DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[DenvertoLA]

subreddit joined. let's keep it interesting

[SnyderBock]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

According to Chris Cillizza the earth is indeed moving.

Billionaires are the problem, not the solution. Ever since the Citizens United ruling, billionaires have discovered that they can buy our elections and vote themselves richer. So why on Earth would another billionaire be surging in the polls? I don't think I will ever understand what goes on in the minds of the vast majority of people. We're talking a solid 65% of the entire voting population that is now planning to vote for a billionaire (either Trump or Bloomberg). These billionaires are so out of touch with the working class. This is mind boggling.

My 2 cents, back to topic...

Development news:

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It’s easy to talk about changing policy. But what needs to change is the politics, and that’s a hell of a lot harder...

Give it two decades (at most) until the boomers die off or have to take public transit to community meetings, then we'll solve this.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by fleury

THANK YOU. Been following these threads since 07. Has never been this boring. Ya'll are so woke now.

Maybe it's a sign of the slow down? Not enough development news...

Anyone know what's going on in Fox Station?!?! I'm anxious to see what happens with all that ground RTD employees bought decades ago that they've yet to monetize!

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Maybe it's a sign of the slow down? Not enough development news...

Anyone know what's going on in Fox Station?!?! I'm anxious to see what happens with all that ground RTD employees bought decades ago that they've yet to monetize!

Honestly I think Q1 2020 has been pretty exciting and active from a development standpoint:

1). One Platte broke ground,

2). X3 looks to be starting, which should make it the tallest building under construction other than Block 162,

3). WTC is getting started,

4). McGregor Square topped out,

5). An 18-story hotel in DTC is getting started,

6). There are a million projects getting ready to take off (Marriot Downtown, 13th and Glenarm hotel, 20-story DTC Kimpton Hotel, Gates District, The Current, Watershed, Kenect Denver, etc...)

[wong21fr]

Also the Great Hall project at DIA is resuming- after a six month delay:

Denver just hired a company for $195 million to make the airport’s Great Hall great (or at least finished)


It will be nice to see this city project, as well as the convention center expansion, start making material progress again after such embarrassing headaches project management-wise.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

subreddit joined. let's keep it interesting

Got to actually have people post to keep things interesting. The naysayers on this thread have done very little in terms of contributing posts, original content, articles, etc. They're content consumers without contributing much to the public sphere. It does get quite boring when the same one person posts and then three other people counterposts.

The subreddit is a good idea. Looks like it already has a bit of traction.

EDIT: Damn. No wonder people wanted a subreddit- some straight up karma whores over there (looking at you coolmandan03).

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Maybe it's a sign of the slow down? Not enough development news...

Anyone know what's going on in Fox Station?!?! I'm anxious to see what happens with all that ground RTD employees bought decades ago that they've yet to monetize!

I think that it's more that this forum has matured quite a bit and users no longer spend days arguing over the facade of a five-story apartment building or daydreaming about Trango Tower. So much development has occurred that we're no longer fighting over scrapes and putting energy into what-ifs. The lack of major, transformative public projects also dampens enthusiasm.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by coolmandan03

Why not relocate to a Reddit DevelopmentDenver thread? We could more easily manage conversations (where TakeFive, wong21fr, and The Dirt could continue their own conversations in a post) and we could continue discussion on Denver Development?

It's also easier to quote and post images now directly to the feed. I started a subreddit here (that probably wont take off):

https://www.reddit.com/r/DevelopmentDenver/

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Got to actually have people post to keep things interesting. The naysayers on this thread have done very little in terms of contributing posts, original content, articles, etc. They're content consumers without contributing much to the public sphere. It does get quite boring when the same one person posts and then three other people counterposts.

The subreddit is a good idea. Looks like it already has a bit of traction.

Yes, absolutely I hope it works well for those who want to pursue this. As a free market guy there's no shortage of media sources.

This site has survived for going on 20 years despite "being held up by rubber bands and popsicle sticks." As you point out, typical discussion topics have continued to evolve.

[coolmandan03]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Got to actually have people post to keep things interesting. The naysayers on this thread have done very little in terms of contributing posts, original content, articles, etc. They're content consumers without contributing much to the public sphere. It does get quite boring when the same one person posts and then three other people counterposts.

The subreddit is a good idea. Looks like it already has a bit of traction.

EDIT: Damn. No wonder people wanted a subreddit- some straight up karma whores over there (looking at you coolmandan03).

1) I think people would post more if it was easy to sort and add content (I think we can all agree that adding photos of new developments to this site isn't easy). Especially large photos. And then those get placed directly in the middle of a different/interesting conversation.

