DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Back to Visit Denver:


Quote:


South of Alameda Street, Broadway becomes "Antique Row ," a bargain hunter's dream with an amazing collection of nearly 100 antique stores packed into just 18 blocks. Whether you are looking for something to do or something to buy, there's a good chance you'll find it on South Broadway.

FFS, it's Alameda Avenue, not Street.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by Ich

Not really an imagination… When the supervisor came out to look I asked him about it, told me to stop having people put their bins so close to my fence as if it’s my job to police it. I asked what we are supposed to do when you add compost bins and he just shrugged his shoulders. So yes for people who live in central Denver, it’s not well thought out…

Folks, there’s a placed called NYC. Approximately 7 million of its 8.5 million people deal with trash, recycling, and compost bins…and they even do it without any alleys to speak of. We will be just fine in Denver!

[bunt_q]

Nobody - literally NOBODY - thinks NYC is a good model on that front. You have an interesting definition of “fine.” Personally, I have higher standards.

[DenvertoLA]

I have to second that. The smell and rats that the NYC system attracts is horrible.
I'd rather have the Korean model where recycling trucks drive around while playing music. When people hear the music they bring out their trash/recyclables.

That would be a big culture shift, but it would end petty neighbor disputes and free up a lot of space.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Folks, there’s a placed called NYC. Approximately 7 million of its 8.5 million people deal with trash, recycling, and compost bins…and they even do it without any alleys to speak of. We will be just fine in Denver!

Much of NYC does not use any system of containers whatsoever, nor does much of the city have alleyways. They take their bags and pile them on street corners. This should not be a model anywhere.

[coolmandan03]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Folks, there’s a placed called NYC. Approximately 7 million of its 8.5 million people deal with trash, recycling, and compost bins…and they even do it without any alleys to speak of. We will be just fine in Denver!

... i don't know about you, but my trash has not been picked up on regular days for months, sometimes being skipped altogether. I'm sure NYC would have a problem if that were the case there too

[mr1138]

New York may not be a great example - but many places in Europe also do not American-style alleys that are exclusively places for trash pickup and servicing the back of buildings.

The Dutch have an interesting solution to the problem of having no real place to put a dumpster in a dense urban area - just put it underground.



Video.

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by coolmandan03

... i don't know about you, but my trash has not been picked up on regular days for months, sometimes being skipped altogether. I'm sure NYC would have a problem if that were the case there too

That's definitely the case in NYC (much worse, in fact) and they definitely have an enormous problem.

[TakeFive]

Denver City Council putting $2.4M pandemic recovery grant into downtown upgrades
Aug 18, 2022 By Ed Sealover – Senior Reporter, Denver Business Journal

Denver City Council is poised to use $2.4 million in federal coronavirus recovery funds to boost the lagging vitality of downtown, targeting the money for public-safety upgrades like added security cameras as well as business aid...

Props to Debbie Artega who says it better than even bunt could:

Councilwoman Debbie Ortega, who holds one of two at-large seats on the council, said she has a lot of interactions with downtown residents and workers and is worried that their fears around public safety could cause long-lasting damage if not addressed. This grant is a major step toward taking care of that problem, she said.

“A lot of them no longer want to walk the 16th Street Mall to go enjoy a meal or shop as they used to,” Ortega said. “I really think that this is important for our downtown — to have a safe downtown for our residents, for our employees, for businesses to feel like they don’t have to keep walking employees to their cars.”

(I found this last night while watching the Rockies game)
San Francisco, Cleveland and Portland’s downtowns most deserted in US: study
August 19, 2022 - New York Post

Democratic cities San Francisco, Cleveland and Portland have the most deserted downtown areas in the US in the wake of the pandemic, which has driven away workers and tourists, according to a new study.

FWIW this article is a conservative hit piece. Never mind that, Check out this chart. If you want to check out the research it's from the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley

The Death of Downtown? - Pandemic Recovery Trajectories across 62 North American Cities
Karen Chapple, Michael Leong, Daniel Huang, Hannah Moore, Laura Schmahmann, and Joy Wang

My Take:

This analysis IMO reflects two intersecting issues. 1) Work-from-home and 2) Crime with Crime being the more important.

I have read in BizNow that medium sized cities have returned to the office; cities like Columbus OH or Salt Lake City for example. I also happened to read that SLC's downtown Streetcar Line is busier than it has ever been. Many larger cities are likely to be tech-driven with more work-from-home employees. While SLC has a lot of tech it's more suburban.

Number of employees aside it's the perceived safety that is the elephant in the room

[TheGeographer]

TakeFive,

I live in SLC and can shed some light. Comparing SLC to San Francisco/other large cities as the article and study references did is comparing apples to oranges. Not really appropriate to do considering there are many different variables at play. For example, SLC still has a homeless problem that has gotten worse with rapidly increasing housing costs in the valley, there’s just not as many as San Francisco. We still have crime in the ballpark neighborhood, it just got overlooked in the study. A lot of the tech here is in Lehi “silicon slope”. I work in tech and our office is downtown. I’ve been in a handful of times since the pandemic. So the work from home trend for tech still holds true for some in SLC. Another thing different about SLC is the population density is pretty low compared to other downtowns. This is changing. There’s a decent amount of residential development downtown, but it’s not on the same level as Denver. Still, like Denver lots of people from the big coastal cities are moving to SLC because of its access to the outdoors. Much of SLC downtown still revolves around the LDS business buildings. They just completed a large office building. Pretty sure they never fully went home/remote at anytime during the pandemic compared to other cities.

