DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

If not for his banning, Pueblo would have 2M people by now.

Do you know how I know this is true? Because nobody can disprove the counterfactual.

Pueblo is integral to the economy of the Front Range, it will be one of the most important stops in the future front range and cross country high speed rail system. It leads the politics of the entire state by example. It has an actual airport where real planes sometimes take off and land. One of the most storied high school football rivalries in the entire world is played on its city fields. The worlds most important prisoners are housed just outside of town. There's literally never been a single historic structure torn down there for redevelopment.

So technically since it's so integral to the rest of the state, COS and Denver should be included with Pueblo and its population is in fact a lot more than 2M. And this milestone was actually hit WAY before it was predicted.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Bunt-fugly, I like this. When I win mega-millions, I am going to cover this City in condos so goddamn ugly, yet so goddamn affordable (no granite countertops here - I am singlehandedly going to revive the Formica brand), that people all over facebook are going to experience their brains tearing themselves apart. Think the shit you drive by leaving the Rio de Janeiro airport. Only more EIFS.

Bunt and The Dirt competing for comment of the year today.

[rds70]

Here is the best rendering I've seen of the Evans West project at 11th and Bannock.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

...None of you must have heard what CM Hinds had to say when he was urging his colleagues to vote no, which was imploring the developers to do something other than a big "luxury" building. Newsflash... that's what we're getting, and nothing else.

gopokes - respectfully, real leadership is not just talking but action. Younger generations, in which I am begrudgingly included, don't seem to easily make this connection. If Councilman Hinds cares about this issue, he should drive meaningful change to zoning and entitlements. He should also realize that the realities of current economics dictate that new construction needs to be luxury just to be built - there is no other way to force it to be affordable. If it's not luxury, you quite literally cannot build it.

Some things real leaders could offer up to garner more affordably priced units:

1. Offer property tax exemption/abatement. NYC offers a 100% exemption for setting aside 20% of a project's units between 80%-120% AMI.

2. Offer density/height bonuses in exchange for units affordable between 80%-100% AMI (for Denver).

3. Streamline the entitlement process. It takes, for a pro, 16 months to design/entitle a project right now (best case scenario). Cost increases alone in a 16 month period probably equate to about $75/month in rent increases.

3a. Reform the myriad layers of competing "development standards" which affect the built environment. I have quite literally never developed a project that was made better after all of the various agencies went through the plan with their narrow priorities. Some may say that's a good thing, but to them I say they don't understand how all of the minutia affects the whole (because they really don't).

4. Rezone larger swaths of Denver to allow for more density so development isn't so damn concentrated in small pockets. As you all have noticed, development follows development (herd mentality) and neighborhoods/residents get overwhelmed (rightfully so).

5. Stop pandering to small groups of very vocal/angry residents. Take time to engage the community, not just listen to the few really angry folks who show up to a Council meeting. There are TONS OF SUPPORTERS if you get out and canvas. Good developers know this and do it and when you tell a neighborhood association XXXX many people are in support, their opposition is often muted and those are the projects we don't hear about. Council members need to wake up and realize that more people have opinions about this than rich, white, established homeowners who have the time and privilege to be able to attend a City council hearing.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by rds70

Here is the best rendering I've seen of the Evans West project at 11th and Bannock.

Catty-corner to this proposed project by Mill Creek on the RMPBS site. This will be a busy corner for the next 2+ years.

[DenvertoLA]

While we're getting updates on all these mid-rises, does anyone know the status of 1420 Wynkoop? I really like the design of that one.

[jhwk]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

While we're getting updates on all these mid-rises, does anyone know the status of 1420 Wynkoop? I really like the design of that one.

As of August, delayed to late 2021. Looks like market conditions and city utility work that was delayed to April 2021.

https://14wynkoop.com/8-3-20-development-update/

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by jhwk

As of August, delayed to late 2021. Looks like market conditions and city utility work that was delayed to April 2021.

https://14wynkoop.com/8-3-20-development-update/

Late 2021 at the earliest. Looks like the kiss of death "currently re-evaluating the program" means this project will be delayed longer than that.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Bunt-fugly, I like this. When I win mega-millions, I am going to cover this City in condos so goddamn ugly, yet so goddamn affordable (no granite countertops here - I am singlehandedly going to revive the Formica brand), that people all over facebook are going to experience their brains tearing themselves apart. Think the shit you drive by leaving the Rio de Janeiro airport. Only more EIFS.

