DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[Scottk]

Random thoughts from my week in Copenhagen :

1- Many members on this forum seem to applaud any and all new construction. Some of you regularly defend 5 story stick builds, and cite Paris as an example city filled with 5 story buildings. The thing is, here in Copenhagen I don't see any buildings that are of the same terrible quality that Denver is getting. Most of the buildings here have stone / brick exteriors, and extensive ornamentation. Maybe this comparison is unfair, because Copenhagen has the advantage of being several hundred years old, but I certainly did not see any Dallas donuts in Copenhagen.

2 - I have changed my mind about bicycles. After seeing how many people use the bike lanes in Copenhagen, I now believe that bicycles ARE a legitimate mode of transportation. I think so many people bike in Copenhagen because the infrastructure is there.... I wonder if denver could see similar results if we invested in bike infrastructure.

3 - the A line is going to be absolute shit compared to the copenhagen airport line (or any european airport train for that matter) and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.

4- Did someone seriously just say that 70,000 a year is a normal salary? What world do some of you live in??? I went to college and would LOVE 50k a year.... On that note if anybody knows of environmental firms hiring in denver, let me know.

5- hi bunt!!! 🚴🚴🚴🚴

6 - next stop Oslo.

[balugajames]

Originally Posted by Scottk

2 - I have changed my mind about bicycles. After seeing how many people use the bike lanes in Copenhagen, I now believe that bicycles ARE a legitimate mode of transportation. I think so many people bike in Copenhagen because the infrastructure is there.... I wonder if denver could see similar results if we invested in bike infrastructure.

3 - the A line is going to be absolute shit compared to the copenhagen airport line (or any european airport train for that matter) and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.

Thanks for sharing these thoughts. I am glad we have another convert. You bring up some really important facts:

1) If you build it they will come. My wife would ride if she felt safe and had a good network. I know many feel the same and even more who can't even imagine what you saw in Copenhagen. Its people's fear of bad, mean, high drivers that keep most off their bikes or on the sidewalks. This fear is induced because there is no network and our mentality is streets are for cars. This is still a debate and many don't want to put their lives on the debate floor.

If you start to think of what driving would be like with a network matching our bike network it would be a nightmare... Streets randomly ending, making you merge onto on comming traffic followed by a quick round of frogger. I think its really clear why primarily young adults ride.

Until we are holistic in our design bikes will be very under utilized; however, the alternative is amazing! Step one is to put a bill in place to fund, said bike network.

The legitimacy of any mode is up to the society to make it legit.

Timelapse Nedtherlands school bike racks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NUgB_xkIvU

2) In regards to the A line statement. I am curious what is so bad about our design based on what you saw?

Truth for the day:
Pacific Ocean is dieing: http://www.alaskapublic.org/2015/08/17/dead-herring-poison-mussels-found-on-unalaska-shorelines/
The "blob" is Fukushima fallout, increasing water temperatures: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/news/features/food_chain/index.cfm

[bunt_q]

1- Yay
2 - It works in Europe because they have the density and land use patterns we do not have. The distance between Civic Center and Common Park in Denver would encompass the bulk of many European City Centers. By comparison, we are just too spread out. So no, you're comparing apples and oranges. The number of folks who can make use of a 2-mile max radius here is just much smaller. (And could also come at the expense of the other 3,000,000, including most of the City of Denver outside downtown proper, who can't afford to live in the middle and depend on that road space - rich folks who can afford center neighborhoods do not have a special claim in downtown - downtown belongs to all of the city, and maintaining road capacity to get there is non-negotiable.) Anyways, it's a rare few who will make a 5-mile bike ride, and it's a rare few here who can get where they need to in less than that. Most of those Europens you see aren't going five miles - ask them.
3 - Haha.
4 - I love it when you agree with me.
5 - Hi Scott!

I actually find there's less we can learn from European cities than from other regions of the world. Everybody wants us to be Barcelona, but nobody wants to live in Barcelona densities, nor can we turn the clock back 100 years and build ourselves a backbone subway system for pennies on the dollar - it's that core mobility that allows Europe to indulge in things like expansive bike networks. Personally I'd rather us be looking at the BRT systems of Latin American cities for inspiration than Dutch bike lanes.

