DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[PLANSIT]

There it is!

[mr1138]

^ Very cool!

Now if only the city and Auraria campus would reconsider the plan from 2007 to collapse the northwest bound lanes of Speer Boulevard into the median - enlarging Bell Park - this could turn into a really special public space.

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by rds70

Bell Park Tower:


From BusinessDen:
https://businessden.com/2019/01/10/36-st...lding-proposed-for-lodos-bell-park-site/

And its got a legit developer behind it, which must be a first for Buzz. I definitely prefer the Hines project that was proposed on this site, but Karoi has done some of the better buildings in this cycle and I really like their project on 17th -- wil be interesting to see how these renderings evolve, current ones seem a bit 'out there'.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

And its got a legit developer behind it, which must be a first for Buzz. I definitely prefer the Hines project that was proposed on this site, but Karoi has done some of the better buildings in this cycle and I really like their project on 17th -- wil be interesting to see how these renderings evolve, current ones seem a bit 'out there'.

Ha! Another Buzz Geller proposal......

Legit developer or not, I have learned to keep my expectations managed with any proposal that comes from one of his properties.....

I will believe it when a shovel is in the ground.

[roshea999]

Would those be condos or apartments?

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by twister244

Ha! Another Buzz Geller proposal......

Legit developer or not, I have learned to keep my expectations managed with any proposal that comes from one of his properties.....

I will believe it when a shovel is in the ground.

At a bare minimum I think we are assured the office component will never happen since he is holding on ownership to that lot.

I can hold out hope for the tower once the land changes ownership.

[CastleScott]

^ Build it!!

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

And its got a legit developer behind it, which must be a first for Buzz. I definitely prefer the Hines project that was proposed on this site, but Karoi has done some of the better buildings in this cycle and I really like their project on 17th -- wil be interesting to see how these renderings evolve, current ones seem a bit 'out there'.

Obviously Hines was the more legit developer. I assumed that Hines just decided to stay with lower hanging fruit so in that respect Lynd is a good option. They're more creative from what I gather (I read a fascinating story about the business a few years ago) and their outsized success with Joule (I still like that name better) likely brought them to focus on this opportunity.

Their primary energy may be on raising funding for the 60+ story tower in Austin which is a JV with Lincoln Property Co.

I get a kick out of how Buzz is looking at a JV so that he ends up with some improved real estate. Nicely creative.

Originally Posted by twister244

Ha! Another Buzz Geller proposal......

Legit developer or not, I have learned to keep my expectations managed with any proposal that comes from one of his properties.....

I will believe it when a shovel is in the ground.

Fair enough; most of why this project proceeds or not has more to do with Lynd and not Buzz. Lot's of things have to still come together.

Originally Posted by roshea999

Would those be condos or apartments?

Apartments is what I'd presume.

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

At a bare minimum I think we are assured the office component will never happen since he is holding on ownership to that lot.

I can hold out hope for the tower once the land changes ownership.

That part I'm unclear on. Yes the parcels are separate but there is a JV that comes into play somehow so it seems a bit creative - complicated, or maybe not; I can't tell.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Meliorem

Census population statistics are not comparable. Continuous urban fabric is what makes a city, not annexation of single-family homes sprawl.

So cities/metros that have to contend with various continuity-breaking features like lakes (in Seattle) or 'mountains' and desert ravines, preserves and open space (San Diego and Phoenix) don't count due to not being 'continuous'?

Eh, not important to me for thinking in terms of peer cities.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

So cities/metros that have to contend with various continuity-breaking features like lakes (in Seattle) or 'mountains' and desert ravines, preserves and open space (San Diego and Phoenix) don't count due to not being 'continuous'?

Eh, not important to me for thinking in terms of peer cities.

The same goes for how we count Boulder - just because it set up a minuscule greenbelt separating it from the L-towns to its east, and is the seat of its own County, we are supposed to pretend it isn't a part of Denver? This despite the fact that it shares the same media market, transit agency, is a part of DRCOG, etc. etc. And nearly 50% of Boulder's workforce comes from Denver MSA counties (myself included - hell, I commute to Boulder on some days and Downtown Denver on others). And this is not even to mention all of the professionals with offices in Boulder who do a large part of their business in Denver counties (and vice-versa).

It's a crude tool, but the CSA measure comes across as the best way to remedy the reality that many communities are linked both socially and economically even without urban continuity.

Or else just set a fixed distance from the center (say 45 miles), and add up all the census tracts inside that radius? At least then Greeley and the rest of northern Weld County wouldn't get lumped in.

But back to Meliorem's original point - I don't personally consider the municipal boundaries of the central city to matter much either. Just because Phoenix and Houston can annex a larger percentage of their suburbs than the average American city does not mean they can pretend to be in the same league as NYC or LA.

