DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[TakeFive]

Defining Denver among its Peer Cities - Part One

Peer Cities

Peer cities are cities that are experiencing similar trends or challenges.

This is a fun definition but I use criteria based more on demographics that generally (but not entirely) focus on cities West of the Mississippi starting with common, credible databases.

Peer Cities based on MSA population
Note: City specific population comparisons are too squirrely due to geographic size differences. Figures are rounded, mostly up.

1. Seattle - 4.0 million
2. Minneapolis - 3.7 million
3. San Diego - 3.3 million
4. Tampa - 3.2 million
5. Denver - 3.0 million
6. Charlotte - 2.6 million
7. Orlando - 2.6 million
8. Portland - 2.5 million
9. Austin - 2.2 million

Peer Cities bases on Real GDP

1. Minneapolis - $264 million
2. Phoenix - $255 million
3. San Diego - $245 million
4. Denver - $215 million
5. Charlotte - $170 million
6. Portland - $165 million
7. Tampa - $159 million
8. Austin - $147 million

Cities (MSA) with similar population growth since 2010

1. Dallas - 19%
2. Phoenix - 18%
3. Seattle - 15.7%
4. Tampa - 15%
5. Denver - 16.6%
6. Charlotte - 17.5%
7. Las Vegas - 16%
8. Nashville - 17.5%

Note: Austin is on it's own list of one with a whopping growth of 30% since 2010.

NEXT: An interpretive look at other data and criteria for thinking of Peer Cities.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

Downtown is quickly coming back to life as we speak. I'm not worried one bit. The weather this week has been gorgeous and the sidewalks have been packed.

I think cores of larger cities will survive just fine. People who live/work in these areas aren't going to suddenly leave. I started working out of WeWork on Platte St back in February because I needed to be around people again.

Boulder on the other hand? I think they are screwed hardcore. Anyone who knows that commute to work in Boulder has no desire to go back to working from there more than a day or two out of the week. Our company has an office there, but I think only one person actually lives in Boulder. Even if I was in Colorado when our office opens back up, I would go up there... Maybe once or twice a week - At best. No one wants to do that rat race up 36 into Boulder if they don't have to.

[i4isoar]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Defining Denver among its Peer Cities - Part One

Peer Cities

This is a fun definition but I use criteria based more on demographics that generally (but not entirely) focus on cities West of the Mississippi starting with common, credible databases.

Nice work! Thanks for compiling all of this data - it definitely puts a lot of things into perspective, and I look forward to the second part. In the meantime, your list inspired me to do something similar, but this time comparing Denver with its peer cities in terms of skyscraper size.

Denver and Its Peer Cities: Tallest and Largest Skyscrapers

Seattle: Columbia Center

• Height: 933ft / 284m
• No. of Floors: 76
• Floorspace: 1.54M sqft / 143,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1985

Dallas: Bank of America Plaza

• Height: 921ft / 281m
• No. of Floors: 74
• Floorspace: 1.84M sqft / 171,300 sqm
• Year Completed: 1985

Charlotte: Bank of America Corporate Center

• Height: 871ft / 265m
• No. of Floors: 60
• Floorspace: 1.4M sqft / 130,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1992

Minneapolis: IDS Center

• Height: 792ft / 241m
• No. of Floors: 57
• Floorspace: 1.505M sqft / 140,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1972

Denver (1): Republic Plaza

• Height: 717ft / 219m
• No. of Floors: 56
• Floorspace: 1.85M sqft / 172,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1984

Denver (2): 1801 California St.

• Height: 709ft / 216m
• No. of Floors: 53
• Floorspace: 1.9M sqft / 177,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1983

Denver (3): The Cash Register

• Height: 698ft / 213m
• No. of Floors: 52
• Floorspace: 1.2M sqft / 111,500 sqm
• Year Completed: 1983

Austin: The Independent

• Height: 690ft / 210m
• No. of Floors: 58
• Floorspace: 950,000 sqft / 88,300 sqm
• Year Completed: 2019

Las Vegas: The Palazzo

• Height: 642ft / 196m
• No. of Floors: 53
• Floorspace: 6.9M sqft / 646,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 2007

Denver (4): Four Seasons Hotel

• Height: 641ft / 195m
• No. of Floors: 45
• Floorspace: 766,000 sqft / 71,200 sqm
• Year Completed: 2010

Nashville: AT&T Building

• Height: 617ft / 188m
• No. of Floors: 33
• Floorspace: 690,000 sqft / 64,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1994

Denver (5): 1144 15th St.

