DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[wong21fr]

Here's an update rendering of the Denver Health Outpatient Center. I believe there was collective dry-heaving of the design due to the facade appearing to be some sort of yellow EIFS. It appears that it is going to be brick and looks MUCH better IMO:

BusinessDen

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Here's an update rendering of the Denver Health Outpatient Center. I believe there was collective dry-heaving of the design due to the facade appearing to be some sort of yellow EIFS. It appears that it is going to be brick and looks MUCH better IMO:

BusinessDen

I can see it from my office. I'm a fan of the glass facade. Looking good

[twister244]

Looks like Meow Wolf has topped out - https://crej.com/news/turner-constru...25-and-colfax/

[CherryCreek]

Well, so much for using some of the massive land bank that is Park Hill Golf Course for some real urban density near a transportation hub.


The "Save Our Open Space" group loves the nice views (even though the views may soon turn to tumbleweed with the closure of the golf course). This is private land, but due to an easement held by the city it can only be developed with city consent.


I'd love to see some dense housing developed on this, with a sizable affordable component and some new park space, but doesn't sound like the "open space" folks will let that happen, if they can stop it.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/0...e-green-space/

Probably still a good long term bet for development, and the owner can hold is as land bank for future development once saner minds prevail. Meanwhile, I'd let it revert back to fenced prairie and the locals can enjoy the prairie dogs.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Well, so much for using some of the massive land bank that is Park Hill Golf Course for some real urban density near a transportation hub.

The "Save Our Open Space" group loves the nice views (even though the views may soon turn to tumbleweed with the closure of the golf course). This is private land, but due to an easement held by the city it can only be developed with city consent.

Per recent DBJ article:

“With any development, there are always people who don’t want it, especially on a piece like this,” Klein said. “It’s an amazing piece of ground and we’re going to be on a listening tour with the community to figure out what would be the best use out there.”

On Thursday, Klein said he’s considering “affordable and diverse housing options,” along with open space and recreation uses.

There's no rush as Westside Investment Partners is only now getting closer to breaking ground at the previous Loretto Heights site.

According to Westword:

But protecting the land from development isn’t going to be a simple battle, even if plenty of people raise their voices. The decision to either lift the conservation easement or rezone the land will ultimately lie with Denver City Council.

I'll assume this question will only be addressed after going through the "listening tour" and coming up with a proposed master plan for redevelopment. At that point, aside from wanting modifications, I'd expect Denver City Council to relinquish the conservation easement and approve rezoning.

[TakeFive]

You can call me Train Denver


Image courtesy Invent Development Partners

New 4-tower, transit-oriented development to anchor north end of RiNo
Aug 5, 2019 By Andrew Dodson – Reporter, Denver Business Journal

A new master-planned, mixed-use development that could feature as much as 800,000 square feet of office, residential, hotel and retail space is chugging
into Denver’s hottest neighborhood. Denver-based Invent Development Partners closed on about $34.8 million of land in the River North Art District near
RTD’s 38th and Blake on Tuesday, July 30, with plans to build a transit-oriented development called “Train Denver.” The project will consist of four towers
ranging from eight to 16 stories.

Three parcels at 4000 Blake St., the former site of General Welding Supply, will include two towers built atop two stories of restaurant and retail space,
and underground parking. Plans call for one of those stories to top out at 14 stories and feature about 275,000 square feet of Class A office space. The
other tower would be 16 stories tall for a 200-room “lifestyle boutique” hotel, said Jon Dwight, president of Invent.

What about finding capital?

Halpern Real Estate Ventures is a co-general-partner providing capital for the project. The New York-based firm has an opportunity zone fund that’s
looking to raise $50 million, according to a Securities Exchange Commission filing. To date, that fund has raised $500,000. "Train Denver is perfectly
aligned with our opportunity zone investment strategy of partnering with seasoned local developers and leveraging off our direct experience in urban
infill development in emerging neighborhoods,” said Jon Halpern, managing partner and chief executive officer of the firm.

Denver-based Davis Partnership Architects is the designer of the project.

[Sam Hill]

To date, that fund has raised $500,000.

Hmmmm. That's disheartening.