[mhays]

The only reason that central-city population stats are discussed is that non-nerds think they're relevant.

Everything we discuss other than localized regulations/administration -- local economies for example -- is based on the broader area, not what's inside or outside a line.

[twister244]

When discussing peer cities, I definitely view Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland as peer cities. I've been in Phoenix all week and it's a completely different animal. The downtown is souless and devoid of the kind of character and attractions/transit Denver has.

[CastleScott]

^ I believe I would throw Kansas City into the mix as well and even Sacramento because since I moved here I've noticed that the older treesy neighborhoods near downtown and midtown seen to mimic Denver hoods although there a bit denser..

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by twister244

When discussing peer cities, I definitely view Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland as peer cities. I've been in Phoenix all week and it's a completely different animal. The downtown is souless and devoid of the kind of character and attractions/transit Denver has.

Given that your definition is wholly different (from mine) I can't disagree. It's also why I defined and explained my own thinking.

Take Dallas for example. Over the last couple of decades they've accumulated like 10X the number of HQ's as Denver. Dallas is clearly in a higher tier at this point. Interestingly, most of the corporate-HQ energy is in 'North Dallas' as opposed to downtown. I'd assume downtown Dallas in not as cool as downtown Denver either. They have nice cultural facilities though. I assume if you live in downtown Dallas then you know where the cool spots are.

If you're looking for cool in Phoenix it sounds like you need to venture to Scottsdale and Tempe. Downtown Phoenix even with its current construction is more like Denver in 1995.

Several years ago a hot investment tip was to find out where the 'gays' were moving. They had a great talent for moving into an older neighborhood doing renovation and injecting life and enthusiasm. So if you live there then you know where the interesting places are. Like in Denver, the best music venues are not in the CBD though Phoenix doesn't have anything that matches LoDo. Need to go to Tempe for that.

Can the CBD district of Phoenix improve as much as Denver has since 1995? Possibly, there is a bunch of 20 to 30-story towers in the pipeline in addition to several current nice projects. We'll have to revisit this question in a couple of decades.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mhays

Everything we discuss other than localized regulations/administration -- local economies for example -- is based on the broader area, not what's inside or outside a line.

I like that; arbitrary boundaries have been a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by mr1138

The same goes for how we count Boulder - just because it set up a minuscule greenbelt separating it from the L-towns to its east, and is the seat of its own County, we are supposed to pretend it isn't a part of Denver? This despite the fact that it shares the same media market, transit agency, is a part of DRCOG, etc. etc. And nearly 50% of Boulder's workforce comes from Denver MSA counties (myself included - hell, I commute to Boulder on some days and Downtown Denver on others). And this is not even to mention all of the professionals with offices in Boulder who do a large part of their business in Denver counties (and vice-versa).

It's a crude tool, but the CSA measure comes across as the best way to remedy the reality that many communities are linked both socially and economically even without urban continuity.

Or else just set a fixed distance from the center (say 45 miles), and add up all the census tracts inside that radius? At least then Greeley and the rest of northern Weld County wouldn't get lumped in.

But back to Meliorem's original point - I don't personally consider the municipal boundaries of the central city to matter much either. Just because Phoenix and Houston can annex a larger percentage of their suburbs than the average American city does not mean they can pretend to be in the same league as NYC or LA.

This is exactly right.

Only the Office of Management and Budget (the creator of the CSA/MSA scheme) and the Census Bureau do not count Boulder as part of the Denver metro. In every other context that I can recall in the 30 years I've lived here, Boulder is ALWAYS considered part of the Denver metro area. http://www.metrodenver.org/do-business/demographics/population/

The OMB's CSA/MSA definitions are based on a complicated formula involving worker commuting patterns between a "central county" and "outlying counties" and that's it. The OMB even cautions in their documents defining the CSA/MSA system that the use of their CSA and MSA defined areas are "intended to provide nationally consistent delineations for collecting, tabulating, and publishing Federal statistics" and that "in reviewing and revising these areas, OMB does not take into account or attempt to anticipate any public or private sector uses that may be made of the delineations."

Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis are not only good peers for Denver population-wise, but there are cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political attributes that the four cities have in common that we don't share as strongly with Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Nashville, and Austin. One attribute that Denver, Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis share that contributes to many of their similarities is the miles and miles of "good urban bones" historic neighborhoods formed in the mid/late 1800s based on a walkable grid of rectilinear blocks surrounding a dense thriving core downtown that is the undisputed heart of the city and region.

[CastleScott]

^ Very well said-thanks Ken.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

This is exactly right.

