DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[Sam Hill]

I’ve been posting on forums for a couple decades. (Shit, I guess that means I’m old!) One thing I’ve learned: the only way to get rid of a troll is to ignore the troll.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

The Hotel sector has benefitted this year from a pent-up desire from leisure tourists. Conventions and conferences has picked ups some but there's a long way to go.

While Colorado’s tourism is on the rebound, 2021 won’t see full recovery
May 28, 2021 By Dennis Huspeni and Wayne Heilman - The Denver Gazette

Sage Hospitality Group's CEO Walter Isenberg says they need more offices back to normal before corporate travel picks up noticeably.

I know that Scottsdale has great hope for a strong comeback in 2022; not sure how much "Delta" will impact that plan. But both cities do a huge tourism and conference business.

DDP's models (PDF) are consistent with that article. Even though the models are pre-delta

DDP doen't expect a strong rebound even in 2022 for business and convention travel. Obviously models are only as accurate as the underlying assumptions that made them turning out to be true, but not sure what Scottsdale would base that strong return on other than optimism. Conventions (especially the large ones) require a huge amount of lead time to setup and be successful, and most people aren't sure if they'll be comfortable traveling somewhere next month.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

...they inevitably try to deflect the problem onto everyone else - "Denver also has a lot of in-bound commuters", "other cities can densify if they chose to", "Why is Denver's population density so low", "If only people stopped moving to Colorado" etc. etc.

I'll just quote myself here for no reason and agree with Sam Hill that we should all just ignore the troll

[TakeFive]

Why is it you're incapable of doing your own research? Ever heard of Google?

Originally Posted by AlSmithee

Where are your data from?

Heavy commuting into Boulder drives challenges for city
April 1, 2019 By BOULDER DAILY CAMERA

Travel patterns have implications for climate, congestion and employers

Of the approximately 104,000 jobs in Boulder, people who live outside city limits fill more than half, or 56 percent, according to data provided by the city. Between 1994 and 2018, in-town vehicular traffic increased one percent. By contrast, during the same timeframe, traffic entering and exiting the city increased 35 percent, according to data provided by the city.

The city simply cannot meet its climate commitments around emissions without tackling transportation, said Bill Rigler, Transportation Advisory Board member.

BTW, 56 percent of 104,000 jobs is over 58,000 people commuting into Boulder.

Here's something for you snobby bastards ie Boulder residents to consider. It's dated info (2014) so presumably things have only gotten worse.

https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Intercounty-LEHD-Analysis-Memo.pdf

Intercounty Commute Patterns

• More than half of low-income workers live outside Boulder County. Slightly more than 50% of Boulder County jobs in the two lowest income brackets are held by people who live in other counties.
• 5 counties are home to more than 1/3 of the low-income commuters. Almost 30,000 low-income jobs in Boulder County (35% of the total) were held by someone living in Jefferson, Adams, Weld, Larimer or Denver County in 2014
• Low-income commuting outpacing job growth. The increase in the number of low-income workers that commute from outside Boulder County was disproportionate to overall job growth.
• Adams County saw the greatest increase in workers commuting to Boulder County making $1,250 a month or less. Denver County saw the greatest increase in workers commuting to Boulder County that make $1,251 to $3,333 a month.

Note: These aren't commuters that just live outside the City of Boulder; they live outside of fricken Boulder County - although this would also include commuters from Broomfield which has a population 68,000.

EDIT: Forgot to include this:

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bobg

DDP's models (PDF) are consistent with that article. Even though the models are pre-delta

DDP doen't expect a strong rebound even in 2022 for business and convention travel. Obviously models are only as accurate as the underlying assumptions that made them turning out to be true, but not sure what Scottsdale would base that strong return on other than optimism. Conventions (especially the large ones) require a huge amount of lead time to setup and be successful, and most people aren't sure if they'll be comfortable traveling somewhere next month.

Nice post; thanks for the link.

Scottsdale is being optimistic ofc but the dynamics are very different from Denver. The very largest conventions would likely look to the Phoenix Convention Center.

Phoenix also has two larger resort-hotels that are a part of the Scottsdale ecosphere: the over 1,000 room JW Marriott - Desert Ridge and the Phoenician. Both are a few blocks from the Scottsdale border.

Scottsdale has a number of 5-star resort-hotels, several with 600-800 rooms and many with over 400 rooms. Their bread and butter is "Conferences" including high end corporate retreats. These groups including medical associations (there must be hundreds of these) are much more nimble. Given COVID times most groups could probably find space pretty easy in 2022.

Time will tell.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Why is it you're incapable of doing your own research? Ever heard of Google?