I love everything about the rendering and would love to see it get off the ground, but the big hurdle with these things is always financing, so it's hard to get excited knowing they haven't made a dent yet in that regard. ...unless they just started raising funds yesterday - in which case, I'm impressed! lol

[TakeFive]

We broke some bread; then we broke some ground



Image courtesy of Legacy Partners via Mile High CRE

Colorado’s First Large-scale Residential OZ Development Breaks Ground
August 5, 2019 Mile High CRE

Legacy Partners (Legacy) has announced the groundbreaking of Legacy at Fitz in Aurora. Located at 1363 N. Victor Street, the five-story 363-unit apartment community is Colorado’s first large-scale residential development to break ground under the newly-created Opportunity Zone program. The two-phase development is set to deliver February and June 2021 respectively.

“Given its proximity to the Anschutz Medical Campus, Legacy at Fitz is quite literally the perfect place for medical students, healthcare professionals, and technology workers to call home,” said R. Lane Cutter, senior managing director at Legacy. “Our goal is to make this community one of the most convenient living experiences in the area.”

What about financing?

Equity financing for Legacy at Fitz was provided by Griffin Capital. “We are excited about continuing our partnership with Legacy on this tremendous development opportunity in Aurora,” said Eric Kaplan, president of Griffin Capital Private Equity, LLC.

Legacy’s development team recently celebrated the grand opening of TriVista on Speer in Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District.

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

Hmmmm. That's disheartening.

I love everything about the rendering and would love to see it get off the ground, but the big hurdle with these things is always financing, so it's hard to get excited knowing they haven't made a dent yet in that regard. ...unless they just started raising funds yesterday - in which case, I'm impressed! lol

Yes, the same crossed my mind.

It may be that now that they've closed on the land they have a real vision they can sell to investors.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

Hmmmm. That's disheartening.

I love everything about the rendering and would love to see it get off the ground, but the big hurdle with these things is always financing, so it's hard to get excited knowing they haven't made a dent yet in that regard. ...unless they just started raising funds yesterday - in which case, I'm impressed! lol

It's a great project, and the fact that at least a part of it is in an opportunity zone may give it a solid chance of actually happening.

As far as fund raising, it sounds like they just closed on the land so perhaps they have indeed only started. You would think for a project this size they would want one or more very large equity investors.

There's so many HUGE projects near that part of RINO - I got to think as we come to the end of the current cycle there's somewhat of a race to break ground - no way do all of them get built this cycle, opportunity zone or not.

[Cirrus]

The RiNo TOD looks good. 38th & Blake has potential to be one of Denver's 2 or 3 best TODs, over time. A real uptown hub situation.

[Cirrus]

Also, I like food halls a lot but every big development wants one now. I feel like that novelty is going to wear thin inside of a decade.

[twister244]

Yeah, it's become pretty hard to keep up with everything that's going on in RiNo. I agree, the food halls are getting a bit much, but they can always be refactored down the road I feel like. In any event, there's no way every single project gets off the ground. I feel pretty confident about WTC now. Who knows about Denver Rock Drill..... It's a great project, but I haven't heard a peep out of that project for a long time.

[iNfill]

Another TOD development near 38th and Blake. Not sure if this one has been mentioned.

https://businessden.com/2019/08/06/d...ainment-venue/

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by iNfill

Another TOD development near 38th and Blake. Not sure if this one has been mentioned.

https://businessden.com/2019/08/06/d...ainment-venue/

Only over the last eight posts before yours. It's the same project.

[CherryCreek]

It looks like the historical designation of Tom's Diner is well on the way to actually happening. It was approved to move forward by a City Council committee.


A committee of the Denver City Council unanimously voted to move forward a recommendation from the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission to the whole council to give the Tom’s Diner building on East Colfax Avenue historic status.

The decision, which came Tuesday morning, could ultimately prevent the building’s longtime owner, Tom Messina, from selling his property to a developer who’s planning an apartment project and retire.


https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/n..._news_headline

The article indicates the council would have to approve and the Mayor sign it by August 31. There will be a public hearing on Aug. 26th.

I hope Mayor Hancock kills it (per the article, it suggests he can by refusing to sign).

[TakeFive]

I'm not lying; Denver's dying.



Courtesy Rider Levett Bucknall via Daily Commercial News

Didn't Denver have like 28-30 cranes at the peak? I didn't realize Portland has so much crane activity although they were slow to bounce back from the Great Recession IIRC.

