DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

This is a good point - and was heavily discussed in crafting the measure. In the end, doing it by property ownership/frontage was selected because the amount of concrete is what drives cost, and the sidewalk needs of large lot single family homes are greater. The goal was to create a sustainable long-term program for first constructing, and then maintaining, sidewalks citywide.

Unlike roads, sidewalk usage doesn't really drive sidewalk deterioration. A sidewalk with 1,000 pedestrians doesn't really wear faster than one with 10 pedestrians on it.

This is the fundamental problem with your approach - everyone uses sidewalks, everyone should pay for them. The per-household fees would be FAR more manageable if the fee was spread out for all sidewalk users (i.e. EVERYONE) rather than focusing the burden on a small number of SFH owners. Have you done an analysis of how much of the fee would be carried by the top 10% relative to the bottom 10% based on your fee structure proposal?

[TakeFive]

FWIW, I always respect the rights of voters to decide

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It would be great if the City's leaders had actually taken it upon themselves to have the hard conversations...

If I make a guess it would be that DOTI is already seriously challenged in trying to execute on nearly $1.3 billion in already voter approved infrastructure projects. I understand the ability to 'staff up' although not sure what exactly that entails - budget wise.

https://denverite.com/2022/10/12/den...city-analysis/

The city’s own estimate for a sidewalk buildout from 2019 ranged from $800 million to $1.4 billion — in the same ballpark as Denver Deserves Sidewalks’ cost projections. The city, in its new analysis, does not explain why its latest estimate has risen to $3.2 billion, Locantore noted.

Any pre-pandemic estimates are now seriously outdated perhaps by as much as 40-50% higher. Presumably 'sidewalks' would be less impacted than other types of construction projects.

Additionally, I'll assume DOTI took a closer look at additional complexity added by this initiative than were previously envisioned.

Locantore also took issue with the city’s assumption that costly land acquisition would be necessary on a large scale. She said her campaign envisions the city would widen sidewalks into the street — which it owns — rather than onto private property when that is more feasible.

This would seem to open a philosophical debate for defining streets including curb & gutter and drainage issues - which could be interesting as well as problematic.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It is an ordinance, not the bloody constitution. Do I expect a clean-up ordinance in a few years? I hope so.

Fair enough! If voters approve the initiative then various 'process' challenges could be worked out as they move to implement the will of the voters.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

Did your financial model include developing new concrete batch plants and removing trees from the city's of right of way for new sidewalks, as was suggested is 'part of the plan' to rebut DOTI in the article?

That did cause a double-take bit of hubris.

I wasn't sure if she was referring to a city-owned concrete plant or just assuming this would be a result of the private sector? The idea of 'manufacturing' efficiencies a bit hilarious especially since I can envision many different engineering challenges as they go, not to mention neighborhood objections.

[TakeFive]

Does anybody still buy groceries

It does seem like younger people eat out a lot or do pickup.

Does Denver even have many Albertson's/Safeway stores?

Albertsons merger with Kroger could be announced this week
OCT 13 2022 - CNBC

The all-cash acquisition may be announced as soon as Friday morning, sources told Faber.

Walmart is now the top grocer in the U.S. by revenue. Costco does substantial business.

Sam Hill will still have Trader Joe's which a lot people like. Whole Foods has its fans. I shop Sprouts Farmers Market on occasion. A few Natural Grocers scattered around. That's about it, I guess.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

Did your financial model include developing new concrete batch plants and removing trees from the city's of right of way for new sidewalks, as was suggested is 'part of the plan' to rebut DOTI in the article?

Sounds like you need to go through the model and then start challenging assumptions.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

This is the fundamental problem with your approach - everyone uses sidewalks, everyone should pay for them. The per-household fees would be FAR more manageable if the fee was spread out for all sidewalk users (i.e. EVERYONE) rather than focusing the burden on a small number of SFH owners. Have you done an analysis of how much of the fee would be carried by the top 10% relative to the bottom 10% based on your fee structure proposal?

It would be far LESS manageable, because you’d have to hire a significant number more mailing and compliance staff to interface with the entire population of Denver, rather than the subset of only property owners—and they’d be interfacing with a highly transient rental population from whom they are relatively unlikely of ever recouping fees. In other words, it would he fiscally irresponsible; it sinks money into a larger enforcement apparatus that likely wouldn’t even be able to pay for itself let alone the infrastructure it aims to finance. And that wouldn’t be fair to anybody.

Far better to place a fee on property owners and let those property owners pass that fee on to their renters (if they have them), because that is a manageable scale.

