DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[twister244]

Yeah, the housing prices are going up still. However, rent I feel like is a mixed signal. My rent didn't go up here in RiNo last year, and it's not going up again this year. So I feel like if there are significant rent increases, it may be in other types of units, or the suburbs as mentioned above.

[mhays]

When someone has a number that's way off of other numbers, it's likely to be wrong. I haven't heard anything about a rent increase like that.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mhays

When someone has a number that's way off of other numbers, it's likely to be wrong. I haven't heard anything about a rent increase like that.

Interesting article
‘My Generation Is Never Going to Have That’
By PAUL ROBERTS April 26, 2018/Politico

In Seattle’s red-hot housing market, a group of millennial techies is using data skills to alter the look, and affordability, of their adopted city.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I see this story from Westword that now metro rents are soaring year over year, with Denver city rents up 15.7% year over year. That's nuts.

http://www.westword.com/news/metro-denver-rent-prices-april-2018-10187834

Originally Posted by mhays

When someone has a number that's way off of other numbers, it's likely to be wrong. I haven't heard anything about a rent increase like that.

I see now from yesterday's Denver Post (https://www.denverpost.com/2018/04/26/metro-denver-apartment-rent-rises-2018/) that Denver rents are up "only" 3.2 percent year over year. - not anything like the 15.7% reported in Westword/Zumper. Thus some very significant discrepancy between the Westword story and the Post. My sense is the Denver Post is probably correct. Rents in Denver have NOT gone up 15 percent in past year. Perhaps there are some sub-markets where a lot of new product raised rents in those submarkets, but not for the city as a whole.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by mhays

When someone has a number that's way off of other numbers, it's likely to be wrong. I haven't heard anything about a rent increase like that.

Well Westword is a shit paper that isn't very good when it comes to numbers, it's forte is sob stories on how the downtrodden are getting screwed by the establishment or economic conditions.

I'd say the Denver Post is better, but that was before it's had it's heart carved out over the last five years or so.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Interesting article
‘My Generation Is Never Going to Have That’
By PAUL ROBERTS April 26, 2018/Politico

There seems little hope of "up zoning" of most single family neighborhoods in Denver (or any of the suburbs) for multi-family housing. I suspect the same will end up being true in Seattle.

The politics don't work: you have massive opposition from residents in these core neighborhoods - and they vote. I suspect that from a pure numbers perspective, "newly arrived" millennials pushing for zoning changes along the lines of what's being discussed in Seattle simply don't have the political clout to make that happen. They historically don't vote at the same levels of long-time residents and, in any case are likely outnumbered. This quote from the article captures this reality:

Successful cities may depend heavily on a steady supply of millennials, but it is still older residents—and, especially, boomers—who largely determine where and how those young newcomers will live. It is generally boomers in city government who set housing policy. Boomers run most of the development and real estate firms, control most of the housing investment. And, of course, boomers own most of the real estate. Not only was it easier for boomers to buy a home, thanks to a surge in postwar housing construction and wage growth, but, as homeowners they frequently lobbied for rules that restricted or banned multifamily homes.

Such nakedly self-interested politics have been all the more insulting to millennials, a generation that, surveys suggest, puts a huge store in fairness, personal sacrifice and community building. Today, says Ethan Phelps-Goodman, a 37-year-old former Facebook engineer who works with Lubarsky on housing issues, many millennials find themselves looking at earlier generations and asking, “‘You got yours, and now you don’t want anyone else to have theirs?’”


A more modest objective of promoting very dense development in areas that already have a fair amount of dense development (or new brownfield developments) seems more obtainable. For Denver, when RiNO, So. Broadway, Sun Valley, Sunnyside, Jefferson Park and River Mile are fully (re-) developed, that's a lot of potential new housing. Ironically, many of the suburban communities may be even more NIMBY than Denver when it comes to density in existing single family developments. Still, there's a lot of TOD potential along I 25.

And of course, the biggest single family potential is within the 470 beltway on the east side.