Note: - The Levett Bucknall Crane Index 2019 only includes the cities that they are in. They're obviously wacist as they stay out of anything south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I'm not lying; Denver's dying.



Courtesy Rider Levett Bucknall via Daily Commercial News

Didn't Denver have like 28-30 cranes at the peak? I didn't realize Portland has so much crane activity although they were slow to bounce back from the Great Recession IIRC.

Note: - The Levett Bucknall Crane Index 2019 only includes the cities that they are in. They're obviously wacist as they stay out of anything south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Hmmmm. I can't say what Denver's current crane count is, but I can tell from putting around town in a tractor-trailer every day, it's still very high. One thing I've noticed in the past is that whenever a national/international publication does one of these crane counts, the figure they come up with for Denver is usually way off. I can only assume it's way off for other cities as well.

Nevertheless, Toronto, holy shit!

Also, I start too many posts with, "Hmmmm."

[DenverInfill]

Levett Bucknal's crane count is horribly inaccurate and shouldn't be taken as fact. On almost every occasion when we have done a crane census on DenverInfill, we counted (with documented photos of each) more cranes in just Denver's urban core than Levett Bucknal had counted for the entire city in its report from roughly the same time period--sometimes by a substantial margin. Also, you can't find anywhere on their website their methodology: is the count just for the city proper or is it for the whole metro area? Does their count include just tower cranes, or self-erecting ones as well?

[Robert.hampton]

https://www.cpr.org/2019/08/07/what-...r-real-estate/

So RTD doesn’t want the land at Colfax and broadway to be developed into a park for the medal of honor museum, which frankly is ridiculous because it fits in PERFECTLY with the civic center station master plan (as a ‘dynamic public space’) and would be a huge improvement to that area. Not to mention the huge increase in ridership RTD would see from having the museum a block from civic center — this would generate revenue for RTD in spades.

Worse though is the complete lack of vision of the RTD board which it seems is run by a bunch of backwards thinking dotards, who think the space could better be used as ‘nothing’ or ‘I guess we could rent it to food trucks or something’.

How do these lame asses get on the RTD board??? Really wonderful that they see value in the buzz geller parking lot slumlord squatter model of doing business—which reflects about how well they run the rest of the transportation district

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

Levett Bucknal's crane count is horribly inaccurate and shouldn't be taken as fact. On almost every occasion when we have done a crane census on DenverInfill, we counted (with documented photos of each) more cranes in just Denver's urban core than Levett Bucknal had counted for the entire city in its report from roughly the same time period--sometimes by a substantial margin. Also, you can't find anywhere on their website their methodology: is the count just for the city proper or is it for the whole metro area? Does their count include just tower cranes, or self-erecting ones as well?

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/...-downtown.html

“Phoenix is not a city that does a huge amount of high-rise development,” said Scott Macpherson, executive vice president of Rider Levett Bucknall, which completes a crane index that is produced twice a year and counts the number of stationary tower cranes in 13 major markets in the U.S. and Canada during the same period of time, in this case the month of May.

I had guessed they didn't include Scottsdale and it's $2 billion development of The Ritz-Carlton Residences which has a couple by itself. Scottsdale has to have at least 5 cranes.

In any case I'm up for a drive-by count of stationary tower cranes.

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

https://www.cpr.org/2019/08/07/what-...r-real-estate/

So RTD doesn’t want the land at Colfax and broadway to be developed into a park for the medal of honor museum, which frankly is ridiculous because it fits in PERFECTLY with the civic center station master plan (as a ‘dynamic public space’) and would be a huge improvement to that area.

Worse though is the complete lack of vision of the RTD board which it seems is run by a bunch of backwards thinking dotards, who think the space could better be used as ‘nothing’ or ‘I guess we could rent it to food trucks or something’. How do these lame asses get on the RTD board???

No thank you.

It could also be held open for future expansion of Civic Center Station, an idea that board member Shelley Cook said was worth exploring. “I’d just hate to trim our 20- or 30-year ability to expand if we needed to at some point, without really thinking it through,” she said.

Yes, this please!

At some point "Urban light rail" should go along So Broadway (to I-25 Station) as well as along Speer/Leetsdale and it should tunnel underneath (or over) Colfax to the Civic Center Station. They could also use this land to go underground for a future subway through downtown. If they develop this land then RTD is screwed for any kind of needed expansion at this location in the future.