Let us not get lost in the trees and miss the forest, nor let the perfect be the enemy of the good; we can always amend this proposal later to charge multi-family properties more, account for the width of sidewalks, and the other inadequacies mentioned by people here. The reality is that this proposed system is, despite the faults, similar to the way most cities handle their sidewalk infrastructure and it is far superior to the current system here in Denver.

Personally, I would argue against an increase on multi-family for the following reasons:

1. People generally only use the sidewalks in their area, not city-wide. Therefore, residents in apartment and multifamily districts are not likely to be using the sidewalks in single family home neighborhoods on the fringe. On the other hand, residents of single family districts are more likely to be using the infrastructure in the urban core, because of the distribution of non-residential uses. The urban core is financing localized infrastructure to allow for regional use, and shouldn’t also be expected to pick up an extra tab for suburban fringe neighborhoods where the sidewalks will disproportionately be used only by those homeowners and the people to whom they rent their homes. Those neighborhoods should be paying for their own infrastructure, rather than the urban core subsidize them.

2. It would marginally disincentive multifamily development insofar as it does increase the fees and bureaucracy a property owners has to deal with, which has the potential for making Denver’s housing cost crisis worse.

3. A higher fee on existing multifamily will be passed along to renters by those property owners in the form of rent, which will also not help Denver’s housing cost crisis.

Counterargument:

A. A higher relative fee imposed on property owners of single family homes also raises the cost of living for those living in owner occupied homes, which is likely to marginally raise property values beyond just what the infrastructure would produce. That would raise barriers of entry to middle class single family homeowners.

B. These fees being disproportionate on single family homeowners might slightly accelerate redevelopment from single family homes to multifamily (where zoning would allow), as the underlying property values dictate a more economically viable use.

Rebuttal:

1. Generally, homeowners are able to afford these fees, being of more means than the average renter, and mortgages in Denver tend to be less as a share of the average homeowner’s income than rent is of the average renter’s. Placing a fee on all people, whether directly or through the market, but higher on people who can afford it is not only administratively easier to manage, but also equitable.

2. We should want more multi-family properties. It will lower cost of living for all.

Those are my reasons, but I am open to hearing alternative opinions. As it stands, I will be voting for this.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Walmart is now the top grocer in the U.S. by revenue. Costco does substantial business.

You know that metric is based upon total revenue for all Walmart and Sam's Club Stores? It's a bit of BS though Walmart is still the largest retailer by grocery related sales.

Costco is still the shining beacon on the hill. It's revenue per store is huuuuuuge.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

This is the fundamental problem with your approach - everyone uses sidewalks, everyone should pay for them. The per-household fees would be FAR more manageable if the fee was spread out for all sidewalk users (i.e. EVERYONE) rather than focusing the burden on a small number of SFH owners. Have you done an analysis of how much of the fee would be carried by the top 10% relative to the bottom 10% based on your fee structure proposal?

Top 10% of what? I can probably figure that out for you if I understand better what breakdown you’re looking for.

What would be a better approach do you think, to better reach the users? A sales tax? If that’s your proposal I think we will have to agree to disagree.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

That is simply false. 50' of sidewalk is 50' of liability. Your liability isn't 40% higher if you sidewalk is designated by the city as an arterial vs a collector.

Concrete is priced by the cubic yard. Arterials have wider sidewalks, hence more concrete, hence more cost.

[TakeFive]

Does anybody recall how much I like the convention business?

Prior to FasTracks and the Great Recession's Great Millennial migration to urban centers, the Colorado Convention Center expansion and new Convention Hotel (mid-2000's) was easily the biggest catalyst to growth of downtown Denver.


All images courtesy of the CCC

I digress:
Last weekend I picked up a guy with a property management company out of Toronto whose company was in town for their annual awards banquet at the JW Marriot Desert Ridge. Interestingly, he mentioned they were moving their HQ to Cocoa Beach FL. Later I googled and learned that Cocoa Beach is the safest part of FL from Hurricanes.

This week there was a big insurance convention at the JW. The convention business is definitely getting back to business.

https://www.denvergov.org/Government...nter-Expansion

The expansion of the Colorado Convention Center includes a new 80,000 square foot column free multipurpose room and outdoor rooftop terrace with sweeping views of the city skyline and mountains. The project will be the largest ballroom in Colorado and expand one of the largest buildings in Denver. On the ground floor, there will be lobby renovations and seamless integration with the existing building, while offering attendees safe and easy access to an additional 150,000 square feet of meeting space, 600,000 square feet of exhibit space and a 5,000 seat Bellco Theatre.

Here's the key part, sure to raise the appeal of the CCC.

The improvements will serve the needs of modern day convention-goers and differentiate the facility from others, ensuring it remains an attractive and global competitor. ... The project is anticipated to be completed in late 2023.