I'm even okay with the missing chunks here and there. Gives some good grit to the affordability.

[TakeFive]

EDIT Update and Review


3463 Walnut St. Denver, CO 80205

In the beginning...



Getting Serious...



Real Vertical Progress



Street View



Exterior Nearly completed


All Photos courtesy Zocalo Community Development - EDIT Apartments

Offering two months free rent for August 2021 move-in.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

This group and all the YIMBY people on social media will have it out for the Chicanos... just wait for it. Gunna get ugly.

I'm on the side of the Chicano descendants trying to preserve their history. I guess that makes me a snowflake, re: comment above.

Listen Mr. Texas - Don't speak for us, and most importantly don't assume that Candi CDeBaca and the other wokoso know-nothings speak for all of us. The La Alma historic designation is great because it will give some teeth to efforts to preserve some historic murals.

BUT I think all the efforts to "preserve" neighborhoods across the city like Lincoln Park, Sunnyside, or Globeville are built around a seriously broken assumption: that the people that live in these neighborhoods want to continue to live in tiny crumbling houses and don't want re-investment or better housing opportunities... That living in a neighborhood with few opportunities and infrastructure is better because we're amongst "our own people". This assumption has infected both lefty white people and a lot of POC activists I know - they will argue otherwise, but everyone is desperately fighting to "preserve" redlined neighborhoods instead of fighting to empower the people who live there. They cry about how it "used to be" while purposely forgetting that their neighbors who sold did so for better opportunities - I can introduce you to "sell outs" who were able to sell their old houses in Jefferson Park or Highland and upgrade. People who went to college because their parents were able to walk with a ton of money from their crumbling hovel. People that were able to afford to move to the foothills instead of dealing with chingasos causing problems. The people on the west side deserve to sell their houses and make a ton of money and buy a bigger house in a neighborhood that has better resources and more opportunity. True empowerment for minority communities in Denver is giving the people the tools to improve their life and live where they want - it isn't encasing a bunch of 700 sq. ft. houses in amber and saying "you should live here."

I want to be able to live in Country Club and have people not assume I am the gardener or repair guy. I don't want to only live in one neighborhood. I want Chicano developers building apartments and making millions too. I want the kids in the neighborhood to grow up next to people of all colors and backgrounds so maybe they become less balkanized. I want everyone to be able to afford to build or upgrade a house in whatever neighborhood they want instead of where all the "other XXXXX live". I want fight for lower income folks to have access to grocery stores and parks and good schools and not to lock them into polluted little shacks next to a crumbling highway.

Stopping all development in these neighborhoods will do nothing but accelerate inequality - you can't prevent people with money from buying a house and all you're doing is increasing prices while making it harder to build diverse housing options. You're building a system where you lock out the people in the neighborhood that don't have a ton of cash and making it so only people who come in with California-level money can compete.

Every so-called progressive lefty & activist fighting for these things is reinforcing inequality through economics. They're fighting a symptom of a bigger problem and likely making the root problem worse. They're reinforcing old racist systems of segregation and separation instead of giving people the tools to change their lives. They're giving all the power to people with money and not empowering the people without it. That doesn't make you a "snowflake", because it sounds like you mean well and want the best for people in this community, but I think you're working in the wrong direction.

[The Dirt]

I prefer a more eastern European aesthetic. Something that can remind of the smell of old ladies, cigarettes, vodka, and b.o. of my childhood.



That, by the way, is much more brutalist than the Channel 7 building.

[Ndj]

Watched the public comment section of the city council meeting and tried to guess which of you nerds were speaking.

Anyways, I didn't even particularly dislike the building, it was just obviously not worthy of preservation. Especially when you consider how disingenuous the applicants were.

[Agent Orange]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

Stopping all development in these neighborhoods will do nothing but accelerate inequality - you can't prevent people with money from buying a house and all you're doing is increasing prices while making it harder to build diverse housing options. You're building a system where you lock out the people in the neighborhood that don't have a ton of cash and making it so only people who come in with California-level money can compete.

Every so-called progressive lefty & activist fighting for these things is reinforcing inequality through economics. They're fighting a symptom of a bigger problem and likely making the root problem worse. They're reinforcing old racist systems of segregation and separation instead of giving people the tools to change their lives. They're giving all the power to people with money and not empowering the people without it. That doesn't make you a "snowflake", because it sounds like you mean well and want the best for people in this community, but I think you're working in the wrong direction.

