DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Originally Posted by Ich

Anyone notice the building they are tearing down is pictured as an open lot in one of the renderings for the 16th street mall?

That would explain the lack of a site development plan for that lot. Did the developer have plans for something mixed use though? I understand the idea behind rebranding the CBD. However, I hope we just call it upper downtown, as opposed to UpDo.

[iNfill]

Originally Posted by Ich

Anyone notice the building they are tearing down is pictured as an open lot in one of the renderings for the 16th street mall?

On page 20 they discuss tearing down the Cortell's building and using it as an open space until it is redeveloped. They also show a picture showing the current conditions of the building and a rendering of it as open space.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

As far as the anti-growth initiative, I think it probably passes. It will be interesting to see what sort of formal opposition forms against the anti-growth initiative and what kind of money lines up to oppose it. Even if a pretty good war chest gets built to defeat the proposal, the fact that the Sports Gaming measure is barely eking by despite millions spent to support it and no organized opposition is certainly one indicator that lots of business funding doesn't assure a favorable result on these type of initiatives.

CherryCreek - I know TakeFive doesn't think the growth initiative will really hinder growth in the State of CO, but it will, massively. The couple million dollars that were spent on each of Prop CC and DD are nothing compared to what the business community will spend trying to defeat the growth initiative. I think ten(s) of millions will go into defeating that because the threat is far greater than $20 or $30 million - we have hundreds of times that to lose and that kind of reach is hard to defeat.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

If you figure it will be 3 years before they break ground and another 5 years to build then the benefits to transit are a decade away. But that was the whole point of building it now so that TOD would come later. It just takes (lots) of time.

TakeFive - lots of good points you make, but one major downfall. Have you taken a look at zoning in the rail corridors that have been approved for 15 years? Hardly any of the municipalities who benefited from light rail have upzoned their corridors to dense TOD - HARDLY any and they've had 15 years now to do it. Outside of Denver, Lakewood was the singular municipality who was proactive (hard to believe, I know). Lakewood comes with a caveat because while they upzoned land, the TOD nodes are so tiny and hold so little potential to contribute to the transit ridership over the long term (even moreso now with their 1% BS). Lone Tree was proactive but they've already essentially developed as a low/medium density suburban TOD (which is great but it's not adding significanr ridership). Aurora has some medium density zoning around their TOD nodes, but nobody can afford to develop density in Aurora because of the cost of doing business there, so it'll never happen without massive incentives.Otherwise, there's hardly ANY dense zoning along rail corridors in the entire metro area.

The bottom line is this: we need many hundreds of thousands of more beds located within 1/2 mile of rail and high frequency bus transit if we want to be able to sustain the MASSIVE system we've now paid for and we can't do that until all these municipalities significantly upzone a whole lot of land.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Yeah I wish we were able to pass upzoning along with FasTracks in 2004. I'm not sure if that would have comported with the state but those corridors should have been much more developed. Lincoln Station has some stuff places like Oxford station are a joke. Frankly, I'm still very upset that RTD didn't use their land at Broadway Station or Colorado Station more effectively.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by laniroj

CherryCreek - I know TakeFive doesn't think the growth initiative will really hinder growth in the State of CO, but it will, massively. The couple million dollars that were spent on each of Prop CC and DD are nothing compared to what the business community will spend trying to defeat the growth initiative. I think ten(s) of millions will go into defeating that because the threat is far greater than $20 or $30 million - we have hundreds of times that to lose and that kind of reach is hard to defeat.

A couple follow up comments on this. From memory, I thought the ballot submission had already been finalized and that the growth limit would be on the ballot. This is not the case. I see that Ballot Title Setting Board approved the language of the title in September (Initiative 122), but a party has challenged that approval and the case is now pending before the state supreme court. Thus, the proponents have not even begun to collect signatures.

If the court upholds the Ballot Title approval, then the proponents will have six months to collect about 124,000 signatures to get this on the ballot. That's a lot of signatures, but certainly not impossible assuming the proponents can find the manpower to gather signatures.

Still, it's not a sure thing it will make on the ballot.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I didn’t vote against it because I care about the refund, I definitely don’t. I just don’t trust the current leadership to spend the money in a way I would agree with. I’m quite content to keep state government lean.

Originally Posted by laniroj

Lone Tree was proactive but they've already essentially developed as a low/medium density suburban TOD (which is great but it's not adding significanr ridership).

