DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[SirLucasTheGreat]

That's fascinating. Thanks for the insight, jhwk. I wonder how effective physical structures at main terminals (Union Station, DIA, etc) would be. If you had to physically present a fare to exit Union Station, that would probably cause ripple effects throughout the system.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

That's fascinating. Thanks for the insight, jhwk. I wonder how effective physical structures at main terminals (Union Station, DIA, etc) would be. If you had to physically present a fare to exit Union Station, that would probably cause ripple effects throughout the system.

It's only for da' buses at the moment. But it would be interesting to see what would happen if a few of the train stations added physical controls as well. Turnstile Union Station at the commuter rail and LRT stations, DIA, Broadway, Alameda, Nine Mile etc. and see what happens. I'd couple that with reduced fares and would think that you'd get a more traveled and safer system.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Should I feel bad for View House? Ha.

They can rename it to the "Not-much-of-a-View" House

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

They can rename it to the "Not-much-of-a-View" House

The only view that patrons of the Viewhouse care about is the ass of the co-ed in the group next to theirs.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

In developments news, one of the ugliest parking lots front Coors Field might finally be going away:

https://denverite.com/2022/03/22/a-parking-lot-across-coors-field-could-be-cleared-to-build-housing

^^Nice. Ever since I was a kid, I've wondered why these lots by Coors Field sat empty. Always figured it was because of Xcel. It's a bit of nostalgia for me so this is my favorite development proposal. Good looking project too - bit of modern with a bit of coors.

[TakeFive]

Hi Haley; and where did you fly in from?

Yesterday (Wednesday) I picked up Haley from Sky Harbor around 8:00 pm heading to a newer 'lifestyle' hotel in OTS (Old Town Scottsdale). We got to talking and I mentioned a few people that had moved from Denver moved back to OKC and Tulsa as well as other 'Pandemic' casualties where people moved back to their hometowns.

It turned out that Haley and her husband and kids (4 & 8 years old) had also moved back to OKC to be closer to family. So I asked her how she liked the decision to move back? "It was nice to be near family but it was an adjustment" as so much had changed, many people had grown up and now had families etc. They did miss living in North Dallas (a lot) but she was looking forward to her 'girls weekend getaway.'

Originally Posted by BG918

I recently moved out of Denver to Tulsa. Loved living in the city for 9 years including the Golden Triangle, University and Stapleton/Central Park neighborhoods. Made a boatload of money selling my house and still frequent Denver for work so I get to see experience the growth and new restaurants/breweries but can live in a much nicer house with less traffic and near family.

You were the last one I could think of that hadn't posted in awhile that I had wondered about.

[gopokes21]

Everywhere I go, it seems there's a huge Okie diaspora I think I'm still Team Denver, but as everything gets harder and more prohibitively expensive here, I do sometimes dabble with the idea of going back to the 'Homa once it's ready for urban development. OKC is doing impressive stuff but I don't know if the grass is greener or projects are truly easier. If it's not costs, then it's the market, or supply issues, or permitting backlogs, or something else. I doubt there's anywhere that creative, equitable, quality urban development is "easy." Maybe Texas (a thought that kills my inner Okie)?

Originally Posted by Brainpathology

Excuse me for hitting your nerve. I forgot that a lot of people in places like Denver need their safe spaces and musing about my own moments of shame that I'm working with that extra comma/vacation and wonder if "I" am the whore triggers people with molecularly thin skin.

I'm happy for you that literally being sued/the impetus for a teacher being sued if my upcoming children make others uncomfortable and they speak about their "two daddies" in 3rd grade is local politics that you're annoyed at talking about. Lovely that that is so far out of your experience through either being in your blue bubble, or being straight, or childless that you don't have to worry about it and gay parents' worries like mine make me a - what did you say? - a "nerd who lacks social skills, decency, and common sense?" How very typically (Denver's brand of mostly fake) compassionate of you.

One good side effect of this board is that I can see the silver lining of NOT returning if I don't so thanks for that at least.

You have sympathies for the way your family has been targeted politically in Florida, as I know what it's like to be human collateral damage. I know I look like an anonymous figment of the internet, but I'm actually a human who left Southern Oklahoma for similar reasons. That doesn't mean you will find me denigrating the place, bullying others, calling them cruel and/or wh*res, or saying they need a safe space when they push back against aimless barking.