[rds70]

Originally Posted by Scottk

Random thoughts from my week in Copenhagen :

1- Many members on this forum seem to applaud any and all new construction. Some of you regularly defend 5 story stick builds, and cite Paris as an example city filled with 5 story buildings. The thing is, here in Copenhagen I don't see any buildings that are of the same terrible quality that Denver is getting. Most of the buildings here have stone / brick exteriors, and extensive ornamentation. Maybe this comparison is unfair, because Copenhagen has the advantage of being several hundred years old, but I certainly did not see any Dallas donuts in Copenhagen.

2 - I have changed my mind about bicycles. After seeing how many people use the bike lanes in Copenhagen, I now believe that bicycles ARE a legitimate mode of transportation. I think so many people bike in Copenhagen because the infrastructure is there.... I wonder if denver could see similar results if we invested in bike infrastructure.

3 - the A line is going to be absolute shit compared to the copenhagen airport line (or any european airport train for that matter) and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.

6 - next stop Oslo.

I was in Copenhagen last year, and there a lot of banal buildings, and a majority of the oldest buildings are stick built with stucco or brick exteriors. For example, almost all of these famous buildings in Nyhavn are stick built:



What makes them better is the urban design of the surrounding neighborhood.

These are all pretty plain and stick built:




The bike infrastructure is awesome and car rush hour seemed to be non-existent.

I think the A Line to the airport will be comparable. And take about the same amount of time.

Enjoy Olso. It is one of my favorite European cities.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by Brainpathology

The neighborhood basically chased CU out of that area because of parking and crowding concerns. They weren't AS overt as "No Highrises in Highland" as no one would take "No Doctors in Mayfair/Park Hill" seriously. However, this looks a lot more dense than the neighborhood is going to like. They were able to piggyback hatred of Walmart and other retailers to derail earlier iterations, if I remember accurately. But I wonder how they will voice their objections to this latest plan - or if they will just become exhausted and accept something eventually. 9th and CO isn't QUITE as bad at Tabor II for me.. but it's close. I'll believe something happens when it happens, and I'd also bet the rendering isn't going to be any more similar to reality than my imaginings of the attractiveness of past blind dates ever turned out to be.

But regardless of that the buildings.....

Couple quick things:

1. The neighborhood has actually been pro-density (somewhat). They not only fought Wal-mart (for various reasons), but they also fought the suburban nature of the last proposal. Maybe years of blight changed their mind?
   
2. Continuum has closed on the property. This is farther than any developer has gone by far. They have also begun extensive demolition. On something of this scale, it's a tremendous expense. And finally, they have submitted preliminary plans for 3 buildings (phase 1) to the City.
   
   This thing is full steam ahead.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by Scottk

4- Did someone seriously just say that 70,000 a year is a normal salary? What world do some of you live in??? I went to college and would LOVE 50k a year.... On that note if anybody knows of environmental firms hiring in denver, let me know.

I think what was said is that 70K a year is not an abnormal salary. It's well within the range of the third quintile for income distribution for households meaning that about 30-35% of all households would qualify. Drop it to 60K and you're talking over 40% of the populace. This ignores other variables such as dual versus single income, age, etc. but it's not the narrow band that Bunt portrays- but he does seem to have a soft spot for the other 60% thinking that they should have opportunities as well ignoring the fact that we're in a new gilded age and social equality is so passe. The populace seems to agree since we're well on our way to President Trump's vision of 'merica.

Environmental firms aren't hiring- blame the downturn in pretty much all extractive industries due to low commodity prices. Permitting work has dried up for the time being and compliance is being treated as the wart that it is- tolerated but not liked at all.

[RyanD]

Moved the cycling conversation to the Transportation Thread since there is already a conversation going on there about... well bikes and cycling.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

I think what was said is that 70K a year is not an abnormal salary. It's well within the range of the third quintile for income distribution for households meaning that about 30-35% of all households would qualify. Drop it to 60K and you're talking over 40% of the populace. This ignores other variables such as dual versus single income, age, etc. but it's not the narrow band that Bunt portrays- but he does seem to have a soft spot for the other 60% thinking that they should have opportunities as well ignoring the fact that we're in a new gilded age and social equality is so passe. The populace seems to agree since we're well on our way to President Trump's vision of 'merica.

Environmental firms aren't hiring- blame the downturn in pretty much all extractive industries due to low commodity prices. Permitting work has dried up for the time being and compliance is being treated as the wart that it is- tolerated but not liked at all.