I’m was born and raised in the Denver area. Moving to SLC has made me appreciate Denver downtown when I go back to visit family. SLC has the better access to the outdoors but doesn’t have the urban environment Denver does. If we had a River Mile equivalent project in the plans in SLC we’d be losing our minds on the SLC forum. Hell we get pretty excited about any building over 300 ft, let alone any rumors of our first skyscraper. Denver has so much going on in the RINO north and scattered throughout downtown. Seeing all those cranes in the recent pics on denverinfill and here made me envious but also excited for my next visit.

[TakeFive]

Thanks for the feedback

Originally Posted by TheGeographer

I live in SLC and can shed some light. Comparing SLC to San Francisco/other large cities as the article and study references did is comparing apples to oranges.

I'll respond now since I won't have time tomorrow.

Having taken a deeper dive I see what happened. For political purposes, the NY Post looked at both larger and medium sized cities. But the article is how I found the sourced analysis.

The research is quite impressive for how they determined a "Recovery Quotient" for each city for 162 cities. I had read previously, which I pointed out, that medium-sized cities were more likely to have recovered with everyone back to the office. So that's what the NY Post took advantage of. But I couldn't care less about the politics. In hindsight I should have skipped the NY Post piece.

There are legitimate concerns and questions for those cities that have struggled to recover. For example, why have cities like S.F., Minneapolis and Portland struggled so much more than other cities? Why have cities like San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix recovered so much better? (I picked out cities west of the Mississippi) I'll go with what I know.

If Denver were to build a humongous cluster of 'human services' (that could accommodate a large homeless encampment) along Washington Street in Globeville then you'd be just like Phoenix. The site in Phoenix might as well be in another world.

For certain, Phoenix has more homeless people than Denver but if most of them were hanging along I-225 in Aurora, nobody in downtown Denver would care. Phoenix has homeless peeps all over the place but for context Phoenix has more people that Denver, Aurora, Lakewood and Englewood combined. But they're not in downtown with few exceptions; nor are they in downtown Tempe or downtown Scottsdale, the three growing urban areas. Proof positive that downtowns aren't relegated to be homeless destinations by some decree.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by RyanD

Didn't realize 800 N Broadway in the Golden Triangle was "South Broadway".

haha. I'm still struggling to accept large portions of ballpark as RiNo!

[Agent Orange]

Originally Posted by laniroj

haha. I'm still struggling to accept large portions of ballpark as RiNo!

In both cases it's good marketing, if geographically inaccurate. South Broadway and Rino don't have the same public perception challenges that downtown/LoDo/Cap Hill have acquired in recent years.

[wong21fr]

Does anyone have any information on what's going on with the Fitzgerald apartment building off of Market? There have been not any resident move-ins and a ton of construction work internally over the last few months.

Seems like some sort of construction defect that needed to be corrected before it can be occupied and curious as to what that might be.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Does anyone have any information on what's going on with the Fitzgerald apartment building off of Market? There have been not any resident move-ins and a ton of construction work internally over the last few months.

Seems like some sort of construction defect that needed to be corrected before it can be occupied and curious as to what that might be.

Found this on e-permits: MOD Dwgs Slab demo and replacement on Lvl P2 of parking garage for update the waterproofing and trench drain.


Their website shows that units are available 9/15. Living in a brand new apartment building that was phased construction, I'll tell you... The amount of defects and oversights in construction are astounding.

[DenvertoLA]

Originally Posted by RyanD

Found this on e-permits: MOD Dwgs Slab demo and replacement on Lvl P2 of parking garage for update the waterproofing and trench drain.


Their website shows that units are available 9/15. Living in a brand new apartment building that was phased construction, I'll tell you... The amount of defects and oversights in construction are astounding.

Oh no, are you a 'Grand' refugee?

[Sam Hill]

I happened upon a local tv news story recently (that was probably somewhat sensationalized so I took it with a grain of salt) about people living in new-builds that had water pouring into their apartments during all that rain the past couple weeks and I wondered how a new-build could have so many problems. (And no, the story wasn’t about The Grand.)

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

Oh no, are you a 'Grand' refugee?

Luckily no. Our building is still habitable with not too much flooding going on. Just things like defective HVAC units, broken windows, bad drywalling, hilarious toilet installations, bad electric work, some structural inconsistencies, you know... the usual.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by RyanD

Luckily no. Our building is still habitable with not too much flooding going on. Just things like defective HVAC units, broken windows, bad drywalling, hilarious toilet installations, bad electric work, some structural inconsistencies, you know... the usual.

I love how we take these things for granted in every private construction projects. And they get handled.

But the same thing on a public project is an opportunity for a contractor to enrich itself (guaranteed 20% no matter how bad you are at your trade) and general acceptable that the government is the one doing it wrong. But when government tris to tighten the belt to protect the taxpayer dollar - and, you know, do things every private developer would do - contractors run to the legislature crying for protection against "alternative delivery" (meaning, delivery that doesn't guarantee them a profit). The double standard is real.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I love how we take these things for granted in every private construction projects. And they get handled.

But the same thing on a public project is an opportunity for a contractor to enrich itself (guaranteed 20% no matter how bad you are at your trade) and general acceptable that the government is the one doing it wrong. But when government tris to tighten the belt to protect the taxpayer dollar - and, you know, do things every private developer would do - contractors run to the legislature crying for protection against "alternative delivery" (meaning, delivery that doesn't guarantee them a profit). The double standard is real.

Hey sounds just like the $50B we just blew on the SLS and Orion.