I'm not really sure what your point is other than being a barking dog. I guess we hear you, and I'm sorry I guess you don't like Denver, but you don't like Florida either, and we also don't like Cleveland, or safe spaces whatever that was supposed to mean, so I guess it all sucks? I apologize for wrapping you up with everyone else sht+alking less sophisticated places on this board, but it just gets old. It's probably half the posts anyone's made on here.

One thing I learned once I got my first abusive work environment under my belt is you can't just say everyone else is the problem. Everyone else can and will be a problem, but you still have to meet the people where they're at, and learn to work with people. So I moved to Colorado where I have found people to be amazing. It turns out I was swimming against the current the whole time, and Denver has been very good for my professional, personal, and creative life.

My last point, after which I'll let this go, is it sounds like you've had many of the same intellectual epiphanies that I have had toward blue bubble virtue signaling baloney. Just today the most profound defense of the trans community came from the Republican governor of Utah, who won by being further-right than Huntsman. I looked up Spencer Cox's record, and to my surprise he's been saying profoundly kind and thoughtful things for years. We all need to stop assuming someone is with us or against us based on blue team / red team.

I like the intellectual and thoughtful language used in your posts, and I sympathize and empathize with your experience. Let's just stop denigrating whole states full of good people, places, and experiences. I think we've gotten to this horrific state of affairs by writing off large swaths of America as heathens, then we act surprised when people we've called heathens begin to act like heathens. You can denigrate me all you want, but you hinder your cause when you go after places that don't deserve it.

The funny thing about globalism and connectivity is that Miami and Ft Lauderdale are probably more connected to Denver, Chicago, NY etc than they are to Lakeland, FL or Ft Pierce, FL. That's why and how cruelty has become overrepresented in most state legislatures today.

[TakeFive]

Source

D.A. Davidson Special District Group Closes $70M Bonds for Glendale Entertainment District
March 22, 2022 - Mile High CRE


Image courtesy of Central Street Capital

D.A. Davidson’s Special District Group has successfully priced and closed approximately $70 million of senior and subordinate bonds for Riverwalk Metropolitan District (MD) No. 2 in Glendale, for the development of Glendale Entertainment District, a master planned mixed-use retail, entertainment and commercial center located in the heart of downtown Glendale. The multi-million project will break ground in 2022 and Phase 1 is slated for a grand opening in late 2024.

I like the concept but it sounds like this wasn't easy to get going.

“This highly anticipated project required complex financing elements, deep team expertise and a visionary developer to help effectively build it out in a cost-effective and sustainable manner,” said Brooke Hutchens, managing director at D.A. Davidson. “It’s a pure example of how the right financing tools and team can ensure the successful delivery of a project of this scale that will support a thriving Denver and its community members long into the future.”

This could be a big hit for todays tendency toward mixed-use entertainment clusters... or it could be just an OK place to hang.

The development will occur in two phases. The first phase will be anchored by the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Phase two contemplates a 120-room hotel, pool deck bar and retail and restaurant space.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

We need BRT on Colorado and Speer. Colorado BLVD is already a mosh pit. Between this, 9th and Colorado, and the Colorado Center, more attractive transit options would be very helpful. Although I'm sure that it would take 10 times longer than it should to construct such a system.

[RyanD]

18th and Glenarm is getting oh so close to shovels in the ground.



https://denverinfill.com/2022/03/18th-glenarm-construction-imminent.html

[TakeFive]

^^ Slowly I turned; step by step

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

We need BRT on Colorado and Speer. Colorado BLVD is already a mosh pit. Between this, 9th and Colorado, and the Colorado Center, more attractive transit options would be very helpful. Although I'm sure that it would take 10 times longer than it should to construct such a system.

As it should, because it's a terrible idea. Why VE your way into a traffic disaster just for a "transit" system nobody will use (maybe 15,000/day). We should actually do transit and have something like subway or elevated train that would have high enough ridership to improve traffic/parking/safety, instead of making it worse. I actually don't care what the mode is but it needs to be removed from traffic if it's going to attract choice ridership.

Denver isn't poor, so it doesn't need to settle for BRT. I agree with you that Colorado Blvd is a mosh pit, but I just don't think more crap is the solution.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

I would definitely prefer a subway, gondola, monorail, etc... I just have zero confidence those will ever get built unless our population density at least doubled. Colorado BLVD is really a strip mall corridor. I'm not sure how easily it can be retrofit to something more multimodal. I would love to see it redesigned but most of the shopping centers are anchored by massive surface parking lots.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

Denver isn't poor, so it doesn't need to settle for BRT. I agree with you that Colorado Blvd is a mosh pit, but I just don't think more crap is the solution.