• Height: 617ft / 188m
• No. of Floors: 40
• Floorspace: 671,000 sqft / 62,300 sqm
• Year Completed: 2018

Tampa: 100 North Tampa St.

• Height: 579ft / 176m
• No. of Floors: 42
• Floorspace: 552,000 sqft / 51,300 sqm
• Year Completed: 1992

Portland: Wells Fargo Center

• Height: 546ft / 166m
• No. of Floors: 41
• Floorspace: 568,000 sqft / 52,800 sqm
• Year Completed: 1972

San Diego: One America Plaza

• Height: 500ft / 152m
• No. of Floors: 34
• Floorspace: 623,000 sqft / 57,900 sqm
• Year Completed: 1991

Phoenix: Chase Tower

• Height: 483ft / 147m
• No. of Floors: 40
• Floorspace: 668,000 sqft / 62,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1972

Orlando: SunTrust Center

• Height: 441ft / 134m
• No. of Floors: 35
• Floorspace: 655,000 sqft / 60,800 sqm
• Year Completed: 1988

Salt Lake City: Wells Fargo Center

• Height: 422ft / 129m
• No. of Floors: 24
• Floorspace: 570,000 sqft / 53,000 sqm
• Year Completed: 1998

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Seattle - 4.0 million
Minneapolis - 3.7 million
San Diego - 3.3 million
Tampa - 3.2 million
Denver - 3.0 million
Charlotte - 2.6 million
Orlando - 2.6 million
Portland - 2.5 million
Austin - 2.2 million

Boy stats are fun.. I can't argue with the data I guess.. But I'll just say that Cale Makar and I are peers because we're both 5'11"

Would it be a troll to say a city can't be a peer of another if they don't have the equivalent complement of professional sports teams? That would actually erase most (I'd probably leave Portland on the list for reasons I can't verbalize) of the cities that make my eyebrows raise.

Maybe the equivalent complement of major cultural attractions (how fun would defining those be!!)? That one brings back San Diego, in my tiny head.. and I'm not sure what it does to Portland/Minneapolis/Austin.

Not trying to hate on Orlando or Tampa or any other cities.. I love it here in central FL. But damn.

[DenvertoLA]

Originally Posted by i4isoar

Nice work! Thanks for compiling all of this data - it definitely puts a lot of things into perspective, and I look forward to the second part. In the meantime, your list inspired me to do something similar, but this time comparing Denver with its peer cities in terms of skyscraper size.

Denver and Its Peer Cities: Tallest and Largest Skyscrapers


San Diego: One America Plaza

• Height: 500ft / 152m
• No. of Floors: 34
• Floorspace: 623,000 sqft / 57,900 sqm
• Year Completed: 1991

San Diego has a height limit of 500 ft because the airport is right by downtown. Living here has definitely opened my eyes to the benefits of having height limits.

I use to just see the negative, especially since Denver's height limits are based on viewing fields of the mountains...

[coolmandan03]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

I use to just see the negative, especially since Denver's height limits are based on viewing fields of the mountains...

Plenty (most) of Denver doesn't have height limits though...

[The Dirt]

And the reason why the top 3 towers in Denver are roughly the same height is because of the old Stapleton Airport height limits imposed by the FAA. City skyscraper heights mean absolutely bupkis. All of the 4-23 story infill in and around downtown in the last 10 years has done far more to make downtown feel like a real place than 3 modernist towers from the early 80s surrounded by useless plazas and parking garages.

[DenvertoLA]

Originally Posted by coolmandan03

Plenty (most) of Denver doesn't have height limits though...

What?? Coors Field has view plane protections, the capital I think does. the FAR ratio is effectively a height limit. 16th street mall has one I think.

But then again, it's been a bit since I've lived there. I'd love to be wrong.

[coolmandan03]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

What?? Coors Field has view plane protections, the capital I think does. the FAR ratio is effectively a height limit. 16th street mall has one I think.

But then again, it's been a bit since I've lived there. I'd love to be wrong.

Most of those viewplanes are pretty tiny

Here's Coors Field View Plane

And here's the state Capitol.

Those are the only two closest to downtown. And just because it's a view plane doesn't mean it's some big limit - the larger the viewplane, the less limiting the heights are. For instance, Cheeseman Park View Plane (which ends at Broadway) has an elevation limit of 5,383+77' feet, which is about 210+ height feet along Broadway... When people start demanding 20+ floors along Broadway we can revisit this code... but that's certainly not the current limiting factor when most construction is designed as a 5/1. I would love to see a developer challenge the view plane limits... but I have not heard that as the case.