As soon as the RidgeGate Parkway station opened it immediately became the 2nd busiest station along the SE Corridor. The last parcel on the west side will be an eight-story apartment. But more importantly the lion's share of TOD will be on the east side which is still ahead, not behind us.

Originally Posted by laniroj

Aurora has some medium density zoning around their TOD nodes, but nobody can afford to develop density in Aurora because of the cost of doing business there, so it'll never happen without massive incentives.

Aurora is the one suburb that allowed medium density as they grew. At that time, they received tons of criticism for allowing all those apartments, townhomes and condos. Fast forward (and not counting the 'A Line') Nine Mile Station (along with Littleton/Mineral Station) are the two top performing suburban stations. Florida Stations with NO parking has quickly risen to 25th busiest out of 66 stations.

TOD apartments have been built at Iliff Station, Colfax Station, Fitz Station and Dayton Station. Construction has started for TOD at 2nd and Abilene and an total redevelopment of the old Regatta Plaza across from Nine Mile Station. More TOD is in the works at Fitz, south of Colfax, and near the 13th Ave Station, and condos nearby Aurora Center Station.

Originally Posted by laniroj

The bottom line is this: we need many hundreds of thousands of more beds located within 1/2 mile of rail and high frequency bus transit if we want to be able to sustain the MASSIVE system we've now paid for and we can't do that until all these municipalities significantly upzone a whole lot of land.

Not even close; even downtown Denver has only added ~17,000 residents since 2000.

What's needed is a transit system that people want to utilize; it's convenient and accessible - which should include first and last mile service, doesn't take twice as long as driving - it needs to be more efficient with fewer stops and get people where they need to go - which again goes to first and last mile service.

I've already pointed out previously that suburbs need to do more to add density.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

That would explain the lack of a site development plan for that lot. Did the developer have plans for something mixed use though? I understand the idea behind rebranding the CBD. However, I hope we just call it upper downtown, as opposed to UpDo.

Let's just change it from CBD to THC. "The Heart of the City".

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I didn’t vote against it because I care about the refund, I definitely don’t. I just don’t trust the current leadership to spend the money in a way I would agree with. I’m quite content to keep state government lean.

No wonder we can't have nice things.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Let's just change it from CBD to THC. "The Heart of the City".

Priceless!

Should what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas?

Las Vegas passes controversial homeless camping ban
November 6, 2019 By Shea Johnson and Briana Erickson Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday passed a controversial ordinance that will ban people from camping and sleeping in public areas downtown and in residential areas if there are beds free at established homeless shelters.

Mayor Carolyn Goodman made a passionate plea for action before the vote, lamenting how 20 years of talks since her husband, Oscar, was the mayor, had led to no progress.

Twenty years of no progress? Sounds familiar.

The problem, unfortunately is that too many prefer just to "live off the land". I wouldn't mind if they found an area to create an urban camping ground with access to water, sanitation facilities etc and let them enjoy the land. I nice KOA campground will run $30-$40 a night so it would be a heck of a deal.

You can also read about the latest plan to attack homelessness in Colorado.

National initiative to address homelessness expands in Colorado beyond Metro Denver
November 7, 2019 By Donna Bryson - Denverite

Eight more Colorado counties are joining metro Denver in a nationwide initiative aimed at ending homelessness, and they’re getting $500,000 from Kaiser Permanente to plan how best to work together toward their ambitious goal.

If you prefer to contrast and compare there's this

Why homelessness is going down in Houston but up in Dallas
JULY 2, 2019 BY JUAN PABLO GARNHAM - The Texas Tribune

But things have radically changed. While redevelopment has maybe made homelessness more visible to the urban core's new residents, the numbers show a 54% decrease in the Houston area's homeless population since 2011. This is according to the Point-in-Time count, a census that is done at the end of each January across the country, including in 11 urban areas of Texas.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

Yeah I wish we were able to pass upzoning along with FasTracks in 2004. I'm not sure if that would have comported with the state but those corridors should have been much more developed. Lincoln Station has some stuff places like Oxford station are a joke. Frankly, I'm still very upset that RTD didn't use their land at Broadway Station or Colorado Station more effectively.

haha, I check in every singled year with RTD whether or not they've deemed the ground they do nothing with "excess". They have to make that determination before they offload or collaborate on any land they have and guess what...they never determine any land is excess! They are a joke of an organization and an embarrassment of leadership.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by mishko27

This is ABSOLUTELY nuts. I can do better with extra $40 bucks than the state can with that money. LIFE CHANGING REFUND.