Heavy commuting into Boulder drives challenges for city
April 1, 2019 By BOULDER DAILY CAMERA

BTW, 56 percent of 104,000 jobs is over 58,000 people commuting into Boulder.

Here's something for you snobby bastards ie Boulder residents to consider. It's dated info (2014) so presumably things have only gotten worse.

https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Intercounty-LEHD-Analysis-Memo.pdf

Note: These aren't commuters that just live outside the City of Boulder; they live outside of fricken Boulder County - although this would also include commuters from Broomfield which has a population 68,000.

No one is incapable of Googling things, especially if they can find this random forum on the internet.

I think the word you are looking for is entitled. Boulderites have become so entitled that they expect others to Google things for them. That's another negative externality of the zoning bubble they created. Boulderites are surrounded by people whose parents bribed their way into 2nd tier east coast colleges, gave them all the business funding they could ask for (no matter how absurd a make your own organic hemp candle business sounds), and/or just flat out gave them a huge trust fund. So many entitled people only interacting with other entitled people becomes an echo chamber of entitlement. From a sociological perspective it's fascinating, from a neighboring city perspective its disgusting and at times scary.

[i4isoar]

I've been following this forum for a while, and I confess my interest is more in architecture and skyscrapers than in water management, the environment, zoning, housing prices, affordability, crime, drugs, police, the homeless, transportation, politics, corruption, etc. However, the last few pages, as heated as some of the conversation has been, has definitely taught me a lot about how closely intertwined some of these subjects are.

It appears to me that there is broad consensus on this forum that the current situation in Denver and across the metro area is horrible, and that at least some of the cause of that can be attributed to the influence of NIMBYs. Now, I highly doubt that Boulder is single-handedly responsible for everything wrong in the metro area right now; however, I would agree that Boulder probably holds a higher per-capita share of the responsibility than some of the other cities in the metro area.

My question to everyone in general is this: if NIMBYs are the problem, then how do we break their influence? Not just in Boulder, but across the metro area? Are there examples of other major cities that have successfully engaged in "NIMBY-busting", and what can we learn from them? What can ordinary citizens like you or I do to fight back against NIMBYs? Are there specific, useful, and practical things we can do to fix the problems we so often rant and rave about on this forum?

[mhays]

The areas with success (still limited of course) are the places with state-level rules. Oregon and Washington in the US, but Canada much more so. People tend to agree with broad concepts (reducing sprawl, improving affordability) at the conceptual level, even if they would protest the local outcome. So the concepts turn into laws, and the local protests don't have as much effect. Further, people sorta realize they like the concepts, which avoids some protesting to begin with.

These areas have been better at cutting sprawl than at enabling plenty of infill, and we've also piled on fees, so prices are high. But that could be solved with enough upzoning and streamlined process. The first part works.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

By comparison around 30% of downtown Denver’s 145,000 workers commute by themselves in a car. Boulder puts more cars on the road than downtown Denver everyday…..again atrocious.

Reading this I realized that it has been 2 or 3 years since I sourced this data. Last I recall downtown Denver had about 127,000 workers. Using the 2020 Downtown Denver Partnership report (since 2021's it too COVID funky) I see where you got your 145,000 figure.

I wanted to take the next step so I also checked the Metro Denver Labor Force. They give two numbers plus I wanted to net out the unemployment rate so I settled on 1,600,000 for total metro employment. That means downtown has a 9% share of the metro employment pie which is about the same percentage I recall from before. This means both statistics have grown proportionately. This data is important for a couple of reasons.

While downtown along with the hub & spoke transit system etc has done a nice job of reducing car commutes to downtown it doesn't speak to the other 91% of metro jobs? Whether the metro Denver commutes are any better than Boulder's commutes... the difference is likely negligible.

This also suggests that downtown Denver's great transit system is likely mostly worthless for the other 91% of metro workers.

Originally Posted by mhays

Sprawl apologist is using someone else's incomplete arguments to justify sprawl. Shocking. I'm going to bed.

I don't know who authored that but he sources Smart Growth America and it's pretty standard 'urban' speak. Smart Growth America is is a totally credible urban source.

After hanging out on Streetsblog going on three years, I've taken the opportunity to read supporting arguments and I still have the same response.

Credit liberals though for making their propaganda have a nice MBA ring to it. Conservatives just make up conspiracy crap and then support their fiction by making up yet more conspiracy crap.

[cocomms]

Originally Posted by mhays

The absolute #1 priority for any environmentalist should start with limiting sprawl. And this has to start with reality, not fantasy: The region is growing, and the growth has to go somewhere. Therefore it's crucial that infill be allowed, and not very difficult.

mhays...thanks for your informed replies. I understand these are complex issues and appreciate background on solutions that have been implemented elsewhere.