2) I'm trying to add as much content as possible to get it started so it's not a blank page that no one is interested in.

3) It's fine if you don't want to join - I'll still check here and take the info being discussed to put on the sub and continue the conversation there to a wider audience.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by coolmandan03

3) It's fine if you don't want to join - I'll still check here and take the info being discussed to put on the sub and continue the conversation there to a wider audience.

Hey, I joined almost as soon as it was created. Reddit is the better platform for the reasons you mentioned- just hope the Denver Fugly crowd doesn’t flood the subreddit with crap.

[coolmandan03]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

just hope the Denver Fugly crowd doesn’t flood the subreddit with crap.

I plan on keeping it pretty Development related - but don't plan to remove discussion about RTD and TOD on there (in their own post). No missing dogs, no politics, and no news (unless development oriented).

[TakeFive]

The River Mile

Hat Tip to the new Reddit site where I picked up a link to one of 5280's very long, meandering but often well done pieces. It's primarily about "who is Rhys Duggan and how did we get to the River Mile." Since there's no comments over there but definitely some interesting factoids it's worth highlighting a few of them.

Inside One of the Largest Redevelopments in Denver’s History
5280 FEBRUARY 2020 BY ROBERT SANCHEZ

The article speaks to Duggan's quiet but soothing personality. Whether it was this and/or great timing the whole key was Duggan became aware that Elitches Park may be available for sale. Timing is everything.

Apparently Duggan already had an Equity Partner he had worked with. It's Vancouver-based Second City Real Estate. They've been primarily connected to 2nd Tier "mid-sized markets," just the type of project Duggan had done. Duggan became acquainted with Kroenke RE when he sold "the 98,794-square-foot Belleview Promenade retail center in Greenwood Village for $49 million" to Kroenke's group. Kroeke's potential interest in the Elitches site is obvious.

There is a long row to hoe going forward.

Revesco needs to work out a complicated list of infrastructure requirements with the city that include sewer systems, drainage, and street layout,

This is being done and is just part of the early complicated stuff. More interesting and tricky is this:

As part of an extensive rehabilitation, the South Platte will be dredged and deepened up to eight additional feet to ease flooding concerns in the area and then lined, in parts, with new vegetation. The portion of the river project adjacent to the River Mile will require scooping out tens of thousands of tons of silt and sand, with the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at an estimated cost of nearly $50 to $60 million.

Although the article is very long it is well worth the read; lots of information and background.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Anyone know what's going on in Fox Station?!?! I'm anxious to see what happens with all that ground RTD employees bought decades ago that they've yet to monetize!

This is an 'urban talking point' I've seen before. Would you care to add any context and substantiate?

I've only found one fairly decent piece on the topic when Megan Arellano wrote about it at Denverite back in August of 2016.

“In the last several years, we’ve acquired over a thousand properties,” Altes said ... the agency has more surplus property that likely will be sold in the coming years, says Susan Altes, RTD manager of real property. Right now, it’s about 132 acres spread out over about 25 properties.

Sounds like a lot and how did RTD accumulate this land?

“RTD only buys property that it needs for its projects,” Altes said, “So if we have surplus properties, they’re remnant pieces. We may have had to buy a whole property and only use pieces of it.”

Does RTD have any plans for what they do have?

But RTD is taking advantage of all the property it owns to control what gets built near some of its stations. There are four pilot sites where RTD takes this more active approach: Alameda Avenue Station, Old Town Arvada, a piece of property on the Welton corridor and the Federal station out in Lakewood.

Some of this has already been sold and developed since 2016.

Here's your challenge
Find one site that your company would be interested in that RTD owns? It just might bring you business.

NOTE: We've previously discussed the RTD owned parcel next to the Civic Center Station. Since it's entirely possible that at some point in the future Denver would consider a subway through downtown and/or light rail along So Broadway and Speer Blvd they really need to hang on to this land.

Urban Myth
What about all those Park N Rides? Wouldn't they better serve as TOD? Maybe... some day... but it's not that simple. Those Park N Rides were required by the FTA in the process of securing ~$1.5 billion in grants. Any proposed changes would have to be approved by the FTA. Good luck with that. It's also true that stations within the city center are different than suburban stations.

Being well familiar with the ridership numbers at rail stations it's a fact that Park N Rides have created ridership. Stations with NO parking tend to have lower ridership numbers. Stations like Mineral Station, Nine Mile Station and others are used to capacity.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by coolmandan03

No missing dogs...

