DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[gopokes21]

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

What a great post lol. So did you also buy a time travel portal and go back to 1930.

I hope you're not in any of the Top 40 largest US cities, or anywhere in Latin America. I also think the situation you describe is typical of anywhere in pandemic-era and post-pandemic America.

Luckily for those of us who stayed (in Denver, or wherever someone safe harbored during the pandemic) we're enjoying significant improvement on crime, political extremism, people are coming and going normally and that's welcomed, and inflation is even way down. Still elevated, but it's leveled off and some leading indicator costs are even coming back down. Homelessness currently feels more like 2019 than 2021 when there was no rule of law. And in Denver, we just elected moderates to Mayor, City Council, and school boards, we've had no wildfires for two years now, and air quality has been among the best in the nation. Hope you didn't move east!

[TakeFive]

The Workforce Housing Movement - (Part One)

POP Denver Exemplifies the Benefits of Prefabricated Building Solutions
July 11, 2023 - Mile High CRE

POP DENVER APARTMENTS - 655 Santa Fe Dr.








Images courtesy POP Denver/Wells Mountain States

Location plays a crucial role in real estate and POP Denver Apartments boasts one of the finest spots, situated at the intersection of 6th and Santa Fe within Denver’s vibrant Santa Fe Arts District. Supporting the vibrant aesthetics of the Art District, the southeast corner of the building will feature a mural by Atlanta-based artist Greg Mike that is four stories tall and covers 3,000 square feet

"The benefits of prefabrication for multifamily design"

Developing a fast-to-market residential condo demands meticulous attention to detail and increased efficiency. Prefabrication offers multiple benefits for multifamily projects, such as quality, speed of construction, and long-term durability.

Note: For now all units are rentals.

[TakeFive]

The Workforce Housing Movement - (Part Two)

Does mhays know "Pinnacle Partners" is from Seattle?

Pinnacle Partners and Mortenson Development Announce Plans for Opportunity Zone Project
October 26, 2022 - Mile High CRE

Revival on Platte - 2506 W. Colfax Ave

Opportunity Zone real estate investment management firm Pinnacle Partners, in partnership with Mortenson Development, is planning to develop a new multifamily housing development located at 2506 W. Colfax Avenue in Denver. Pinnacle Partners is investing 100 percent of the limited partner equity, and Mortenson Development is serving as the developer for the project. KEPHART is the architect.

The complex will be prefabricated by Mortenson Development and include a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.

“I have been combing the market for Opportunity Zone sites, and this location is perhaps one of the strongest Opportunity Zone sites in the country,” said Jill Homan, managing director for Pinnacle Partners Opportunity Zone Fund VIII. “We are excited to partner with a best-in-class developer in Mortenson to realize the vision of this project.”

Interesting tidbit:

This project is one of the only two fee-simple sites in the Stadium District Master Plan and has been fully capitalized through Opportunity Zone funds.

This project broke ground mid-April - Somebody here had previously mentioned this in passing

[TakeFive]

The Workforce Housing Movement - (Part Three)

Meaningless factoid

We're all familiar with Greystar's activity in the downtown area in recent years. Latest developer rankings of apartments has Alliance Res (Phoenix) grabbing the #1 spot while Greystar comes in 2nd and Mill Creek 3rd.

Greystar Creates Brand Targeting US Shortage of Workforce Rental Housing
May 30, 2023 By Richard Lawson - CoStar News

One of the largest U.S. apartment owners and managers launched a brand aimed at addressing the nation's shortage of workforce housing that will include modular construction to keep costs down.

Greystar, based in Charleston, South Carolina, said Ltd. by Greystar will provide newly built housing for workers such as teachers, first responders and nurses who typically can't afford to rent such apartments. The brand relies heavily on incorporating technology that accelerated during the pandemic to reduce operating costs at properties, allowing for lower rents.

Greystar Rolls Out Workforce Housing Brand With Capped Rent Growth Model
May 31, 2023 By Dees Stribling, Bisnow National

Greystar Real Estate Partners has launched a new brand of workforce housing, Ltd. By Greystar, which the company characterizes as “attainable [for] key populations affected by the lack of rental housing in the United States.”