Pretty sure the no votes are philosophical and not actually about a couple sheckles. People in CO are inherently skeptical of government and it's proving out time and again with these elections that they prefer limited government even if it means some things languish like roads, schools, etc. It's not dissimilar to development...it could be a great thing, but folks are skeptical and so they go no.

By the way, as someone who grew up in the Sprizzle, and moved elsewhere in my younger years, I find Colorado roads to be in excellent condition compared to many other places so I don't get the road thing personally. I also find Denver roads much superior to Sprizzle's, but not shocker there. Schools are different, a tale of two stories because the wealthier districts bond their way through to resources while the poorer districts shoot bonds down and don't have sufficient resources.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I've already pointed out previously that suburbs need to do more to add density.

Yep, drastically more. Like hundreds of projects and tens of thousands of units more. While the stations you mention are busy, it's a relative term. They are busy compared to other stations in our system, but our entire system is completely lacking ridership when compared to what's needed to sustain the system. I fear unless zoning changes around most stations soon, the FasTracks program will be a gigantic lesson of what not to do - ie spend billions of dollars on public transit but not accompany that investment with local policies that encourage use of those billions of dollars of public infrastructure. Couple that with the need for RTD to solve the last mile problem, it's not looking good. Downward spiral here we go...

[bulldurhamer]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Yep, drastically more. Like hundreds of projects and tens of thousands of units more. While the stations you mention are busy, it's a relative term. They are busy compared to other stations in our system, but our entire system is completely lacking ridership when compared to what's needed to sustain the system. I fear unless zoning changes around most stations soon, the FasTracks program will be a gigantic lesson of what not to do - ie spend billions of dollars on public transit but not accompany that investment with local policies that encourage use of those billions of dollars of public infrastructure. Couple that with the need for RTD to solve the last mile problem, it's not looking good. Downward spiral here we go...

it's now $10.50 to take the A line that will probably be delayed from downtown to the airport.

an uber with door to door service is $30.



until we're ready to make some hard choices about uber, rtd will continue to languish. not only are they ripping off their drivers, but they're also destroying almost every public transportation system they can. that's all part of the plan of course. free labor = disaster for us all.

stop uber or shut up.

[kemachs]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Lone Tree is by far and wide the most progressive, forward thinking municipality in the Denver area. They are wonderful. It greatly helps that they started from nothing and essentially have one master developer for everything with generational long term capital. The only poor decision Lone Tree made was allowing high end single family homes first, who then decried everything that came after...but they've had strong leadership that has ignored the typical naysayers.

Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I can see, the areas around the transit stations in LT aren't particularly pleasant from an urban perspective. Yes they are higher density in terms of residential, but it doesn't have the integration of retail/housing the same way even Belleview Station does. Now if you're talking about future plans around Lone Tree Station, maybe I can get on board...but we're talking a ways out until that's fully realized.

[The Dirt]

The only reason that Lone Tree is able to do this is because this is all greenfield development with no NIMBY backlash to put the brakes on it. This is the same reason why the light rail lines go through freight rail right of ways instead of, say, Broadway, and the bulk of the development is happening in TODs near formerly industrial areas (RINO). Stops in poorer locations have also had more success (Lincoln Park) versus relatively more affluent stations (Yale). Don't underestimate the power of the NIMBYs. They have the power to stop just about any positive change.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

it's now $10.50 to take the A line that will probably be delayed from downtown to the airport.

Cost me 5 bucks to get from O'Hare to the Loop in Chicago on a train line that runs every 7 minutes. Sure the Blue Line is... Well the Blue Line, but it's reliable and I could rely on it for my needs.

Taking the A-Line I plan 3 trains. 1) Super early 2) Earlier than I still want to be at DIA 3) I pray to the heavens that this train will not be delayed.

[rct]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

it's now $10.50 to take the A line that will probably be delayed from downtown to the airport.

an uber with door to door service is $30.



until we're ready to make some hard choices about uber, rtd will continue to languish. not only are they ripping off their drivers, but they're also destroying almost every public transportation system they can. that's all part of the plan of course. free labor = disaster for us all.

stop uber or shut up.