Every urban county and town is required to both limit sprawl and accept growth. This is a reality-based alternative to Boulder's fantasy.

Do you know of any reality-based alternative to accepting growth in land-use and population? I mean from an urban development perspective. Not a change in cultural values. Personally, I'd love to see Boulder tear up its roads and parking structures and fill them in with mixed housing, multi-use trails, transit and reforestation. Reduce the urban footprint in half while maintaining a population with sustainable environmental impacts.

Why doesn't a community have a right to place a limit on its population level? This goes for any neighborhood or community. Limits to growth can be a first step toward sustainable communities.

The second priority for any environmentalist should be limiting unnecessary resource use, including materials, fuel, and so on.

I completely agree with this position. Personally, I think this should be the first priority. A community should try to limit its resource use to the capacity of its local environment (excepting the need for trade between communities with different types of resources) and only grow while living within these limits.

Originally Posted by i4isoar

if NIMBYs are the problem, then how do we break their influence? Not just in Boulder, but across the metro area?

I too come to this forum for the cool infill or redevelopment projects, mostly in Central Denver where I used to live. I enjoyed the urban living when I lived there. I was pro-density and transit while in that community because it made sense. I'm closer to a NIMBY for that same type of density now in Boulder as it doesn't fit the desires of the community here. Instead of breaking people's influence, maybe listen to them more, understand their concerns, modify your original plans to incorporate their feedback, and be prepared to move on if they don't want your vision of the future. Some developers do this really well and the community reaps the benefits.

[mhays]

I'm heading out pretty soon, but I'll comment on part of that. Limiting the population has a clear outcome in an in-demand US city: Prices go up until enough people choose not to participate.

There aren't examples of that on a city scale, in an official sense. But we do have places where supply is heavily restricted in a de facto sense despite high demand. The two standouts are San Francisco and Manhattan, the two most expensive places in the US.

[TakeFive]

Nice comment

Originally Posted by mhays

The areas with success (still limited of course) are the places with state-level rules. Oregon and Washington in the US, but Canada much more so. People tend to agree with broad concepts (reducing sprawl, improving affordability) at the conceptual level, even if they would protest the local outcome. So the concepts turn into laws, and the local protests don't have as much effect. Further, people sorta realize they like the concepts, which avoids some protesting to begin with.

These areas have been better at cutting sprawl than at enabling plenty of infill, and we've also piled on fees, so prices are high. But that could be solved with enough upzoning and streamlined process. The first part works.

FWIW, I wouldn't make the same assumptions or draw the same conclusions with respect to West Coast cities as I would for cities in flyover country. I understand many would say the principles are the same regardless of location and we can agree to disagree and that's fine. But especially in the SW where sand-dirt is dirt cheap different dynamics come into play.

So I decided to update/compare Denver to Seattle just for grins. I wanted among other things to find commuting data for the metro areas as apposed to only focusing on downtown. Finally using the right key words I found it.

The 1st number is number of transit commuters while the 2nd is the percentage for transit riders. The 2nd set of numbers are for the largest city within the MSA ie Seattle and Denver.

• Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224,965 - 10.7% - 115,989 - 25.1%
• Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73,229 - 4.5% - 31,868 - 7.6%

Seattle benefits from two distinct advantages over Denver. It's much denser and it has a really Big Dog to help support transit with Amazon. Denver has no lead dogs to speak of, at least from the private sector.

• Downtown Denver Population is ~25,000
• Downtown Seattle Population is ~82,000
• Downtown Denver Employment is ~145,000
• Downtown Seattle Employment is ~300,000
• Total population of Denver is ~706,000
• Total population of Seattle is ~724,000
  (2019 numbers are used for easily available comparison)

Originally Posted by mhays

People tend to agree with broad concepts (reducing sprawl, improving affordability) at the conceptual level, even if they would protest the local outcome.

Yean, I can't think of one urban center that is remotely affordable in the west. There may still exist pockets of affordability in the city if gentrification hasn't chased them completely out of the city. I won't include Los Angeles or Phoenix which both benefit affordability from sprawl.

[AlSmithee]

Originally Posted by AlSmithee

The only city over 100,000 in Colorado that has higher population density than Boulder is Denver.

If Boulder was as densely populated as Colorado Springs, it would have only 67,000 people. As dense as Pueblo? 54,000 people.

Using the 2020 Census data from

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/denvercountycolorado,US/POP010220

and analogously for the other Colorado cities:

[AlSmithee]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Most other cities tend to have the majority of their open space in their city boundaries. Guess which one doesn’t? It’s not the one with a 50-plus square mile airport that lowers it’s population density, rather it had the opposite effect.