The Charleston, South Carolina-based developer, which also has interests in logistics and life sciences assets, says that rents at its Ltd. By Greystar developments won't increase annually more than the consumer price index or 3%, whichever is greater. As of April, the annualized increase in the CPI was 4.9%.

My primary reason for posting this is that when Greystar makes a move like this people notice.

Greystar's first development under the brand is Ltd. Med Center, which is leasing up now in Houston near the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center district. Average asking rents on Greystar’s new Houston property under the Ltd. brand are $1,043 per month, about $800 a month below the average for new apartments, according to CoStar data.

Cookies and Cream?

Leasing has been strong, according to Brandon Chinn, senior director of innovation at Greystar. The company’s marketing plan went beyond the digital campaigns that are common for most new apartments now leasing up.

“We went and dropped off cookies and gift baskets at schools and the medical center to get the word out,” Chinn told CoStar News.

My secondary reason for posting this is I knew laniroj would be interested (although who knows with him from day to day? )

[bulldurhamer]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

What a great post lol. So did you also buy a time travel portal and go back to 1930.

I hope you're not in any of the Top 40 largest US cities, or anywhere in Latin America. I also think the situation you describe is typical of anywhere in pandemic-era and post-pandemic America.

Luckily for those of us who stayed (in Denver, or wherever someone safe harbored during the pandemic) we're enjoying significant improvement on crime, political extremism, people are coming and going normally and that's welcomed, and inflation is even way down. Still elevated, but it's leveled off and some leading indicator costs are even coming back down. Homelessness currently feels more like 2019 than 2021 when there was no rule of law. And in Denver, we just elected moderates to Mayor, City Council, and school boards, we've had no wildfires for two years now, and air quality has been among the best in the nation. Hope you didn't move east!

What kind of crack are you smoking? There are twice as many guns around as there were four years ago but the difference being now that we go out of our way to avoid punishment for young gangsters now. Property crime and rape are at all time highs. Aurora may as well be flint michigan now. You can't send your kids to the best public school in town with them seeing someone get murdered

Denver was named the worst place to raise a family and i see it whenever a baby is born. The parents are pushed out. Denver is like vietnam with the gunfire, but there’s really nothing good countering that.

The water crisis absolutely will impact everything going forward negatively as well. And of course now Colorado doesn’t dominate the weed market? The state’s weed revenue is crashing and the same people who came for the freedom can now have their freedom in other places.

Denver is not attractive to outsiders and people aren’t moving here like they were. With work from home not going away, prices and taxes endlessly rising, a state legislature that keep making it harder and harder to put violent teenagers away, and elementary schools closing by the dozen, where is the appeal?

Nobody here ever mentions other things like how bad the grocery store and drug store situations are but they are absolutely awful. Shopping in a clean and not overcrowded place actually having stuff on the shelves is actually possible in other places. Not denver. The quality of life is really low here compared to most places.

Denver is done

[mojiferous]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

What kind of crack are you smoking?

BLAH BLAH BLAH

Denver is done

What is your point? What has your goal been since you joined this board? This is ostensibly a development/urbanization/architecture/tall building forum - do you actually care about any of those things or just want to yell about how much despise and fear the city? Because if you do hate Denver so much, why continue to come back? I don't recall a single instance where you were even somewhat positively interested about anything posted here and if you were trying to troll us into abandoning this place you have failed.

Personally, the most frustrating thing for me is that you and many of the other recent people who have joined the forum have so many complaints and not a single tiny hint of a solution. You hate crime and dense development and now apparently dislike Denver and all the people who live here. wwmiv hated it enough to create a list of enemies. But none of you actually have ideas or plans to change things. You just list off the way things are wrong and offer nothing else.

And maybe that is the point - you know our mods are not strict and have let this fly for a long time. I'm sure a lot of them are operating in the spirit of free discourse - that you have the right to speak your mind and say what you want to say even if it strays into trollish behavior. And by constantly being right on the edge of acceptable and trollish you may be able to do three things to an urbanist forum:
1. Sow discord.
2. Be annoying enough to cause people to leave.
3. Cause enough digression and off-topic discussion to derail pro-growth organizing and discussion (have you noticed all of these trolls haaaate new construction and density? remember our old trolls who were banned for things like loving Pueblo too much?)