I like your points, but think you logic is backwards. Competition is good for the consumer. The consumer is what matters right? RTD needs to lower their fares and they will get many more riders and maybe more revenue. A train is a fixed cost, an Uber driver isn't. The train runs no matter if there are riders or not. Supply and demand. The biggest thing i don't think RTD gets is that say you have 2 or 3 maybe 4 passengers in an Uber on top you have door to door service its border line cheaper than the train and way more convenient...[/B]and i like the Train[/B]... but on a cost basis it doesn't make sense unless you're traveling by yourself. Kinda sad...

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Let's just change it from CBD to THC. "The Heart of the City".

No wonder we can't have nice things.

Define nice things.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

it's now $10.50 to take the A line that will probably be delayed from downtown to the airport.

an uber with door to door service is $30.

until we're ready to make some hard choices about uber, rtd will continue to languish. not only are they ripping off their drivers, but they're also destroying almost every public transportation system they can. that's all part of the plan of course. free labor = disaster for us all.

stop uber or shut up.

I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with Uber but you own experience creates a huge misperception.

According to Pew Research:

Even as the share of Americans who use ride-hailing has grown substantially in recent years, the new survey finds that few adults overall are making these services a part of their regular routine. Only one-in-ten users of ride-hailing services say they use these apps at least weekly, including just 2% who say they use them every day or almost every day. Another 22% are monthly users...

Downtown Denver Partnership's own survey gives ride-share and Taxis a 1.5% commuter share while 40% come by transit. Ride-share isn't economically realistic for most people - well except for the 1.5% in Denver according to Downtown Denver Partnership and I'll guess that most of these are shorter trips. Even if ride-share commuting were to double to 3% that's hardly a threat to transit.

You reference the A Line and airport specifically; turns out that the A Line is already the busiest single line in the system so it's doing fine and nicely growing.

The airport is a really big ride-share deal. I went out Thurs and made $102 in four hours. Yesterday afternoon I made $55 in 2 1/2 hours.

On an average day DIA has 120,000 local users (including visitors). Most local flyers leave from home. Most flyers live in the suburbs. Most flyers in the suburbs that choose the convenience of point-to point ride-share find it faster, less stressful than driving their own car. Out of all the airport trips I've done all riders went from where they slept to the airport or vice-versa which includes hotels in the case of travelers.

BTW, I went out after the Nuggets game last night for 2 1/2 hours and only made $16 per hour but it was an easy, relaxed time. I picked up a young lady from a Sports Bar going home who recognized me from when my son and I stopping in for a DQ at her other job. BTW, cash tips (outside the APP) usually add about 10%.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

The only reason that Lone Tree is able to do this is because this is all greenfield development with no NIMBY backlash to put the brakes on it. This is the same reason why the light rail lines go through freight rail right of ways instead of, say, Broadway, and the bulk of the development is happening in TODs near formerly industrial areas (RINO). Stops in poorer locations have also had more success (Lincoln Park) versus relatively more affluent stations (Yale). Don't underestimate the power of the NIMBYs. They have the power to stop just about any positive change.

There's no question that the light/commuter rail system took the path of least resistance and a much less expensive undertaking.

RyanD points out the biggest drawbacks of transit in general - reliability, time and convenience. I'd blame it on those impatient millennials except these characteristics are important to all of us.

It's easy to forget that 90% of the jobs in metro Denver are outside of downtown. People living in the suburbs (including near Yale Station which is more of a blue collar area)) may not work downtown. If you work a blue collar job or in retail/restaurant industry for example there's likely no need to schlep all the way downtown or your skills have you going in a different direction.

Downtown Denver does easily has the highest job density so for urban stations transit would be naturally attractive. After all, there's also many lower paying jobs in downtown.

Originally Posted by kemachs

Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I can see, the areas around the transit stations in LT aren't particularly pleasant from an urban perspective. Yes they are higher density in terms of residential, but it doesn't have the integration of retail/housing the same way even Belleview Station does. Now if you're talking about future plans around Lone Tree Station, maybe I can get on board...but we're talking a ways out until that's fully realized.

It's fair to say Denver's rail transit is very different with respect to urban versus suburban stations in general. The area around Belleview Station was a matter of good timing. It was the last to be developed in the DTC resulting in a 'today' approach to mixed use.

RyanD mentions Chicago but those lines have been around for a hundred years so a lot has changed. Plus Chicagoland had 8.5 million people. Many of Denver's rail lines are less than 3 years old; chances are over a couple of decades a lot will change with respect to TOD in Denver.