Here we go again. Yes, actually we do need to settle for BRT, we cannot afford (as a CITY) grade separated rail transit. We do not have the population and economic base to do it. It would have to be regional or state. (The region or state could afford a lot more.)

So take for comparison a new fee to construct sidewalks citywide, which you will soon see circulating for signature because we are proposing to put it on the November ballot by petition. The fee isn't small - about $100 for the average Denver home. That would generate about $40 million/year initially, escalating, or about $1.9 billion total over 30 years. (Which is on the low end of what's enough just to build and repair sidewalks.)

Take some of our best recent data points in the US for grade separated transit -

-Honolulu is about $600 million per mile, all elevated.
-NYC 2nd Avenue Subway was about $2.5 billion per mile.
-Austin is budgeting around $1 billion/mile for subway in tunnel, but nobody believes that number and it excludes all station costs.

Now back to Denver, our total general fund is $1.5 billion per year, but of that a lot is fees and such that are not available, so sale tax and property tax alone, call it right about $1 billion/year. Now, I assume we are not actually defunding the police ($567 million/yr) and we still want things like our parks department ($82 million/yr), planning department ($36 million/yr), etc. Let's just look at the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure - $140 million/year.

Then let's assume you double it! No idea where that money would come from, but just for fun. And cancel everything else DOTI does, I suppose, so I have $280 million/year to play with.

Pledge all of that - $280 million per year - you could bond about $4.6 billion. So say you need 60/40 capital/operations for a rail project, it means that Denver could buy just under $2.8 billion in capital costs.

So you could bond for maybe 1.5 miles of subway using Denver's entire DOTI budget, doubled. Call it 3 miles with federal grants. Or maybe 10 miles of elevated rail with reasonable assumptions for federal grants.

To be clear, my casual doubling of the DOTI budget amounts to about $350/year for your average Denver household in new taxes.

This compares to Honolulu - a 21 mile elevated rail system - that was $125 million/year just for operations, and the capital costs equal maybe $480 million/year. So that ONE RAIL LINE equals 16x the entire budget of Denver CPD each year. Just for comparison. That is why we struggle with large infrastructure projects in this country - most areas do not have the local tax bases to do it, and our federal money comes in irregular and unpredictable bursts (like the infrastructure bill).

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Here we go again. Yes, actually we do need to settle for BRT, we cannot afford (as a CITY) grade separated rail transit. We do not have the population and economic base to do it. It would have to be regional or state. (The region or state could afford a lot more.)

So take for comparison a new fee to construct sidewalks citywide, which you will soon see circulating for signature because we are proposing to put it on the November ballot by petition. The fee isn't small - about $100 for the average Denver home. That would generate about $40 million/year initially, escalating, or about $1.9 billion total over 30 years. (Which is on the low end of what's enough just to build and repair sidewalks.)

Take some of our best recent data points in the US for grade separated transit -

-Honolulu is about $600 million per mile, all elevated.
-NYC 2nd Avenue Subway was about $2.5 billion per mile.
-Austin is budgeting around $1 billion/mile for subway in tunnel, but nobody believes that number and it excludes all station costs.

Now back to Denver, our total general fund is $1.5 billion per year, but of that a lot is fees and such that are not available, so sale tax and property tax alone, call it right about $1 billion/year. Now, I assume we are not actually defunding the police ($567 million/yr) and we still want things like our parks department ($82 million/yr), planning department ($36 million/yr), etc. Let's just look at the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure - $140 million/year.

Then let's assume you double it! No idea where that money would come from, but just for fun. And cancel everything else DOTI does, I suppose, so I have $280 million/year to play with.

Pledge all of that - $280 million per year - you could bond about $4.6 billion. So say you need 60/40 capital/operations for a rail project, it means that Denver could buy just under $2.8 billion in capital costs.

So you could bond for maybe 1.5 miles of subway using Denver's entire DOTI budget, doubled. Call it 3 miles with federal grants. Or maybe 10 miles of elevated rail with reasonable assumptions for federal grants.

To be clear, my casual doubling of the DOTI budget amounts to about $350/year for your average Denver household in new taxes.