HOUSEHOLDS. You can't ignore those other things. We are not talking about households, we are talking about center city housing, which is overwhelmingly one bedroom and studio units. So the relevant statistic to look at is individual income, since the only household types that are really options are individual earners or co-habitating individual earners. Median household size in Denver is still 2.27, but it's much lower downtown, so you basically have to subtract out all family households from the analysis. When we do that, well, median annual salary for full-time working men in Denver is around $52k; it's under $43k for women.

So yes, a $70k individual salary is unusual. Unless you run in upper-middle-class white circles, which most of us here do. Then it actually seems underpaid. (That's a first year associate attorney salary.) But we are not normal.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by rds70

What makes them better is the urban design of the surrounding neighborhood.

And the fact that they're narrow. A bunch of differently-colored narrow buildings always look better than one long building of the exact same height and materials.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

HOUSEHOLDS. You can;t ignore those other things. We are not talking about households, we are talking about center city housing, which is overwhelmingly one bedroom and studio units. So the relevant statistic to look at is individual income, since the only household types that are really options are individual earners or co-habitating individual earners. Median household size in Denver is still 2.27, but it's much lower downtown, so you basically have to subtract out all family households from the analysis. When we do that, well, median annual salary for full-time working men in Denver is $52k; it's under $43k for women.

Which still means that there's a not insignificant number of individual incomes that are in the $70K range- probably still in that 30-35% range of individual incomes. So it's still not insignificant, albeit unusual. Women have to have a roommate to make it work and split the bedroom, but men are good. Still, it's not as small a subset of the populace as the picture that you paint.

As I said, you care more about the bottom portion half of the population (who in no way can live downtown) versus the top half (the majority of who can live downtown if they choose). But this is out-of-date thinking for the current national mindset. The bottom half are freeloaders and losers who's needs and social opportunity shouldn't be considered since they are takers. It's all about the makers and President Trump gets that while the soft-hearted libruls want to destroy what makes this country great. 'merica! Hell, the HPTE is based on this mindset: to those who can afford comes the privilege of fast travel.

[rds70]

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

I think there are like 6 Alexan projects on the table or UC right now in Denver.

• Alexan Uptown
• Alexan Cherry Creek
• Alexan Sloan's Lake
• Alexan Arapahoe Square
• Alexan West Highland
• Alexan Lower Highland

There is another one as well: Alexan 20th Street Station, which I would guess is near 20th and Welton.

[TakeFive]

I typically lean towards bunt's points in these discussions.

It would be interesting to know percentages of those who do make $70,000 and up and how many even want to live in downtown? Most families I'd presume want to live in a neighborhood. Millennial's aren't piling into studios and small one bedrooms b/c they make lots of money.

We've become a "start-up" nation which is cool. Over time many start-ups will disappear. Those that dominate a specific cloud/software space (for example) will be looking primarily for back office employees. The beauty of cloud/software growth is that it's more economical and efficient neither of which spreads a lot of wealth around except in their early stages of growth.

I think the jury is still out on downtown demographics/income levels.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I typically lean towards bunt's points in these discussions.

It would be interesting to know percentages of those who do make $70,000 and up and how many even want to live in downtown? Most families I'd presume want to live in a neighborhood. Millennial's aren't piling into studios and small one bedrooms b/c they make lots of money.

We've become a "start-up" nation which is cool. Over time many start-ups will disappear. Those that dominate a specific cloud/software space (for example) will be looking primarily for back office employees. The beauty of cloud/software growth is that it's more economical and efficient neither of which spreads a lot of wealth around except in their early stages of growth.

I think the jury is still out on downtown demographics/income levels.

What are moving towards as a society is increased stratification and wealth concentration along with decreased social mobility. Such a society doesn't bode well for an egalitarian vision or things like education, home ownership, wealth accumulation, retirement, life expectancy, etc. for anyone below the 4th Quintile. Tryying to champion for the people, i.e. the bottom half, seems like an increasing lost cause at this point and the United States hasn't hit a point of social unrest due to wealth disparity to have a serious discussion about concepts such as a guaranteed minimum income. Instead, I can use bogeymen such as dark-skinned immigrants and welfare queens to convince the lower middle and working class that there's someone to blame for their lowered living standards and that the system still holds promise for them if people are just held accountable. Freedom! Liberty! God! 'merica!

[patco]

Hi! Lurker here..

Anyone have details about Alexan LoHi? Can't find anything online...Thanks!

