DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[King DenCity]

Originally Posted by comoneymaker

i remember a while back i said i have a feeling we would be getting a new sky scrapers soon. Someone said this was true but could not say more. It wasn't one of the old proposals brought back to life like 15th st was it ?

[DenverPoke]

comoneymaker IS pancakes. Or at least a blood relative.

[The Dirt]

I heard from a reliable source that the Gumby tower is finally getting funded.

[blm3034L!fe]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

I heard from a reliable source that the Gumby tower is finally getting funded.

Huh so I'm presuming your all speaking of the famous "TRANGO TOWER"

I call bullshit, apparently it was a hoax from inception and was never a true proposed development. Don't get me wrong I chubb up thinking about it being developed.

But I find it very hard to believe that this tower or anything like it will ever see the light of day. Denver developers are fond of 25 Stories tall or less!

[King DenCity]

Originally Posted by DenverPoke

comoneymaker IS pancakes. Or at least a blood relative.

haha yeah... no... comoneymaker is a platypus for all i know. and i aint no platypus

[DenverPoke]

Denver/Calgary or US/Canada development stuff from a few weeks ago but I just read where downtown Toronto currently has 138 projects over 10 stories under construction...holy Jesus can you imagine doing a crane census??

And the average downtown Toronto condo price was $367k.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by DenverPoke

Denver/Calgary or US/Canada development stuff from a few weeks ago but I just read where downtown Toronto currently has 138 projects over 10 stories under construction...holy Jesus can you imagine doing a crane consensus??

And the average downtown Toronto condo price was $367k.

Toronto is rapidly become a world city. In the most direct terms, Toronto provides a location convenient to much of the US population without the crime rate, and, a better supervised financial environment (at least to this point). Toronto is rapidly replacing Chicago as the major city on the Great Lakes and provides a great alternate environment for the internationals to Boston, Philly, NYC, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Cincinnati, and, even cities like Atlanta.

Denver is a 3rd tier city- and, if compared to major Canadian cities, would be 3rd in population, and, 5th in economic might, after Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and, surprisingly, Calgary.

Outside of LLCs buying up homes for rentals, money pouring into 4 to 6 story stick wall apartments, and public works projects largely financed (directly or indirectly) by the local taxpayer, Denver is not a particularly healthy business city. Denver, for example, is not a money center with almost all of the banking business here being out of NYC and, to a lesser extent, the Twin Cities (US West). The metro area has few world class companies, and, is steadily loosing employees in regional headquarter operations of national companies.

Denver, IMO, is growing today largely because compared to many US metropolitan areas in 2014, metro Denver is a great place to life, and, as our quality of life has been well marketed for at least 30 years by the music media, the "alternative arts" communities, and, city of Denver booster organizations, people continue to move into the metro area.

However, Denver, remains a city growing largely on hype and real estate development often triggered by tax payer funded magaprojects, such as DIA, and Fastracks.

Until Denver attracts world business on a large scale, and, employees of such businesses need to live in Denver, Denver simply will not be a world class city like Toronto, Miami, Dallas, and, Houston are becoming. In Denver, for the foreseeable future, there will no real need for either high rise condominiums such are built in Toronto and Miami, nor, huge prestige buildings for corporate headquarters and/or well heeled corporate clients.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

Until Denver attracts world business on a large scale, and, employees of such businesses need to live in Denver, Denver simply will not be a world class city like Toronto, Miami, Dallas, and, Houston are becoming. In Denver, for the foreseeable future, there will no real need for either high rise condominiums such are built in Toronto and Miami, nor, huge prestige buildings for corporate headquarters and/or well heeled corporate clients.

Denver is not in the same league as those cities. Denver's peer cities/metros are fellow regional centers Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, San Diego and Phoenix. If Denver keeps building up its technology sector, and sees continued growth in the finance and energy industries, it could be second only to Seattle, tied with Atlanta and surpass Minneapolis in that group. With Denver's growth more on par with Dallas and Houston though that could drive that, especially since the bulk of growth is in young educated professionals which in part is helping the tech and energy industries thrive. Few metros are attracting the same number of that demographic.

[trace™]

Originally Posted by BG918

Denver is not in the same league as those cities. Denver's peer cities/metros are fellow regional centers Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, San Diego and Phoenix. If Denver keeps building up its technology sector, and sees continued growth in the finance and energy industries, it could be second only to Seattle, tied with Atlanta and surpass Minneapolis in that group. With Denver's growth more on par with Dallas and Houston though that could drive that, especially since the bulk of growth is in young educated professionals which in part is helping the tech and energy industries thrive. Few metros are attracting the same number of that demographic.

Let's hope so. I am still praying for somethign special on the skyline. We've got the pretty/cool neighborhoods, now we just need a post card image.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by DenverPoke

Denver/Calgary or US/Canada development stuff from a few weeks ago but I just read where downtown Toronto currently has 138 projects over 10 stories under construction...holy Jesus can you imagine doing a crane census??

And the average downtown Toronto condo price was $367k.

And I just happen to read over the weekend at TransportPolitic (although a year old article) that Toronto has C$16 billion in transit improvements underway and wants to fund an additional $34 billion in new transit. But Toronto should be compared to New York or Chicago, not Denver.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

Toronto is rapidly become a world city.

Denver is a 3rd tier city- and, if compared to major Canadian cities, would be 3rd in population, and, 5th in economic might, after Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and, surprisingly, Calgary.

....public works projects largely financed (directly or indirectly) by the local taxpayer, Denver is not a particularly healthy business city. Denver, for example, is not a money center with almost all of the banking business here being out of NYC and, to a lesser extent, the Twin Cities (US West). The metro area has few world class companies, and, is steadily loosing employees in regional headquarter operations of national companies.

Denver, IMO, is growing today largely because compared to many US metropolitan areas in 2014, metro Denver is a great place to live....

However, Denver, remains a city growing largely on hype and real estate development often triggered by tax payer funded magaprojects, such as DIA, and Fastracks.

In Denver, for the foreseeable future, there will no real need for either high rise condominiums such are built in Toronto and Miami, nor, huge prestige buildings for corporate headquarters and/or well heeled corporate clients.

Global cities would also include the left coast, especially Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Set aside the notion of becoming a global city and most of what you state still applies.

But you overlook a few things. Focusing in on the City of Denver (as apposed to the metro area) and I keep pounding the table for this but the expanded Convention Center and Convention Hotel really has been a key to growth. Not a 1st tier convention city but right there with the 2nd tier group. It rocks b/c it's a block from the Performing Arts Center, two blocks from the 16th Street Mall and an easy distance to LoDo and Coors Field. And as often overlooked DIA's great access to other cities is BIG.

Fastracks is also HUGE. Whether it's transit helping to attract Millennials or investors looking for a secure long term place to invest it's hard to fully appreciate the positive impact of what Denver is doing with transit but it's very important.

Also we've come full circle from the boom that helped create Denver's Skyline in the 1980's. Oil & Gas is back. This time it's fracking and horizontal drilling and looks to be a long-term play.


But to the other very real points you make and the other reason why I wanted to piggyback on your comment is that I happen to read two relatively brief but good articles in Forbes about the competitive landscape that Denver is affected by in one fashion or another. If you go THERE (to Forbes) one article speaks specifically to financial jobs. And as Forbes likes to do if you click on the list(s) you get to see the skylines of most of the cities.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by BG918

Denver is not in the same league as those cities. Denver's peer cities/metros are fellow regional centers Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, San Diego and Phoenix. If Denver keeps building up its technology sector, and sees continued growth in the finance and energy industries, it could be second only to Seattle, tied with Atlanta and surpass Minneapolis in that group. With Denver's growth more on par with Dallas and Houston though that could drive that, especially since the bulk of growth is in young educated professionals which in part is helping the tech and energy industries thrive. Few metros are attracting the same number of that demographic.

I'll side more with Wizened on this.

Denver has little chance of competing with Atlanta, Dallas, Houston or Seattle. Dallas has become a magnet for Fortune 500 companies and that brings soo much benefits to a city. Seattle grows their own Fortune 500 companies and that list is impressive. I also read recently how, for whatever reason, Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook (and others) are expanding into Seattle and scrambling for big chunks of office space.

Phoenix is a factory town and warehouse zone for 8 million people in SoCal. In most other areas Denver is well ahead. But don't count them out. Arizona is a "Right to Work State" and they have far out invested Colorado in Higher Education, slashed taxes and hope to raise their tech and finance profile.

If you click on the Forbes link I included above you can see and appreciate more the challenge Denver will have. But Denver is doing wonderful for now and yes has been attractive to Millennials.

As Wizened also penned in a comment, let Denver grow in its own way and style; let it choose a Smart Growth path.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

If you click on the Forbes link I included above you can see and appreciate more the challenge Denver will have. But Denver is doing wonderful for now and yes has been attractive to Millennials.

As Wizened also penned in a comment, let Denver grow in its own way and style; let it choose a Smart Growth path.

You realize the columns you are linking are by Kotkin, a well known pro-suburb, anti-city hack? Just because it's on Forbes (online only) doesn't mean it's legitimate. Not arguing your premise at all, actually, just noting that you should know your sources.

[Cirrus]

It's curious to me that someone would rank Atlanta as closer to Denver's peer than Houston or Dallas. I think of Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas as a trifecta of pretty similar & comparable cities.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

If you click on the Forbes link I included above you can see and appreciate more the challenge Denver will have. But Denver is doing wonderful for now and yes has been attractive to Millennials.

What an idiotic article. Salt Lake City has a growing banking sector because some Mormon's are bilingual? How about SLC is the largest industrial banking center in the United States because Utah was one of the first states to allow industrial banking? It's like saying Utah is one of the largest recipients of radioactive waste in the US because Mormons are good with garbage, not because Utah has one of the most receptive regulatory environments when it comes to accepting other people's glowing shit (asides from Texas).

I'll also dispute Wizened's claim that the metro area has few world class companies. There are at least three areas where Denver has established itself as a global center- aerospace (namely space systems), engineering design (infrastructure and process engineering), and O&G exploration. It's also kind of obvious with how our companies are located in the metro area. Aerospace and engineering design companies tend to prefer campus settings and this has a trickle down effect for supporting companies as well. It's amazing the number of engineers that live in Wash Park and reverse commute to the Tech Center, Wateron Canyon, and to Boulder.

Oh, Denver is also a global center for mining engineering. Not exactly the biggest industry or one that is very public, but a massively important one.

[afrench]

I find these wide-scope city comparisons really interesting. If anyone's interested in seeing some more concrete, "impartial" city groupings, I'd suggest taking a look at Wikipedia's article on Global Cities, specifically the GaWC Study (most recently updated in 2012), as it's a little less granular.

This study ranks Atlanta in the Alpha− tier, among Taipei, Stockholm, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Seoul. Dallas and Houston are both Beta+, among Montreal, Philadelphia, Copenhagen, and Tel Aviv. For those who are curious, Denver sits in the Beta− group, among the likes of Seattle, Minneapolis, Perth, and Abu Dhabi.

Of course, these rankings are endlessly debatable, but it's cool to see the world's cities compiled in such a way.

[mhays]

Oh, no, not GAWC. They look at an extremely narrow profile...last I looked it was how many multinational companies in four narrow categories had offices in your city...accounting firms and I forget what else. It's a proxy for extrapolating how much cities are "connected," and has little to do with general prominence.

[afrench]

That's true, but isn't that the directly relevant to the current discussion? I didn't reference an economic compilation in a discussion concerning culture.

Edit: Even if you disagree with GaWC's methodology, that link still has more, equally interesting indices with other methodologies.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

You realize the columns you are linking are by Kotkin, a well known pro-suburb, anti-city hack? Just because it's on Forbes (online only) doesn't mean it's legitimate. Not arguing your premise at all, actually, just noting that you should know your sources.

Haha, tbh both you and Wong seem to have more informed opinions when it comes to Forbes as other than the natural curiosity of some of their Top Cities lists I rarely spend any time there. I followed the link for this from Phoenix Business Journal. Being a scrolling link the Finance article was originally followed by a manufacturing growth piece but that disappeared.

Like it or not the suburban concept is still alive and attracting capital investment. Turns out that these areas are often attached to a nearby city downtown with a growing skyline. It's that whole "regionalism" thingy.

Additionally inner ring suburbs are densifying which is a good thing of course. For example, when State Farm decided to build a 2 million square foot regional HQ in Tempe I though how awesome it would have been had they gone downtown. But with a site right on Tempe Town Lake it's hard to fault them and they will have 10-15 story mid-rise buildings.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Haha, tbh both you and Wong seem to have more informed opinions when it comes to Forbes as other than the natural curiosity of some of their Top Cities lists I rarely spend any time there.

I shamefully admit that I used to subscribe to the periodical before admitting that the content was shit-encrusted drivel that was better purposed as smoking papers for ditchweed.