This whole post is so good. Wish more people were pointing this out. I’m not POC, but this is the best summary I’ve read as an outsider. Often activists don’t represent the mainstream opinion of the broader community they advocate for, and frankly left wing activists view economic laws as right wing religious dogma. Despite their best intentions perhaps, nearly all solutions left-NIMBY activists propose to “solve” gentrification and the housing affordability crisis will only accelerate those problems. In my white dominated circles, it's enough to wring your hands and tut about gentrification, all the while buying homes in Clayton or Athmar Park but demanding that the built environment never change after they move in.

Unfortunately, the root cause involves a supply distortion (that we could theoretically fix in Denver through zoning and other reforms, but we'll likely be the last city in the country to do so), but also a demand distortion at the national level (economy, incentives and culture based on home ownership for building wealth, with the expectation that housing prices must increase in real terms indefinitely). We really need to fix both of these levers, but they're both massive political problems that seem impossible to overcome in the near future - one involving thousands of municipalities and counties coming to Jesus. The other would involve Congress and the White House telling home owners to suck it. It's a depressing outlook.

[Crush_Buds]

Holy cow my log-in still works!!!! Remember Eeyore? Okay see ya in a decade!


Wow Denver!

[TakeFive]

By Popular Request: News from Across the Pond

People are panic buying homes as prices skyrocket
May 13, 2021 By Hanna Ziady, CNN Business

In an unexpected twist, the pandemic has benefited house prices. As people were forced to transform houses into offices and classrooms, it didn't take long for a "race for space" to take hold.

Wealthier individuals in several countries have fled cities for larger suburban homes with more outdoor space in the anticipation that they won't need to commute into central offices as much even after the pandemic ends. One trend Harrington has observed in capitals such as London and Paris sees wealthy executives trading their centrally located houses for something bigger but cheaper further out of the city, leaving them with enough cash to buy a small apartment downtown and a holiday home elsewhere.

New housing north of Winchester, England.


All photos sourced by CNN

What about 2nd (vacation) homes?

In the seaside resort town of Ilfracombe in southwest England, Lee Hussell, the director of estate agency Webbers, has sold two properties in recent months for £100,000 ($139,000) above the asking prices.

"In 38 years of buying and selling homes I haven't witnessed a market like it," commented Henry Pryor, a UK buying agent. "There have been stories of buyers paying £10,000 ($14,100) plus just to be able to view a property."

And the rest of the world?

From Auckland to Shanghai, Munich and Miami, house prices appear to be defying gravity.

Cascais, Portugal.

In Portugal, foreigners have been snapping up houses despite not being able to view the properties they're buying. He recently sold an apartment in coastal Cascais, just west of Lisbon, for €3.5 million ($4.2 million) to a South African who has never visited the town.

Houses in Auckland, New Zealand



What about down under?

In New Zealand — where median prices for residential property increased by more than 24% over the year to March to a record high — the government is under pressure to stabilize the market, according to Wendy Alexander, the acting CEO of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand.

Bubblelicious or Not

Even if/when demand drops it's not like there's an excess of empty homes looking for a warm body.

Additionally, commodities which do tend to be 'volatile' over years are currently in a cyclical uptrend.

Maybe Denver doesn't look so bad?
Keep building apartments; they're going to be needed too.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by Agent Orange

Unfortunately, the root cause involves a supply distortion (that we could theoretically fix in Denver through zoning and other reforms, but we'll likely be the last city in the country to do so), but also a demand distortion at the national level (economy, incentives and culture based on home ownership for building wealth, with the expectation that housing prices must increase in real terms indefinitely). We really need to fix both of these levers, but they're both massive political problems that seem impossible to overcome in the near future - one involving thousands of municipalities and counties coming to Jesus. The other would involve Congress and the White House telling home owners to suck it. It's a depressing outlook.

Thanks! And you're so right about this - we're all busy fighting local battles and trying to fix city-level housing issues, but the problem is structural. It keeps getting harder and harder for people to afford housing (at least in growing markets) and the only solution that most people seem to be pursuing is preventing construction locally in the insane hope that it will stop people from moving.

[The Dirt]

Totally agree with mojiferous, Agent Orange, and laniroj. Nobody seems to get filtering either. As more units come online, even so-called luxury, the people that can afford them move there, freeing up their older units. Those units now have now have to compete with the newer units to a smaller buyer pool, so the prices can start to come down. This also takes care of all of the fugly arguments. Once you don't have a captive audience competing for scraps, people will actually pay more for better architecture or pay less for crap architecture. Builders will take notice and actually put more effort into facades.