This compares to Honolulu - a 21 mile elevated rail system - that was $125 million/year just for operations, and the capital costs equal maybe $480 million/year. So that ONE RAIL LINE equals 16x the entire budget of Denver CPD each year. Just for comparison. That is why we struggle with large infrastructure projects in this country - most areas do not have the local tax bases to do it, and our federal money comes in irregular and unpredictable bursts (like the infrastructure bill).

Thanks Bunt for that excellent analysis. I completely agree. We are fooling ourselves if we think that we are going to be able to afford a subway or grade-separated rail in Denver unless the state, regional and federal governments are major contributors that cover 80% of the cost of those systems.

BRT should not be viewed as any less worthy or sexy than rail. The only reason why people feel that way is because we suck at doing good BRT in the US, but there are plenty of international models where BRT, or buses in general, are clean, safe, comfortable, frequent, and prioritized within the ROW so that with a citywide network of such lines, it is easy to get around without a car--the workhorse of most transit systems in big cities worldwide.

The other point is the relationship between transit and land use. Currently, the land use along Colorado Blvd sucks. But it doesn't always have to be that way. About 99% of the architecture along Colorado is disposable, built with a couple decades of life expectancy. There's no reason why we can't transition Colorado Blvd over the course of the next few decades into a higher density, mixed use, walkable, corridor of compact development with amazing BRT/bicycle lanes and generous pedestrian sidewalks on both sides and maybe one or two thru lanes for cars. We just have to have the vision and political will to make it happen. But cost-wise, that is a much more achievable goal than having a subway running under Colorado Boulevard.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

I don't see any new, non-fastracks rail coming in my lifetime outside of maybe a new Front Range Passenger Rail operated by Amtrak. I'm much more excited about infill around our existing system. 38th and Blake, Alameda Station, and Belleview station are all seeing a lot of nearby development.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

I don't see any new, non-fastracks rail coming in my lifetime outside of maybe a new Front Range Passenger Rail operated by Amtrak. I'm much more excited about infill around our existing system. 38th and Blake, Alameda Station, and Belleview station are all seeing a lot of nearby development.

Agreed, and maybe the extension of the L line up to the A line. To be honest, I'd be more satisfied if we ditched city transportation and instead focused on a rail line from Denver to Eagle with a stop downtown, Golden, Idaho Springs, Georgetown, Silverthorne, Frisco, Copper, Vail, Avon, Eagle. IMO, it would do more for the quality of life and the environment in Colorado than any other transit initiative that we can actually fund and build - plus I've got to think we could get some buzz going to get the feds interested in the mountain rail line...and maybe use it as an excuse to build more dense housing along the mountain corridor and help solve a housing issue up there.

[Interzen]

Looks like I may have 7 stories worth of new residents looking down into my back yard in the near future:

From BusinessDen.com

Apartment giant plans Lincoln Park complex with no pool or gym

Apartment developer plans Denver project


The southern portion of the site planned for a seven-story apartment complex has a two-story bar building that was most recently home to Denver Pony. (Thomas Gounley photos)

One of the largest owners of apartments in the country is targeting a retail stretch across from King Soopers in Lincoln Park for one of its newer product lines.

Virginia-based AvalonBay Communities has submitted plans to the city for a seven-story, 222-unit project dubbed “Avalon Kanso Santa Fe” in the 1300 block of Santa Fe Drive.

Article makes no mention of ground floor retail.

Zoned for 8 stories, so this is not unexpected, but it will be a shame to lose 11 small businesses including a decent mexican restaurant that I can currently access without crossing a street Also no more nude sunbathing for the wife

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by Interzen

...Zoned for 8 stories, so this is not unexpected, but it will be a shame to lose 11 small businesses including a decent mexican restaurant that I can currently access without crossing a street Also no more nude sunbathing for the wife

I'd heard rumblings of this several years back but it wasn't by AvalonBay and I just assumed it died. I wonder if COVID derailed the original developer and Avalon Bay is stepping up/into developer position. That is a decent place if it is, indeed, the lots with Tacos Los Compras?

[Interzen]

Originally Posted by laniroj

I'd heard rumblings of this several years back but it wasn't by AvalonBay and I just assumed it died. I wonder if COVID derailed the original developer and Avalon Bay is stepping up/into developer position. That is a decent place if it is, indeed, the lots with Tacos Los Compras?

In 2016 there was a developer interested in just the plaza and the owners split the building that now has Taco Los Compas into a separate lot to accomodate but it never moved forward.

It's kind of crazy that our side of the alley is zoned U-RH-2.5 and the Santa Fe side is zoned C-MX-8.