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by Scottk

3 - the A line is going to be absolute shit compared to the copenhagen airport line (or any european airport train for that matter) and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.

Why?

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by rds70

There is another one as well: Alexan 20th Street Station, which I would guess is near 20th and Welton.

Isn't that Alexan Arapahoe Square? Or are they planning two projects in that area?

Edit: Nevermind. I just saw the new submittal. Wow.

Originally Posted by patco

Hi! Lurker here..

Anyone have details about Alexan LoHi? Can't find anything online...Thanks!

Just this from the City's permit status:

Site Address and Description
2015PM0000476 - Alexan LoHi

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by Scottk

1- Many members on this forum seem to applaud any and all new construction. Some of you regularly defend 5 story stick builds, and cite Paris as an example city filled with 5 story buildings. The thing is, here in Copenhagen I don't see any buildings that are of the same terrible quality that Denver is getting. Most of the buildings here have stone / brick exteriors, and extensive ornamentation. Maybe this comparison is unfair, because Copenhagen has the advantage of being several hundred years old, but I certainly did not see any Dallas donuts in Copenhagen.

I am one of those forumers that has defended stick builds in the past, but only because of the ongoing effects of DURA. I think we have two totally separate arguments here: one regarding density and one regarding aesthetics, but some people on this forum tend to argue that support for one means support for the other.

Density: Copenhagen and the 1st-7th arrondissements of Paris have almost no high buildings and show that a good city is not dependent on the height of the construction.

Aesthetics: even the most beautiful cities in the world, like Paris, have similarly ugly new infill -- just google image search "Paris suburbs" to see some prime examples.

I will stand by the defense of stick builds to promote density in Denver.

We need to replace the sea of empty lots, because Denver has a lot more in common with German and Japanese cities immediately after WWII than it does contemporary Copenhagen. The rebuilding of our historic core is more important to the continued health of the city than making sure that every building is architecturally significant.

This was never "Denver is like Paris" or "all these ugly buildings are actually beautiful because every city gets them" like some people insist, but a sincere wish that these buildings could just become boring background noise to our urban development and not the constant focus of this thread and others. I have always hoped that by pointing out these facts that it would provide context so we can move on and stop ENDLESSLY talking about how boring the stick builds are and how many of them there are. If anything makes Denver look podunk its that the Denver forumers can't stop talking about 5 story buildings and how expensive rent in a shiny new development is.

Here's an easy checklist of when 50 pages of conversation about stick builds is warranted and not super-annoying in our main development thread:
1) When Denver has filled in the seas of parking lot and has little available development space -- you know, like Copenhagen or Paris.
2) When they are the only things being constructed in the city.
3) When they are actually being developed by a forumer.
4) When a formerly interesting highrise proposal gets downsized or cost-engineered.

Originally Posted by Scottk

3 - the A line is going to be absolute shit compared to the copenhagen airport line (or any european airport train for that matter) and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.

I love hyperbolic statements like this so much. Copenhagen is also super expensive and has no skyscrapers and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.

Originally Posted by Scottk

4- Did someone seriously just say that 70,000 a year is a normal salary? What world do some of you live in??? I went to college and would LOVE 50k a year.... On that note if anybody knows of environmental firms hiring in denver, let me know.

Software development. I know people without degrees making 70k. It's the demographic and industry that has turned San Francisco into a completely unaffordable place, and will probably do the same here.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

Isn't that Alexan Arapahoe Square? Or are they planning two projects in that area?

Edit: Nevermind. I just saw the new submittal. Wow.

So there are seven then. Be curious to know there intent on additional ground breaking's?

I'll assume that "corporate priorities" had Trammell Crow late to the Denver apartment party (not necessarily too late). They do play catch-up well.

Originally Posted by wong21fr

What are moving towards as a society is increased stratification and wealth concentration along with decreased social mobility. Such a society doesn't bode well for an egalitarian vision or things like education, home ownership, wealth accumulation, retirement, life expectancy, etc.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that. In fact I suggested that there are many currently in the upper middle whose jobs will ultimately disappear.

[mhays]

This unofficial source says Denver's median household income in 2013 was $62,760. Must be a bit higher now.

The $70,000 figure was just a number that can easily afford $1,750 rent based on the 30% goal. Lots of people do way over 30%, particularly in the common downtown demographics.

[patco]

The average household income in downtown denver is $91,961 and the average household income for city center neighborhood households is $73,837 (according to DDP's 2015 state of downtown denver)