All that we're doing now is trying to "incentivize" builders to build affordable units through a linkage fee. So, really, this isn't an incentive but a penalty. Builders are encouraged to set aside a few units to be made income-qualified affordable. It would be nice, as already stated by others here, to have actual incentives to do this. Streamline the permitting process, allow more units/density/height, provide more funding to builders. Instead, the market rate units have to subsidize the affordable units and any net benefit is lost. New builds can't compete with existing structures on price. That's the bottom line.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

Listen Mr. Texas - Don't speak for us, and most importantly don't assume that Candi CDeBaca and the other wokoso know-nothings speak for all of us. The La Alma historic designation is great because it will give some teeth to efforts to preserve some historic murals.

BUT I think all the efforts to "preserve" neighborhoods across the city like Lincoln Park, Sunnyside, or Globeville are built around a seriously broken assumption: that the people that live in these neighborhoods want to continue to live in tiny crumbling houses and don't want re-investment or better housing opportunities... That living in a neighborhood with few opportunities and infrastructure is better because we're amongst "our own people". This assumption has infected both lefty white people and a lot of POC activists I know - they will argue otherwise, but everyone is desperately fighting to "preserve" redlined neighborhoods instead of fighting to empower the people who live there. They cry about how it "used to be" while purposely forgetting that their neighbors who sold did so for better opportunities - I can introduce you to "sell outs" who were able to sell their old houses in Jefferson Park or Highland and upgrade. People who went to college because their parents were able to walk with a ton of money from their crumbling hovel. People that were able to afford to move to the foothills instead of dealing with chingasos causing problems. The people on the west side deserve to sell their houses and make a ton of money and buy a bigger house in a neighborhood that has better resources and more opportunity. True empowerment for minority communities in Denver is giving the people the tools to improve their life and live where they want - it isn't encasing a bunch of 700 sq. ft. houses in amber and saying "you should live here."

I want to be able to live in Country Club and have people not assume I am the gardener or repair guy. I don't want to only live in one neighborhood. I want Chicano developers building apartments and making millions too. I want the kids in the neighborhood to grow up next to people of all colors and backgrounds so maybe they become less balkanized. I want everyone to be able to afford to build or upgrade a house in whatever neighborhood they want instead of where all the "other XXXXX live". I want fight for lower income folks to have access to grocery stores and parks and good schools and not to lock them into polluted little shacks next to a crumbling highway.

Stopping all development in these neighborhoods will do nothing but accelerate inequality - you can't prevent people with money from buying a house and all you're doing is increasing prices while making it harder to build diverse housing options. You're building a system where you lock out the people in the neighborhood that don't have a ton of cash and making it so only people who come in with California-level money can compete.

Every so-called progressive lefty & activist fighting for these things is reinforcing inequality through economics. They're fighting a symptom of a bigger problem and likely making the root problem worse. They're reinforcing old racist systems of segregation and separation instead of giving people the tools to change their lives. They're giving all the power to people with money and not empowering the people without it. That doesn't make you a "snowflake", because it sounds like you mean well and want the best for people in this community, but I think you're working in the wrong direction.

This was a very personally-directed post. I just said I support the cultural preservation of La Alma, and I think you're assuming a lot of other things, chiefly that preservation and infill can't co-exist.

You can all be as closed-minded as you want on this discussion board, and I never cease to be amazed by how far you can push the bounds of YIMBY absolutism, but you can't deny that many people in La Alma are also for the cultural preservation of La Alma. And in that context it's worth noting the out-of-state REITs paying $10-15 million for 10,000 sf lots in GT and paying close to that on Santa Fe.

Also don't understand why you and others on here present this as a binary choice between two absolutist perspectives. Allow all or nothing, preserve all or nothing, and so on. What's funny is I agree with the idea that we need more supply in order to mitigate displacement, AND that strict preservation will lead to more displacement and less opportunity for all. I am generally supportive of 90% of rezonings and ALL density bonuses. However when I don't support ALL rezonings or the wholesale destruction of Congress Park as frequently advocated on here, then you all pile on with the accusations of racism, liberal snowflake, transplant, etc etc.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

the wholesale destruction of Congress Park as frequently advocated on here

Can you please give me an example of who is advocating for that? You know, not in an obviously and blatantly tongue-in-cheek sarcastic manner.

As for the rest of your post, you are literally this meme: