DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by twalm

LMAO not really applicable here. You act as if you were a real messenger and had no choice but to deliver the message.

Hmm, I wasn't thinking of myself as any messenger but I can see it hangs out there like a dangling participle. So we'll go with that and be content that you added some humor to your day.

[TakeFive]

Turning the Page

The Dorsey Apartments - 600 Park Ave W, Denver










All images courtesy Dorsey Apartments/Greystar

Other than a couple of units being ready more will become available August 1st and even more on Sept 1st. They will have co-working space as well as rentable office space. Initial incentives includes six weeks free rent and other benefits.

This project has had a long journey; the site was originally bought by a JV based in Kansas City in 2018 for $5.16 million. After entitlements were in place they sold the project to Greystar for $9.1 million retaining an equity interest.

[TakeFive]

Hot off the Press

With a world-class workforce and a booming economy, North Carolina repeats as America’s Top State for Business in 2023
JUL 11 2023 By Scott Cohn - CNBC

Rankings Here.

For my money these rankings are the best that's out there. This project started in 2007. No longer the darling but in a competitive world Colorado still comes in a respectable 11th. Instead of just reading the numbers I decided to dig down some.

First thing I realized is CNBC's analysis has a decided liberal tilt. For example, the 4th most important category is "Life, Health & Inclusion" at 14% with an emphasis on "inclusion" as it suggests let's just say that that most businesses are NOT fond of the cultural crap that conservatives obsess over.

For grins, I thought it would be fun to compare Colorado with Arizona and Washington so mhays could play along.

Starting with the most important, workforce is worth 16%

Colorado is rated 9th, Washington is 5th and Arizona is rated 3rd. They look at a the full spectrum of workers. They also consider 'talent migration.'

Next category is Infrastructure at 15.6%

Colorado is ranked 10th while Washington is 23rd and Arizona is ranked 7th. Think business and Seattle's great transit is not as important as Denver great airport. They also look at utility systems and renewable energy as part of the grid is a factor. Climate change risks are considered from wild fires to hurricanes etc. I can see why Colorado has a solid infrastructure ranking.

Last thing we'll look at is the Economy at 14.4%

Colorado comes in 32nd; Washington comes in 17th and Arizona comes is 15th. Not sure why Colorado is rated lower here. They do look at pension obligations and number of HQ's which Colorado doesn't excel at but I doubt either is that important.

Methodology is here.

Note: Arizona hasn't typically scored well on these ranking but they've been working hard to improve their business profile. This year's overall ranking of 14th is a jump from last year's 34th place. And starting this year AZ will have the lowest income tax rate among all states that have an income tax.

[bulldurhamer]

[QUOTE=TakeFive;9989717]Hot off the Press
how can the west continue to compete given the looming water and climate crises? we're going to be playing from behind on most fronts and there's no reason to think it's going to get better. combine all of that with astronomical housing costs and you have a dicey formula.

people are leaving colorado in droves at this point. it's going to take a miracle to turn this back around now given these constraints.

the dirty air, the wild fires, the melting snowcaps, and of course the lack of rain makes getting people to move tough. good thing the california escapees haven't caught on just how rough it's going to get. at least some folks are still coming in. you still have a chance to cash out on that colorado home yet!

[MovinOnUp]

LOL, really?

[Curtis Park]

Originally Posted by MovinOnUp

LOL, really?

To what are you referring?

[mhays]

The fast-increasing population is making people leave in droves!

[MovinOnUp]

Originally Posted by Curtis Park

To what are you referring?

Sorry - mostly this: "people are leaving colorado in droves at this point. it's going to take a miracle to turn this back around now given these constraints."

... but really the whole post I guess.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

how can the west continue to compete given the looming water and climate crises? we're going to be playing from behind on most fronts and there's no reason to think it's going to get better.

Every projection and model points to the Mountain West being in much better shape than anywhere else in the country. Take a look at something like https://probablefutures.org/maps/?volume...&warming_scenario=1.5#4.37/38.44/-104.02 and play around with the numbers and map types. Almost everything points to the Rockies being slightly wetter overall, with a slight possibility of more drought but not as much change in temperature. SLC is going to have issues as the Great Salt Lake dries up, the further you go east from Denver the worse the weather will be, and the parts of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona that are not mountainous will get hotter and much drier, but overall it isn't projected to be quite as bad here in the Mountain West as anywhere else.

It's the south and southwest that are going to be in real trouble - in fact insurers and lenders are already making adjustments or leaving (like the recent news out of Florida https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/insuranc...in-latest-blow-to-homeowners/ar-AA1dIVQo) Places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Austin, and Miami that are already unpleasantly hot in the summer are going to become nearly unlivable as time goes on. The fact that a lot of state governments are also doing nothing or actively planning against climate change will likely make their situation worse. It will be hard to maintain growth if the power grid breaks down every time the temperature crests 100 or you can't insure a house against flooding or storms. Phoenix and Las Vegas will likely have to resort to shenanigans to keep the taps flowing...

Water will certainly be a problem in any scenario if we continue without change. Those precious lawns and non-native trees will likely suffer and things like fracking and industrial usage will need a lot of change to stay viable... Now is definitely the time to become a water rights lawyer.

But you should definitely count on a future where we continue to have climate refugees.

[TakeFive]

Oh Yeah, it won't be long before Denver looks like this

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

people are leaving colorado in droves at this point. it's going to take a miracle to turn this back around now given these constraints.

the dirty air, the wild fires, the melting snowcaps, and of course the lack of rain makes getting people to move tough. good thing the california escapees haven't caught on just how rough it's going to get. at least some folks are still coming in. you still have a chance to cash out on that colorado home yet!

Image from US National Archives and Records Administration

[wwmiv]

I moved to escape Denver. Reasons, from least to most important:

1. Altitude
2. Air quality
3. Political, policy, and administrative incompetence
4. Rude gay men
5. Maladaptive cultural traits
6. Segregation
7. Violence
8. Homelessness
9. Cost of living
10. Denverites
11. Californians
12. How Denverites treat newcomers

[TakeFive]

Thirty Days to Go

X D2 Apartments - 2200 Arapahoe Street








Images courtesy Studio PBA / X Company

Move in August 15
Leases available from four months to 18 months.

------------------------------------

Best of Luck, My Friend

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I moved to escape Denver. Reasons, from least to most important:

[Curtis Park]

Originally Posted by MovinOnUp

Sorry - mostly this: "people are leaving colorado in droves at this point. it's going to take a miracle to turn this back around now given these constraints."

... but really the whole post I guess.

That's what I thought. His stuff is usually pretty far out there and hyperbolic.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I moved to escape Denver. Reasons, from least to most important:

1. Altitude
2. Air quality
3. Political, policy, and administrative incompetence
4. Rude gay men
5. Maladaptive cultural traits
6. Segregation
7. Violence
8. Homelessness
9. Cost of living
10. Denverites
11. Californians
12. How Denverites treat newcomers

Me and my other gay male friends were just talking about how nice it is now with you gone.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

...It will be hard to maintain growth if the power grid breaks down every time the temperature crests 100...

Water will certainly be a problem in any scenario if we continue without change. Those precious lawns and non-native trees will likely suffer and things like fracking and industrial usage will need a lot of change to stay viable... Now is definitely the time to become a water rights lawyer...

Haha, imagine when we all will supposedly have electric cars at the expense of not having air conditioning!

Lawns, while not helping, are not the problem with water. Cities use, in the most aggressive estimates, 15% of water in the west. With conservation efforts, some western cities now use less water than they did 20 years ago while supporting significantly higher populations - ie Las Vegas. So yeah, we can stop watering lawns as a feel good measure but it won't change a damn thing - kind of like the plastic straw thing.

The problem with water is two-fold. 1) we grow water intensive crops in some of the driest places on earth and 2) we refuse to address it on a national scale and trust me, it's a national problem. Produce from Mexico (facing the same water issues as us) and California literally give us year round produce. If fresh fruit doesn't show up on the conference tables in NYC and DC and on the White House table for daily staff briefings a water pipeline will be approved by Congress with no conditions or EIS requirements, funded and under construction within 6 months.

We used to solve big issues in this country, but now all we do is virtue signal and delay decision making. If the old timers could build a 23 mile tunnel under the continental divide via two separate shafts and only be 10 inches offset when they met in the middle, we can certainly build an above-ground pipeline from the Missouri River to that same tunnel to take the water back over the divide to the rest of the west. It's literally a straight shot on I-70 - the right of way is already there!! Likewise, California could build a pipeline from the Columbia River to Shasta Reservoir and guarantee those fruit trays. BUT WE DON'T, WE CAN'T, THE ENVIRONMENT, ETC (so they say)! I love the environment more than most, but conservation only goes so far and when push comes to shove, I'll put the ability of people to live above other species. If you're a serious water thinker you have to find a way to bring more water to the places which are growing in population and producing valuable/essential agriculture..

Why is this applicable to development? Well, many places across the west are instituting development pauses and moratoriums on account of not being able to procure adequate water for growth. Water is now directly affecting housing affordability, job growth, quality of life, etc.

[laniroj]

To continue the development applicability, the water thing drives me nuts. Our elected officials barrel forward with industry, like the semi conductor boom in Arizona - they somehow find MASSIVE amounts of water for that incredibly water-intensive manufacturing. In the same breath, those elected officials aren't proactive for residential water use and institute moratoriums and turn down residential rezonings as a result. It's a legit recipe for a housing affordability disaster.

Mayor: Let's bring the world's largest semi conductor here! NO, let's bring all of the semi-conductor manufacturers here!

Council: What a great idea, imagine all of the taxes and local spending that will generate! APPROVED!

People: YAY, JOBS! OH WAIT, THERE'S NO LONGER ANY HOUSING I CAN AFFORD...(tail between legs)...I guess I'll move to New Mexico, or Georgia.

rinse and repeat all over the good ole US of A.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by laniroj

To continue the development applicability, the water thing drives me nuts. Our elected officials barrel forward with industry, like the semi conductor boom in Arizona - they somehow find MASSIVE amounts of water for that incredibly water-intensive manufacturing. In the same breath, those elected officials aren't proactive for residential water use and institute moratoriums and turn down residential rezonings as a result. It's a legit recipe for a housing affordability disaster.

It's always good to read with a grain of skepticism.

With Conservatives stuff often jumps off the page as being totally crazy stuff. Liberals tend to be more subtle or perhaps 'naïve'? Both like to be intentionally sloppy.

One baseline data point with TSMC is that they use 8 gallons of water per chipset. Not as bad as cotton but yeah, that's a lot of water. All the OMG writers jumped all over that. Here's the problem: $12 billion is a lot of money and as a part of their development TSMC will build a water recycling facility. They anticipate recycling roughly 95% of their water. Big, huge difference there. Intel makes similar claims with their under construction facility in Chandler.


With respect to Denver Water's expansion of Gross Reservoir

Of the additional 77,000 acre-feet added through the expansion, 72,000 acre-feet will be for Denver Water customer use and 5,000 acre-feet will go to an environmental pool, which will provide enhanced stream flow to a 17-mile stretch of South Boulder Creek, as well as additional storage for Boulder and Lafayette.

They anticipate adding water at their expanded Gross Reservoir in 2027.

.....

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mojiferous

It's the south and southwest that are going to be in real trouble - in fact insurers and lenders are already making adjustments or leaving (like the recent news out of Florida https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/insuranc...in-latest-blow-to-homeowners/ar-AA1dIVQo)

True Story

Last night I'm listening to my favorite late night talker: The Todd Schnitt Show. He has an afternoon drive-time program in Tampa but the program is syndicated and it's replayed late night down here.

Years ago he decided to build a nice home. In order to get a good flood rating he had to be up 10 feet. He found a hilly area where he accomplished that. He carried a lot of insurance including a big umbrella liability policy so he used AIG. Last year his flood rating was changed from 10 feet to 12 feet. His 1st floor is up 11 feet.

AIG canceled his Homeowners policy and he struggled to replace it. He settled for a triple B rated company. However; to get flood coverage it would cost him $50,000 a year. Ouch; he passed on that but does have the available Federal flood coverage which is not that good.

------------------------

You forgot to mention California. Due to regulated premiums and fire risk Insurers are abandoning the state in droves.

Phoenix is in much better shape than you might think; they started planning for droughts many decades ago. For example Scottsdale waters all of its golf courses with re-claimed water. Phoenix has been storing excess water in underground aquifers for years.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

It's always good to read with a grain of skepticism.

With Conservatives stuff often jumps off the page as being totally crazy stuff. Liberals tend to be more subtle or perhaps 'naïve'? Both like to be intentionally sloppy.

One baseline data point with TSMC is that they use 8 gallons of water per chipset. Not as bad as cotton but yeah, that's a lot of water. All the OMG writers jumped all over that. Here's the problem: $12 billion is a lot of money and as a part of their development TSMC will build a water recycling facility. They anticipate recycling roughly 95% of their water. Big, huge difference there. Intel makes similar claims with their under construction facility in Chandler....

No skepticism needed. TSMC spending $40 billion in Arizona makes total sense and it should be done...for SO MANY REASONS...you know like national security. What drives me nuts is everyone thinks things can't be done - we need more YES people in positions of power. If this were 100 years ago, our elected leaders would simply take water from flood prone areas and ditch it or pipeline it to the areas that needed water. Up for debate, but basically since the EPA came into being, we've been unable to do big things in this country.

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Lawns, while not helping, are not the problem with water. Cities use, in the most aggressive estimates, 15% of water in the west. With conservation efforts, some western cities now use less water than they did 20 years ago while supporting significantly higher populations - ie Las Vegas. So yeah, we can stop watering lawns as a feel good measure but it won't change a damn thing - kind of like the plastic straw thing.

The problem with water is two-fold. 1) we grow water intensive crops in some of the driest places on earth and 2) we refuse to address it on a national scale and trust me, it's a national problem. Produce from Mexico (facing the same water issues as us) and California literally give us year round produce. If fresh fruit doesn't show up on the conference tables in NYC and DC and on the White House table for daily staff briefings a water pipeline will be approved by Congress with no conditions or EIS requirements, funded and under construction within 6 months.

I totally agree, but all the articles pushing that idea that "your lawn isn't the problem and you don't need low-flow toilets because the real issue is all the farms in dry areas" are selling a solution that requires massive systemic change.

Thats because it is only true on very large scales - like state or aquifer/basin levels. Personal usage is actually an issue because local water agencies or districts are limited in capacity and rights. So sure, most of the water usage in Colorado may go to agriculture in a dry climate, but even if you reduce that to 0 it does not magically allow your local water district to pump that water to you. They'll have to acquire the rights AND add infrastructure.

This is why more cities in the west will probably have to follow Las Vegas and mandate water conservation measures and reduce their usage. No matter what happens elsewhere, they still have to buy more water to get more. And the water used for agriculture may be in distant areas that they don't have infrastructure in - unfortunately you can't just say "we have rights for X gallons from the Arkansas but we will just take it from the Platte." It's much, much cheaper and easier to make sure the existing infrastructure and supply can accommodate more people.

And we should not count on a "Manhattan Project for climate change" for this. There is no world where you can engineer and build a massive water delivery system for even one city in less than a decade. Because you need more than just the delivery mechanism, you will also need to build storage and treatment and handle interconnections for the new water. Regulatory speedbumps, like the environmental impact, are way down the process after you've already determined how and where you're building the infrastructure. Acquiring the land alone will take forever.

With sacrifices in process and safety you may be able to speed this up a little. Hoover Dam killed 100 workers but was only finished in only 5 years. However planning began almost a decade before construction started. Even the Chinese took a decade to build Three Gorges Dam.

To bring this back on topic - Denver Water is really great and we're in a much better situation than a lot of other cities in the West. That doesn't mean we should count on a future where we have plenty of water. Or that we should count on a shrinking population because of climate change. What we should be doing is building denser and discouraging lawns and thirsty non-native vegetation. We shouldn't be turning down denser development near transit in the hopes of a new grass-covered dog park. And we shouldn't be letting sprawl destroy actual nature so "highrises" don't block the mountain view from your back yard.

[1000ftDenver]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I moved to escape Denver. Reasons, from least to most important:

1. Altitude
2. Air quality
3. Political, policy, and administrative incompetence
4. Rude gay men
5. Maladaptive cultural traits
6. Segregation
7. Violence
8. Homelessness
9. Cost of living
10. Denverites
11. Californians
12. How Denverites treat newcomers

See ya.