[CONative]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

San Diego has a height limit of 500 ft because the airport is right by downtown. Living here has definitely opened my eyes to the benefits of having height limits.

I use to just see the negative, especially since Denver's height limits are based on viewing fields of the mountains...

Denver also had a height limit because of its airport -- until 1995. It couldn't be more than a certain elevation (or around 700 feet in downtown Denver). This is why those 3 towers are all close to 700 feet.

[i4isoar]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

San Diego has a height limit of 500 ft because the airport is right by downtown. Living here has definitely opened my eyes to the benefits of having height limits.

I use to just see the negative, especially since Denver's height limits are based on viewing fields of the mountains...

Just curious, as I've never been to San Diego before, but what are some of the positives of having height limits? (Other than, of course, allowing the airport to be located conveniently close to downtown). I've heard good things about San Diego from friends who've been there and would like to visit one day.

Originally Posted by The Dirt

And the reason why the top 3 towers in Denver are roughly the same height is because of the old Stapleton Airport height limits imposed by the FAA. City skyscraper heights mean absolutely bupkis. All of the 4-23 story infill in and around downtown in the last 10 years has done far more to make downtown feel like a real place than 3 modernist towers from the early 80s surrounded by useless plazas and parking garages.

I'm not necessarily saying that skyscraper height is a measure of the worth of a city, its quality of life, etc. After all, I'd rather live in Denver than Cleveland, Charlotte, or Chicago. I compiled this list mainly because I thought it would be a fun exercise, and I also learned some interesting and surprising facts along the way (such as, for example, that The Palazzo in Vegas is even larger than The Pentagon).

That being said, however, I wouldn't mind it if Denver got a "new tallest" as it hasn't gotten one since even before I was born.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by i4isoar

...I compiled this list mainly because I thought it would be a fun exercise, and I also learned some interesting and surprising facts along the way...

I did too! Because I know there are a lot of complaints about Denver not getting a new tallest and how old the Republic Plaza is, but after looking over this list and checking on a few other US cities, almost every major American city's tallest building was constructed more than 20 years ago.

Even in Seattle, where there has been so much construction and growth, most of the tallest buildings in the city were built in the 80s and 90s. And Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are in a similar position to Denver, with endless construction but the 10+ tallest buildings dominated by towers built before the turn of the century. The cities that have gotten decent high infill were either growing exponentially or underbuilt for their size.

I bet the next 10 years here will be much the same - a lot of people are moving to permanently working from home and the vulture capitalists that fund a lot of large US corporations don't see the profit margin in HQ development and real estate ownership as high enough, so the likelihood of us getting a new tallest office building is pretty low. MAYBE if someone actually finds funding for their crazy mixed-use hotel or condo supertall and it isn't just another set of coked-fueled napkin-back scribblings we'll see something...

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

...I bet the next 10 years here will be much the same - a lot of people are moving to permanently working from home and the vulture capitalists that fund a lot of large US corporations don't see the profit margin in HQ development and real estate ownership as high enough, so the likelihood of us getting a new tallest office building is pretty low...

You make an interesting point about why new tallest's aren't happening. I hypothesize that companies (like Amazon) could build a new tallest in every city but choose not to because it's not worth their time. Development is time intensive and these companies are already talent constrained (ie they could make MORE money if they could find more talent, but that's hard to do). Long story short, it's easier for them to make a whole lot more money running their business than building real estate on the side. A tower is a billion dollars+...that's a couple weeks of cash flow at some of these huge monoliths that print cheddar - it's not worth their time. PLUS, I'm sure they are so dialed into EPS that they choose to lease vs own because they can keep all of that expense off balance sheet and squeeze out a few more pennies per share each quarter that way...they're not vultures for nothin'!

[mhays]

Amazon builds to the precise allowable height limit every time...Seattle, Bellevue (soon to be its two tallest buildings), Arlington...

[i4isoar]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

I did too! Because I know there are a lot of complaints about Denver not getting a new tallest and how old the Republic Plaza is, but after looking over this list and checking on a few other US cities, almost every major American city's tallest building was constructed more than 20 years ago.

Definitely, and thanks for doing that extra bit of research, that's something I didn't noticed until now. It's good to know we're in the same company as Dallas, Houston, Atlanta... Austin seems to be the outlier, but if they've been experiencing a whopping 30% growth in the last 10yr, then that'll do it.

