 1970s and '80s before cleaner fuel and sustainable emissions technology had been fully utilized

It's aggravated by Denver being in a Valley, no different from the Valley of the Sun.

Question: Does anybody know if 650 17th Street got their curb cut?

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by rds70

Latest urban design submission for the 22nd and Stout project by CMK. The architect is Perkins & Will.

Three towers (26 [265 feet], 26 [265 feet], and 23 [240 feet]), 897 units, 12,200 square feet of retail:

IIRC, Some time ago, I thought I found a link with these CMK projects to either Shanghai or Hong Kong so I found this a bit interesting.

Chinese investors rush abroad, hitting outbound investment limit
March 5, 2024 By Summer Zhen and Samuel Shen -- Reuters/Asian Markets

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, March 6 (Reuters) - Chinese money is pouring into funds invested in offshore assets at breakneck speed, butting up against outbound investment limits
and complicating Beijing's efforts to revive domestic markets and stabilise the yuan.

The rush to invest offshore reflects low confidence at home and is evident in sales of funds issued under the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) programme...

[twalm]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

These inversions are especially problematic over the summer but Denver's so-called brown cloud is much improved from previous decades.


It's aggravated by Denver being in a Valley, no different from the Valley of the Sun.

Lol another aggressively bad take from TakeFive

Whelp I guess since our local geography sucks we should just not try and solve the problem

Originally Posted by TakeFive

If it were important enough why not come up with incentives instead of punishment. I'm not a fan of picking winners and losers.

The time to coddle and try incentivize polluters to clean up on their own has passed ... like 50 years ago.

People in the front range have be dealing with bad air quality for soooo long and when someone tries to crack down people like you come out of the woodwork and say:



Screw polluters. Polluting in itself is already a demonstration that a company has already chosen profits over what is ethically correct and incentives are not going to change that.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by rds70

The latest submission for the 650 17th Street project by Harbinger Partners. The architect is JNS.

39 stories, 430 feet, 273 hotel rooms, 150 apartments (The mix has changed from 223 hotel rooms [10 stories to 14] and 320 apartments [21 stories to 17]):

I rather like this building design but still find myself scratching my head why EVERY Denver building has to be a rectangle or square. Like, can't we get a building with a varying or stepped/pointed top?! 1144 15th is as close as we got and that's a modified rectangle!

Too bad they cut the number of apartments - would have been great to have more critical living mass at this location.

[TakeFive]

Love the post; Thanks for your contribution

Originally Posted by twalm

Lol another aggressively bad take from TakeFive

Whelp I guess since our local geography sucks we should just not try and solve the problem

The time to coddle and try incentivize polluters to clean up on their own has passed ... like 50 years ago.

People in the front range have be dealing with bad air quality for soooo long and when someone tries to crack down people like you come out of the woodwork and say:



Screw polluters. Polluting in itself is already a demonstration that a company has already chosen profits over what is ethically correct and incentives are not going to change that.

I understand there are passionate view points on both sides (or all sides) of these issues.

Speaking of 50 years ago, I can recall all the admonitions over the decades that the world will end in 20 years of we don't do this or do that.

I can recall the push by Governor Ritter who served from 2007-2011 to make buildings more energy efficient starting with government buildings. I was totally supportive.

What amazes me is the lack of appreciation for how much has been accomplished over the decades. In many respects Colorado with the cooperation of Xcel Energy has been a leading state for 'cleaning' up the environment.