[mhays]

Seattle also recently switched to a council district concept instead of all at-large, with NIMBYs at the core of the change. Some districts are heavily single-family. That said, multifamily units now outnumber single-family citywide, and the number of adults in multifamily should surpass the number in single-family in the near future (I don't know the numbers). It's a third rail, but that might be changing.

The article misses some points. I'm pretty sure San Francisco has more homeless. And they could have mentioned how much we're building in the non-SFR zones, much like Denver.

[twister244]

I think this article puts things into a more realistic context w/respect to apartment rents and housing prices:

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/...-betting-on-a-hot-denver-market-for.html

This is why when I hear of a project floundering right now, I tend to think it's more mistakes on the developers part than it is any "slowdown" on the market side. It's possible we just aren't seeing quite as many large projects coming on board because the market was playing catchup a couple years ago, and things are leveling off a bit into a more stable equilibrium. This doesn't mean the "boom" is over, it just means we may not see 10 tower cranes all clustered within a neighborhood at any given time.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

The politics don't work: you have massive opposition from residents in these core neighborhoods - and they vote.

to the little people.

Five Points neighbors close the door to apartments and big houses after a two-year crusade
April 25, 2018 by Andrew Kenney/Denverite

The neighbors knew it would be a long shot. They had seen blocky new houses and apartments cramming onto the blocks of other neighborhoods. They thought that their corner of Five Points would be next — and they saw a way to stop it.

“We kept telling ourself, ‘This may not work, but at least we’ll get to know our neighbors,'” Robbie Hobein told the Denver City Council.

And the answer is...

On Monday night, she and her friends achieved their goal, along with an alliance of the people they’ve met over the last two years: The Denver City Council voted unanimously to rezone about 100 properties around 25th and Glenarm, a change that will limit the area’s redevelopment.

There are good reasons why there's a Second Amendment: people have a right to fight for their home and their neighborhood.

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

A more modest objective of promoting very dense development in areas that already have a fair amount of dense development (or new brownfield developments) seems more obtainable. For Denver, when RiNO, So. Broadway, Sun Valley, Sunnyside, Jefferson Park and River Mile are fully (re-) developed, that's a lot of potential new housing.

Exactly, there's no shortage of (re) developable land for lots more density.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by twister244

I think this article puts things into a more realistic context w/respect to apartment rents and housing prices:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...-betting-on-a-hot-denver-market-for.html

This is why when I hear of a project floundering right now, I tend to think it's more mistakes on the developers part than it is any "slowdown" on the market side. It's possible we just aren't seeing quite as many large projects coming on board because the market was playing catchup a couple years ago, and things are leveling off a bit into a more stable equilibrium. This doesn't mean the "boom" is over, it just means we may not see 10 tower cranes all clustered within a neighborhood at any given time.

Perfectly stated.

Interesting Google cache work-around for that article. I'd have to look a bit but thanks to a techy dude, I have a Chrome add-on that allows me to see articles behind the paywall; not just Denver but all their sites. If interested, it would be important to just keep this between the two of us.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

to the little people.

Five Points neighbors close the door to apartments and big houses after a two-year crusade
April 25, 2018 by Andrew Kenney/Denverite

And the answer is...

There are good reasons why there's a Second Amendment: people have a right to fight for their home and their neighborhood.


Exactly, there's no shortage of (re) developable land for lots more density.

I'm sorry, but this is the kind of crap we need to be rallying AGAINST.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Perfectly stated.

Interesting Google cache work-around for that article. I'd have to look a bit but thanks to a techy dude, I have a Chrome add-on that allows me to see articles behind the paywall; not just Denver but all their sites. If interested, it would be important to just keep this between the two of us.

Love to find an extension that works. I've tried a few that don't seem to get the job done.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

For Denver, when RiNO, So. Broadway, Sun Valley, Sunnyside, Jefferson Park and River Mile are fully (re-) developed, that's a lot of potential new housing. .

I think in the interest of making Denver sound even cooler than it is I will start referring to those later neighborhoods as SoBro, SunVa, SunSi, JeffPa, and RiMi.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Love to find an extension that works. I've tried a few that don't seem to get the job done.