• Technology improvements and inviting networking spaces that position the CCC as the industry leader.

Note: Dravitz recently included the CCC in DenverInfill's recent Downtown Roundup AUG 2022 including this awesome photo:

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Top 10% of what? I can probably figure that out for you if I understand better what breakdown you’re looking for.

What would be a better approach do you think, to better reach the users? A sales tax? If that’s your proposal I think we will have to agree to disagree.

My overriding hypothesis is that a small number of households will carry the vast majority of the burden on this fee. So the questions is, what share of the revenue will come from the property owners that carry the highest 10% of the fee burden, and what share of the revenue will come from the property owners that are liable for the bottom 10% of the fee burden (total fee by property).

As for my proposed solution - assuming this is the right approach, I would suggest that every property should pay a flat, reasonable fee. Say $80 per year - every apartment, condo, duplex, townhome, SFH included. The remainder you can allocate based on a loose, proxy-based guesstimate of liability and costs as suggested in the ordinance. Essentially something that would raise the median cost a bit while reducing the mean cost.

And I would also veer away from promising voters something you know the city won’t deliver as a result from this fee.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

You know that metric is based upon total revenue for all Walmart and Sam's Club Stores? It's a bit of BS though Walmart is still the largest retailer by grocery related sales.

Costco is still the shining beacon on the hill. It's revenue per store is huuuuuuge.

Jeremy's mom is a Costco member so I joined Sam's Club to cover all the retail bases. I mostly use it for my gas purchases (which are deductible for me) and 5% cash back which I can use as a credit to buy instore stuff.

What's amazing is the volume of goods that are sold to small businesses including restaurants. Ofc down here there's a gazillion Mexican food places from the hole-in-the-wall on up. Both stores carry some basic clothing (for example) which is affordable while at the same time offering an upscale selections of many things. Sheets, for example, may be a bit higher thread count and they'll throw in a couple of extra pillow cases (compared to Walmart's very nice "Hotel-branded" sheets); it's not worth the extra $30 price IMO; I have like 5 different 100% cotton sheet sets to go with my various 'seasonal' quilts.
------------------------------

For those who may wonder what DOTI does with all their time

Try clicking here. You can spend a few days studying the hundreds of projects they are responsible for.

I saw where they floated about $360 million in bonds this spring for projects which will all be challenged by higher costs from inflation. Perhaps the good news - bad news is that they may need but be able to use IIJA funds just to be able to complete many of their more recent projects along with those still promised to voters.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Trying to categorize 18,187,845 linear feet of sidewalk (which the City's data does not track by width) into a fee structure that can be administered, understood, and is somewhat equitable, is not easy.

Heh, that's 24.3 million cu-ft or roughly 900k cu-yds of concrete assuming average 4" thick slabs, 4' wide (which is probably a good average), which is a lot of concrete, but not an earth shattering amount. Plus not all sidewalks will need replacement.

For reference, I remember reading the TREX project using 1million cu-yd or so of concrete, so it's on par with that. Plus it's not like this is going to be all at once pour by any means, our local batch plants should have no issue keeping up with that demand.

Fun (nerdy) fact, Burj Khalifa used about half that much concrete .

Fun fact #2, I just added up the volume of concrete at DEN runways (runways only, nothing else) and came up with roughly 21.5m cu-ft of concrete given that they are 17" thick. So if you want to visualize how much concrete is required for all Denver sidewalks, then take all the runways at DEN stacked end to end, and multiply that by about 5!

[mishko27]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Does anybody still buy groceries

It does seem like younger people eat out a lot or do pickup.

Does Denver even have many Albertson's/Safeway stores?

Albertsons merger with Kroger could be announced this week
OCT 13 2022 - CNBC


Walmart is now the top grocer in the U.S. by revenue. Costco does substantial business.

Sam Hill will still have Trader Joe's which a lot people like. Whole Foods has its fans. I shop Sprouts Farmers Market on occasion. A few Natural Grocers scattered around. That's about it, I guess.

I hope that this gets blocked by FTC. Denver only has two mainstream grocers - Safeway and King Sooper's. I don't count Walmart and Target, or specialty grocers like Sprouts or Whole Foods. There are plenty sizeable cities in the country where Kroger and Albertson's are the only two grocers (Seattle, San Diego, etc) and it would monopolize the market if they merge.

We need ALDI and LIDL here, badly.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

That did cause a double-take bit of hubris.

I wasn't sure if she was referring to a city-owned concrete plant or just assuming this would be a result of the private sector? The idea of 'manufacturing' efficiencies a bit hilarious especially since I can envision many different engineering challenges as they go, not to mention neighborhood objections.