Only the Office of Management and Budget (the creator of the CSA/MSA scheme) and the Census Bureau do not count Boulder as part of the Denver metro. In every other context that I can recall in the 30 years I've lived here, Boulder is ALWAYS considered part of the Denver metro area. http://www.metrodenver.org/do-business/demographics/population/

The OMB's CSA/MSA definitions are based on a complicated formula involving worker commuting patterns between a "central county" and "outlying counties" and that's it. The OMB even cautions in their documents defining the CSA/MSA system that the use of their CSA and MSA defined areas are "intended to provide nationally consistent delineations for collecting, tabulating, and publishing Federal statistics" and that "in reviewing and revising these areas, OMB does not take into account or attempt to anticipate any public or private sector uses that may be made of the delineations."

Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis are not only good peers for Denver population-wise, but there are cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political attributes that the four cities have in common that we don't share as strongly with Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Nashville, and Austin. One attribute that Denver, Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis share that contributes to many of their similarities is the miles and miles of "good urban bones" historic neighborhoods formed in the mid/late 1800s based on a walkable grid of rectilinear blocks surrounding a dense thriving core downtown that is the undisputed heart of the city and region.

Thanks Ken.

I definitely think of Seattle as Denver's closest peer, even though they are arguably "ahead" of us in many ways. The first time I visited, I expected it to feel more like San Francisco simply because of the "stats" I had seen - but its culture and lifestyle really are a lot more like Denver.

I suppose in the end a lot of this is semantics and doesn't really change the reality of what's going on. It can just be a little frustrating seeing claims like Houston being the "4th largest city in America." This is really more a fault of the political balkanization of the American metro area in the second half of the 20th century than of the Census. Imagine if NYC's five boroughs had remained independent cities as that urban area grew. The use of counties by the Census to provide consistency also has flaws from the very start, because East Coast states don't have counties the size of Weld (or San Bernardino county in California). I suppose the only way of getting more granular, as I said above, would be to use Census tracts rather than counties.

That said, the culture shock going between Denver and Boulder is real! When I go between the two, oftentimes I'm struck by how many Boulderites (my parents included) clearly rarely leave their own city. And for that matter, how many Denverites are probably rarely ever in Boulder.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis are not only good peers for Denver population-wise, but there are cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political attributes that the four cities have in common that we don't share as strongly with Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Nashville, and Austin. One attribute that Denver, Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis share that contributes to many of their similarities is the miles and miles of "good urban bones" historic neighborhoods formed in the mid/late 1800s based on a walkable grid of rectilinear blocks surrounding a dense thriving core downtown that is the undisputed heart of the city and region.

I agree! People use "peer cities" in lots of different ways, so its helpful to identify a definition that you are relying upon when you use the term. I think your definition is really good - similar "cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political" characteristics. I might add: similar in population and historical development paths.

Also, honestly, I think when most people identify a "peer city" they are in part speaking aspirationally - what city do they admire and WANT to be like.

By these definitions, Denver is nothing like Phoenix or Las Vegas, even though those are large, booming western cities. In 1910, when Denver had already developed into one of the largest cities in the West with 213,000 people, Phoenix was about the size of Alamosa and Las Vegas was similar to current day Fairplay. That history matters in the development of a culture, mindset, and way of life.

The cities you mention - Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis - have much more in common with Denver in terms of culture, history and lifestyle, not to mention their look and feel ('bones') and/or have features that many people in Denver would like to emulate. Kansas City? St. Louis? Las Vegas? Phoenix? Nashville? Charlotte?

Not so much.

San Francisco, though not a Denver peer city, still has more in common with Denver than does Phoenix or Las Vegas.

I would also not include Dallas as a peer city, given the huge population differences between Dallas and Denver and the VAST, VAST cultural differences between the cities and between Colorado and Texas. (Marijuana is STILL seriously ILLEGAL in Texas.. WTF?).

Austin is a little trickier and, although I would not currently think of it as a "peer city", it may well become one with the rapid changes and growth happening there.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I agree! People use "peer cities" in lots of different ways, so its helpful to identify a definition that you are relying upon when you use the term. I think your definition is really good - similar "cultural, lifestyle, demographic, environmental, and political" characteristics. I might add: similar in population and historical development paths.

Also, honestly, I think when most people identify a "peer city" they are in part speaking aspirationally - what city do they admire and WANT to be like.

Excellent; nicely articulated.

My approach to peer cities was decidedly different and I tried to clarify as well as I could the differences.

speaking aspirationally - what city do they admire and WANT to be like.

BINGO

Politics and who do 'I' identify most with were both excluded from my own mindset approach to peer cities. But given most people are political animals it's always difficult be non-political.

Demographics? I'm never sure what that means to people and I'm reluctant to make incorrect assumptions. In the interest of being 'politically correct' I don't care about demographics. Even data generalizations about education and and income, for example, could essentially indicate a distaste for lower socioeconomic people. That's not important to me.

Btw, I did like mr1138's first comment as well as his followup.