Eh, took less time than I thought and it works Great for me. Once I installed it, it works automatically. The appearance is different but if you scroll down you'll find the real McCoy but I seldom bother. Point, click.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

to the little people.

Five Points neighbors close the door to apartments and big houses after a two-year crusade
April 25, 2018 by Andrew Kenney/Denverite

There are good reasons why there's a Second Amendment: people have a right to fight for their home and their neighborhood.

I fail to see why this is a good thing in your opinion. We're talking about land within 2 miles of downtown and 2 blocks away from a light rail station. With rents and housing prices where they're at I'm pretty much locked out of owning a home in Denver for about a decade. Meanwhile, these "crusaders" have guaranteed that their neighborhood will continue to accelerate in home values, thus exacerbating gentrification.

I also don't get the 2nd amendment comment. Was that meant as a pun that these people have the right to shoot anyone that dares to want to live in their neighborhood?

[mhays]

That must be a joke.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

I fail to see why this is a good thing in your opinion. We're talking about land within 2 miles of downtown and 2 blocks away from a light rail station. With rents and housing prices where they're at I'm pretty much locked out of owning a home in Denver for about a decade. Meanwhile, these "crusaders" have guaranteed that their neighborhood will continue to accelerate in home values, thus exacerbating gentrification.

^^^ exactly this! That "neighborhood" is two blocks away from a light rail station, there is no way this should be zoned as exclusively single family homes. This is a big win for Nimby's and a big loss for the city zoning code being upheld.

[seventwenty]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

^^^ exactly this! That "neighborhood" is two blocks away from a light rail station, there is no way this should be zoned as exclusively single family homes. This is a big win for Nimby's and a big loss for the city zoning code being upheld.

And it provides a political blueprint for other neighborhoods and other NIMBYs.

Maybe we can all rely on our 21st Amendment remedies.

[hammersklavier]

Sooo ... just a random question guys, but what is the deal with that dinky industrial shed on that triangular parcel at 19th and Wewatta? It seems absurdly out of place given the big new buildings going up on all sides of it.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Sooo ... just a random question guys, but what is the deal with that dinky industrial shed on that triangular parcel at 19th and Wewatta? It seems absurdly out of place given the big new buildings going up on all sides of it.

That is the Xcel Energy Steam Plant. In my DenverInfill blog post about the project on the adjacent parcel, I wrote about it:

"Did you know that Xcel Energy’s downtown Denver steam system is the oldest continuously operated commercial district heating system in the world? It’s true!

The original steam plant at the corner of 19th and Wewatta (official address is 1875 Delgany Street) was built by the Denver City Steam Heating Company and began providing steam heat through underground pipes to downtown customers in 1880 (Denver was just 22 years old at the time!). The plant was entirely rebuilt in 1972, which is the gold-colored building you see there today. The Denver Steam Plant is the hub for a network of over 16 miles of underground steam pipes that service over 130 customers in the downtown Denver area including many of downtown’s largest office buildings and major cultural, government, and civic facilities. Needless to say, Xcel has no plans to relocate the Denver Steam Plant, and its continued presence in the booming Union Station area gives us a small but important reminder of the Central Platte Valley’s industrial heritage. For more information about the Denver Steam Plant, below are links to two documents I stumbled across on the internet from which I gleaned the above information:

Denver’s 128-Year-Old Steam System: The Best is Yet to Come, by the International District Energy Association, District Energy, Fourth Quarter 2008 (a general news article about the downtown Denver steam system).

Engineering Assessment – Denver District Steam System, by Public Service Company of Colorado Engineering and Construction, March 2013 (a technical report that includes a variety of historical, engineering, and financial information about the steam system)."

It would be quite a feat to move it and Xcel Energy has no intention of doing so. Some have talked about wrapping the building with a decorative screen. Either way, it won't be going anywhere soon. Consider it a permanent remnant of the Central Platte Valley's industrial legacy. It's an 11,000 SF building.