I've posted the data. Denver is arbitrarily set at 100 square miles to get rid of the DIA effect.

[gopokes21]

How did this thread devolve so rapidly? Is this going to be every political discourse on every platform and in every room where the stupid Boulder train comes up?

I think we can dial back some of the vitriol toward Boulder "and everything Boulder stands for" or whatever, and the fact remains that Polis wants a trillion-dollar train to serve a buffalo preserve instead of a dense major city.

[AlSmithee]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Why is it you're incapable of doing your own research? Ever heard of Google?

Thanks for the reference.

What's the equivalent number for Denver?

Here's something for you snobby bastards ie Boulder residents to consider. It's dated info (2014) so presumably things have only gotten worse.

https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Intercounty-LEHD-Analysis-Memo.pdf

Note: These aren't commuters that just live outside the City of Boulder; they live outside of fricken Boulder County - although this would also include commuters from Broomfield which has a population 68,000.

There's a couple more bullet points that you didn't include:

Change in Intercounty Commute Patterns (2010 to 2014)

• The cities of Boulder and Longmont saw the greatest increase in low-income commuters from outside the county.

Why is Longmont seeing increases as well? It doesn't have Boulder's policies.

EDIT: Forgot to include this:

Comparing just downtown Denver to all of Bouder is apples and oranges.

[AlSmithee]

Here's a current project some might find interesting to discuss as it distills the core issues.

CU Boulder South

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by AlSmithee

Using the 2020 Census data from

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/denvercountycolorado,US/POP010220

and analogously for the other Colorado cities:

Correct - But this isn't a gotcha like you think it is and only affirms everything that people are arguing for on here. Because that 100 sq. miles of non-DIA Denver is mostly suburban-style sprawl - places like Bear Valley and Virginia Village and Montbello. Denver is not some super-dense megacity and also could benefit from more densification. So yes, Boulder should stay within its current boundaries and double or treble in population. There should be more high rises and apartments and townhomes and less single-family homes.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by AlSmithee

Here's a current project some might find interesting to discuss as it distills the core issues.

CU Boulder South

And this does not solve anything. They're going to build a few more houses on a tiny sliver of land that isn't within easy walking distance to anything and has poor transit connections. The only housing shortage this is going to solve is for upper-middle-class families looking for a Boulder address.

"Restrictions on density and intensity of future development" and "Restrictions controlling height and massing of future buildings" mean this will be codified as yet more suburban sprawl forever. An open field turned into single-family homes does nothing to actually solve Boulder's housing issues.

[TakeFive]

Boulder could become not only cool but welcoming and diverse - it could become REAL
It's as easy as a Country Two-Step.

It's understandably important to preserve the heart of Boulder with the Flatirons serving as backdrop.

City Center

Identify a roughly four-block area - presumably north of Canyon Blvd and west of 28th street - to be a designated City Center that would allow structures up to 80 to 100 feet at its core, then stepping down to 40 to 60 feet (also a good area for some affordable housing).

Boulder could easily benefit from and learn to love a real city center. Surely it's grown enough that even the city could use some new digs for serving its citizens.

Urban Sprawl

Think Ridge Gate - The reason for using Ridge Gate as a model is that it has similar topography and they are setting aside large areas for Open Space (flood control), Parks and Trails. Substitute a 'town square' or 'community center' where Ridge Gate has a large commercial city center.

If it was on land that Boulder already owns it would be easy to require minimum 15% for designated affordable housing which could be both clustered and spread around. In areas of residential development these should be mixed density (and mixed-use where appropriate) to include attached housing ie townhomes or rowhouses, duplexes and some apartments in addition to single-family homes.

Back to the City

It should be easy to designate stretches of Table Mesa Drive (as one example) with Main Street zoning for 3 to 5 stories. East of 28th street there has be areas ideal for zoning for as much as 5 to 7 stories. Within North Boulder there has to be areas or pockets where designated affordable housing could be built.

Designated Affordable Housing
Is no longer your Grandfather's ghetto. It's simply and truly affordable for lower wage workers needed to make Boulder function.

If you haven't yet checked out the new, east side Ridge Gate masterplan/video for ideas then Now's Your Chance.

Originally Posted by wong21fr

So? Only old men and fools think another Rocktober is in the works and, other than that remote possibility, there's no reason to watch a below mediocre team.

Rocktober- Good memories.

The Rockies are akin to the Lovable Cubbies. Nobody sends more fans to Spring Training (Tempe) than Chicago. They have been historically terrible until recent years but nobody cared because it was all about the experience.

Rockies games are worth the cost of admission just to experience Coors Field and downtown Denver and its surrounds - and who knows you may get a chance to catch a home run ball to give to your kid.