That was a response to the City saying there is a “concrete shortage.” Which is nonsense unless you are buying it 10 yards at a time, like DOTI’s tiny sidewalk contractors do. Versus a project that needs 100,000 yards like a runway or a highway job. It’s a good quote I think - anybody who does major projects for a living would recognize what DOTI has been doing vs what DOTI would have to do going forward are apples and oranges. It’s the difference between bidding to Jim’s Concrete versus bidding to Kiewit (and having them subcontract half the installation to all of the Jims out there, and self-performing the rest).

By the way, CDOT publishes data on all of this. Jobs >$20 million average twice as many bidders as jobs <$10 million, and see lower unit prices. It’s not rocket science - it’s well known.

The City is grumpy about this initiative, but they do bundle for efficiencies too. Ask them what they’ve been telling the neighborhood-level project planning efforts - whatever they are calling that participatory budgeting initiative. They’ve been saying “try and find projects we can bundle with other projects (parks says this a lot), otherwise we can’t afford them.”

Pennsylvania’s rural bridge program is my personal favorite example. Same idea, a lot of the same challenges sidewalks face.

EDIT: Re: neighborhood objections… yes. Although DOTI already has a pretty brutal established approach on this - look at their website. They’ve been tearing up landscaping in the right of way for curb ramps for years.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

Heh, that's 24.3 million cu-ft or roughly 900k cu-yds of concrete assuming average 4" thick slabs, 4' wide (which is probably a good average), which is a lot of concrete, but not an earth shattering amount. Plus not all sidewalks will need replacement.

For reference, I remember reading the TREX project using 1million cu-yd or so of concrete, so it's on par with that. Plus it's not like this is going to be all at once pour by any means, our local batch plants should have no issue keeping up with that demand.

Fun (nerdy) fact, Burj Khalifa used about half that much concrete .

Fun fact #2, I just added up the volume of concrete at DEN runways (runways only, nothing else) and came up with roughly 21.5m cu-ft of concrete given that they are 17" thick. So if you want to visualize how much concrete is required for all Denver sidewalks, then take all the runways at DEN stacked end to end, and multiply that by about 5!

How many yards did you get? I think your math is off. I did the same math and the missing and deficient sidewalks are about the same as the 6th runway. Or maybe if you’re doing all of them, I see. I was only doing the amount that would need to be done in the first decade (which is what the City says there’s not enough concrete for.)

But yes on par with TREX makes sense. Of course we would not replace all of the sidewalks right away. So that’s a 50-year (actually 75-year) concrete volume. The first 10 years is about 1/3 of that.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Costco is still the shining beacon on the hill. It's revenue per store is huuuuuuge.

Yeah Costco is getting more the main staple for groceries in my household. Just checked out the business center on Alameda for the first time yesterday and it further solidified that KS / Safeway are ridiculously more expensive than ever. Tie that in with a merger where they can price gouge, I will become even more of a Costco loyalist. Colorado deserves better with grocers, it's super sad.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mishko27

I hope that this gets blocked by FTC.

We need ALDI and LIDL here, badly.

I suspect Kroger will have a tough time getting approval to buy Albertson's; they claim they'll be able to lower prices afterwards.

My son loves ALDI's. But then he and mom also buy at Costco.

WinCo (employee owned) would be nice option; their HQ is in Idaho (naturally) so they're mostly a west coast company but they do have stores in AZ, NV and OK so who knows.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

How many yards did you get? I think your math is off. I did the same math and the missing and deficient sidewalks are about the same as the 6th runway. Or maybe if you’re doing all of them, I see. I was only doing the amount that would need to be done in the first decade (which is what the City says there’s not enough concrete for.)

But yes on par with TREX makes sense. Of course we would not replace all of the sidewalks right away. So that’s a 50-year (actually 75-year) concrete volume. The first 10 years is about 1/3 of that.

Yeah mine was a total based on the length of sidewalk number you posted, 18,187,845 linear feet. Certainly I'm sure not all of that needs to be replaced all at once, and my average width was a guess.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I suspect Kroger will have a tough time getting approval to buy Albertson's; they claim they'll be able to lower prices afterwards.

My son loves ALDI's. But then he and mom also buy at Costco.

WinCo (employee owned) would be nice option; their HQ is in Idaho (naturally) so they're mostly a west coast company but they do have stores in AZ, NV and OK so who knows.

IF this goes through, what's the likelihood that some other big chain would come to Denver? There are instances like in Mayfair where you have a Safeway across from a KS, and both are very busy. They'd shut one down and then you'd have one store that was constantly out of stock to overcrowded.

I remember back in the day in SoCal when there were probably 5 different grocery store chains.