......
Source One, Two, Three

[TakeFive]

Sold out! Denver 334-unit luxury condo development inks final sale
Feb 19, 2020 By James Rodriguez – Reporter, Denver Business Journal

All 334 residences at the 19-story luxury condo building have now been claimed by buyers, developer East West Partners announced Wednesday in a joint press release with its partner Ascentris, a Denver-based real estate private equity firm.

Nathan MacKinnon bought one of the penthouse units (Colorado Avalanche Star)

Video Link

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Great news regarding the Coloradan. Hopefully, that will entice other condo developers to enter the market

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

This is an 'urban talking point' I've seen before. Would you care to add any context and substantiate?

I'm referring to the many entities which own land near TOD sites that are controlled by current, and now former, RTD employees. They had a hunch the fasttracks would pass and they speculatively bought ground - I'm all for it and applaud them because they could have lost their bums! In my own experience, many TOD adjacent land owners are ready to cash out, but most of them want to sell at a TOD price without TOD zoning. Some areas have the zoning in place but I'd say most do not (definitely outside CCD). That's the land availability conundrum I often refer to.

The dredging of the Platte for River Mile is eternally exciting to me, would be so great to activate that river moreso than today. I swear I saw an old picture once which showed steam ships on the Platte adjacent to dtown. I'll see if I can dig it up. Anyone else recall having seen that? I am doing a project now on a river and am two years in - not super efficient working with the federal government on all that stuff, so I'm sure River Mile has many years ahead before they dredge - but I do hope they leave the dredge in place after!

Fun note, there also used to be steam ships on Sloan's Lake! I say we park a steam ship on Sloan and start casino gambling again (can you imagine that Council hearing?!?!). It wouldn't even have to pay property taxes!

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by laniroj

I'm referring to the many entities which own land near TOD sites that are controlled by current, and now former, RTD employees. They had a hunch the fasttracks would pass and they speculatively bought ground - I'm all for it and applaud them because they could have lost their bums! In my own experience, many TOD adjacent land owners are ready to cash out, but most of them want to sell at a TOD price without TOD zoning. Some areas have the zoning in place but I'd say most do not (definitely outside CCD). That's the land availability conundrum I often refer to.

The dredging of the Platte for River Mile is eternally exciting to me, would be so great to activate that river moreso than today. I swear I saw an old picture once which showed steam ships on the Platte adjacent to dtown. I'll see if I can dig it up. Anyone else recall having seen that? I am doing a project now on a river and am two years in - not super efficient working with the federal government on all that stuff, so I'm sure River Mile has many years ahead before they dredge - but I do hope they leave the dredge in place after!

Fun note, there also used to be steam ships on Sloan's Lake! I say we park a steam ship on Sloan and start casino gambling again (can you imagine that Council hearing?!?!). It wouldn't even have to pay property taxes!

Ah sorry; I had no clue about any of that so I assumed what I was aware of.

River Mile is definitely exciting to think about but looks to be a very slow slog from here to there. Props to steam ships.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Here's your challenge
Find one site that your company would be interested in that RTD owns? It just might bring you business.

NOTE: We've previously discussed the RTD owned parcel next to the Civic Center Station. Since it's entirely possible that at some point in the future Denver would consider a subway through downtown and/or light rail along So Broadway and Speer Blvd they really need to hang on to this land.

Urban Myth
What about all those Park N Rides? Wouldn't they better serve as TOD? Maybe... some day... but it's not that simple. Those Park N Rides were required by the FTA in the process of securing ~$1.5 billion in grants. Any proposed changes would have to be approved by the FTA. Good luck with that. It's also true that stations within the city center are different than suburban stations.

Point 1 - RTD requires their owned ground to be determined "excess property" before they can sell it. All of the ground that's been sold has already been determined surplus. The legislature could really help out here by mandating RTD defend why their existing land isn't excess land. The list is only available through a written request. The legislature could mandate they publicly market such excess ground or even auction it off.

Point 2 - as recently as the first week of January (I check twice per year), RTD had no excess land development property being offered for sale - nor have they since at least 2014 when I started checking with regularity.

Point 3 - You can submit a joint development plan if your plan lines up with existing zoning (major issue). To my knowledge, this hasn't yet been done but for a couple of shared parking garages at park n rides facilities and the JD was done with local governments. If any have been completed, certainly let me know - maybe Alameda?

Fox Station is a great candidate for removing the park n' ride and putting 200 units/acre on that ground. RTD selling parcels to stimulate development at first-in areas makes all the sense in the world to me.

So any news of Fox Station? The lack of response leads me to believe the new owner of the DP building doesn't have any immediate plans...