Originally Posted by mojiferous

I bet the next 10 years here will be much the same - a lot of people are moving to permanently working from home and the vulture capitalists that fund a lot of large US corporations don't see the profit margin in HQ development and real estate ownership as high enough, so the likelihood of us getting a new tallest office building is pretty low. MAYBE if someone actually finds funding for their crazy mixed-use hotel or condo supertall and it isn't just another set of coked-fueled napkin-back scribblings we'll see something...

Originally Posted by laniroj

You make an interesting point about why new tallest's aren't happening. I hypothesize that companies (like Amazon) could build a new tallest in every city but choose not to because it's not worth their time. Development is time intensive and these companies are already talent constrained (ie they could make MORE money if they could find more talent, but that's hard to do). Long story short, it's easier for them to make a whole lot more money running their business than building real estate on the side. A tower is a billion dollars+...that's a couple weeks of cash flow at some of these huge monoliths that print cheddar - it's not worth their time. PLUS, I'm sure they are so dialed into EPS that they choose to lease vs own because they can keep all of that expense off balance sheet and squeeze out a few more pennies per share each quarter that way...they're not vultures for nothin'!

Those are good points. Most of the largest tech companies I can think of off the top of my head - Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, IBM, EA, and so on - seem to have their HQ's in sprawling campuses with mainly low-rise buildings, rather than inside a single towering behemoth of glass and concrete.

Originally Posted by mhays

Amazon builds to the precise allowable height limit every time...Seattle, Bellevue (soon to be its two tallest buildings), Arlington...

That is true, though I guess that would make Amazon the outlier.

On the other hand, it could be that Amazon is prioritizing floorspace and not necessarily height (the two are usually but not always correlated, as a sprawling campus of low-rise buildings can offer just as much floorspace, combined, as a single supertall). I did a little more research and it looks like each of Amazon's 3 skyscrapers in Seattle, individually, has over 1M sqft of floorspace (and one of them has over 1.4M sqft) - that's actually pretty impressive, since most "tallests" around the country don't even break the 1M sqft mark.

[mhays]

I should have said Amazon does the exact limit of height AND floor area. Those three HQ towers are each a function of their block sizes. PS the biggest is a little over 1.1 msf including a smaller connected building...someone made a typo if they said 1.4.

Are they an outlier? In my region, they're simply acknowledging the reality that no reasonable proposal to go bigger or taller would ever be approved, and I suspect the same would be true in Arlington. Nashville I have no idea. I suspect Denver would be similar.

Generally speaking, it's faster and cheaper to buy a little more land than it is to horse trade with a city council for added height and FAR. A growing company wants certainty, not a lengthy period of wrangling, some sort of giant cost for the trade, and probably a big EIS revision for a spot upzone. Or more likely, a lot of effort for a "no" in the end.

Developer-led projects comprise most examples. But it's telling that developers rarely even attempt to tilt at this windmill. At most they try to influence the broader district land use code updates on height, FAR, and other factors.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by mhays

Amazon builds to the precise allowable height limit every time...Seattle, Bellevue (soon to be its two tallest buildings), Arlington...

Surely Seattle has some ground with no FAR, view plane, or other height restriction (I'm saying that with wishful thinking)? If so, Amazon could much more expeditiously build one giant 3 million SF tower than three at a million a pop. Maybe going back to my point, they just don't care and it's not worth their time. They need offices ASAP so the path of least resistance is chosen.

I suspect our newly adopted woke cancel culture also has something to do with this and companies not wanting to be too flashy with extravagant statement towers...America's left has brought us full circle back to our intolerant puritan roots...

[mhays]

Not for offices. Everything has strict limits. A small CBD area has no height limit (aside from FAA) but still has tight FAR limits; this doesn't include the area with Amazon towers (they were allowed to be about 520'), where FAR was not terribly limiting given that they had full blocks.

Even in the unlimited-height zone, the only way to get really tall is to include housing because that doesn't apply to FAR in Downtown zones. Or you can do really skinny office floors but nobody would do that.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by laniroj

I suspect our newly adopted woke cancel culture also has something to do with this and companies not wanting to be too flashy with extravagant statement towers...America's left has brought us full circle back to our intolerant puritan roots...

That’s the most absurd, illogical comment I’ve read in a long time. (I’m holding myself back from using even stronger words.) Keep crap like that out of this thread please.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by laniroj

I suspect our newly adopted woke cancel culture also has something to do with this and companies not wanting to be too flashy with extravagant statement towers...America's left has brought us full circle back to our intolerant puritan roots...

For what it's worth, I sort of agree with this. Sam Hill does not...