DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[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/devel...e-project-including-entertainment-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/devel...e-project-including-entertainment-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/news/...r-vote.html?iana=hpmvp_den_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 🞵🞵🞵🞵!

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-shou...me-piece-of-downtown-denver-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/news...ise-construction-slows-but-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-shou...me-piece-of-downtown-denver-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.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

https://www.cpr.org/2019/08/07/what-shou...me-piece-of-downtown-denver-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.

It costs RTD $123K per year to lease the land, and the MoH Foundation would lease it for $1 per year. Do you honestly think that this museum would generate a daily increase of 125 riders just for the deal to break even?

Hell, most people have no 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 clue what a MoH museum entails- they probably think it's a tribute to the video game series.

If the foundation or the state comes forward and drops some real money, or a clause is included that RTD can still seek redevelopment of the parcel I'll change my tune, but this is probably a good move by the RTD Board. It doesn't make sense to tie up such a prominent corner as a park for the next few decades without some development flexibility.

That said....

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

RTD is truly incompetent when it comes to divesting their real estate assets and trying to raise some pennies to maintain their funding. I have zero faith in RTD ever executing a decent real estate transaction short of another entity holding a 🞵🞵🞵 to the Board's collective head to get it done.

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

It costs RTD $123K per year to lease the land, and the MoH Foundation would lease it for $1 per year. Do you honestly think that this museum would generate a daily increase of 125 riders just for the deal to break even?

The projections I saw were 1,000,000 visitors annually — no idea of that is realistic or how they come up with the projection, but If it’s anywhere near true it would increase ridership far more than 125 daily — and would add additional a line trips in the tens of thousands I would imagine. Really you only need ~5,000 a line round trips for it to be revenue neutral.

In any case it certainly would generate more revenue than squatting on it (a lot which you don’t even own!) or ‘renting it to food trucks or something’. From the comments in the article it’s clear the board has spent zero time or energy thinking about what to do with a prominent plot of land that they are losing money on every year and that is currently a huge gash in our urban fabric.

[TakeFive]

Go ahead; tell us how you really feel


Credit CBS4 Denver

This is with respect to a Public Forum on the East Area Plan along East Colfax.

[The Dirt]

I was there. What a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 🞵🞵🞵🞵 show that was.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

I was there. What a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 🞵🞵🞵🞵 show that was.

I won't ask you how you really feel...

but you did nicely provide my chuckle for the day.

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

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

No, not really; that's my favorite part.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

The projections I saw were 1,000,000 visitors annually — no idea of that is realistic or how they come up with the projection, but If it’s anywhere near true it would increase ridership far more than 125 daily — and would add additional a line trips in the tens of thousands I would imagine. Really you only need ~5,000 a line round trips for it to be revenue neutral.

In any case it certainly would generate more revenue than squatting on it (a lot which you don’t even own!) or ‘renting it to food trucks or something’. From the comments in the article it’s clear the board has spent zero time or energy thinking about what to do with a prominent plot of land that they are losing money on every year and that is currently a huge gash in our urban fabric.

This is exactly why I believe public bodies should not be permitted to own/hold vacant ground. Unless there is an identified need within 5 years, there should be a state statute mandating public agencies inventory their vacant land and if no use moves forward within 5 years (hell make it 10) then they should be required to offer the land for sale to the public for affordable housing development or another beneficial public use - if none can be identified, then it goes to the highest bidder. Can you imagine how much of a dent we could make in affordable home inventory if all of the publicly held land by municipalities and governmental bodies was developed! It's density waiting to happen.