And I would argue that this is exactly what is happening here. We were at one point all getting together and involved in things like Denver YIMBY. There were disagreements about height and massing and the colors of buildings, but it didn't feel like we were constantly dealing with little rants about whether the Denver gay community disliked someone and why that means the entire city should be destroyed.

I vote for more aggressive management here - ban the trolls like Bullhamburger here who spent most of his posts insulting people. They are not contributing to anything here.

To be honest, we need less of whatever this is and more people like Take 5 - I may disagree with his data analysis and his opinion on the suburbs, but at least he keeps most of his posts relevant and has opinions about solutions and causes of issues. He posts often and debates his views without insulting everyone and everything.

[MovinOnUp]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

Denver is done

Honest question - where do you live? None of this has been my family's experience and we're IN Denver - been here since I was born.

You have a flair for the dramatic, so if that's your objective - mission accomplished.

[bunt_q]

I remember the good ol' days when I was the biggest asshole here. But nobody can say I don't at least try and be constructive on city-ish things.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

Denver is like vietnam with the gunfire, but there’s really nothing good countering that.

Just like fuckin' Saigon, eh, slick?

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by MovinOnUp

Honest question - where do you live? None of this has been my family's experience and we're IN Denver - been here since I was born.

IIRC, he lives in Whitaker or Cole/Whitaker. He knows the landscape.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I remember the good ol' days when I was the biggest asshole here. But nobody can say I don't at least try and be constructive on city-ish things.

Hardly anybody left who remembers those days.

Very gracious of you

Originally Posted by mojiferous

To be honest, we need less of whatever this is and more people like Take 5 - I may disagree with his data analysis and his opinion on the suburbs, but at least he keeps most of his posts relevant and has opinions about solutions and causes of issues. He posts often and debates his views without insulting everyone and everything.

One problem is that a lot of the development enthusiasm is gone. It's no longer new and fresh; it's become Old Hat. The architectural crowd hangs at DenverInfill which is a fitting place. Even there there's not the same energy as there was a decade ago around these issues.

[TakeFive]

First Let's Celebrate

Let me add that bulldurhamer is not All Wrong.

Denver's new mayor Mike Johnston: 'Denver's ready for a new dream'
Jul 17, 2023 By: Robert Garrison - 7Denver News

“Our dream of Denver is that when you land at your lowest, without a job or a place to stay, shackled by addiction or struggling with mental illness, we will not judge you or abandon you. We will not give up on you. We will get you home. We will get you help. We will get you healed,” Johnston said.

BEST OF LUCK

But I'll join bulldurhamer in suggesting that the new Mayor and City Council won't be up to the challenge. They deserve their Honeymoon though.

[TakeFive]

Perhaps Denver can Dodge a Bullet, Maybe

A lot of Good People in Denver and the city still has a heartbeat.

I haven't heard this name in awhile. Richard Florida is like the Father of Urbanism.

Diversify or die: San Francisco’s downtown is a wake-up call for other cities
July 16, 2023 By Anne D’Innocenzio and Janie Har - AP

San Francisco has become the prime example of what downtowns shouldn’t look like: vacant, crime-ridden and in various stages of decay. But in truth, it’s just one of many cities across the U.S. whose downtowns are reckoning with a post-pandemic wake-up call: diversify or die.

No longer the purview of office workers, downtowns must become around-the-clock destinations for people to congregate, said Richard Florida, a specialist in city planning at the University of Toronto.

So how much money will it take? https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/us/ca...ing/index.html

Los Angeles (CNN) — California has spent a stunning $17.5 billion trying to combat homelessness over just four years. But, in the same time frame, from 2018 to 2022, the state’s homeless population actually grew. Half of all Americans living outside on the streets, federal data shows, live in California.

Denver's Suburbs Draw More New Coloradans Than The City Itself
July 13, 2023 By Robert Davis, Bisnow Denver

The Denver area still draws a lot of interest from out-of-town movers despite widespread housing affordability challenges, but most of that interest is concentrated in the surrounding suburbs rather than to the Mile High City itself, according to a new report from MoveBudda.com, an online relocation information service, using census data.

I suspect this is overblown.

It would not be fair to compare Denver to San Francisco

But it could suggest some of the potential challenges ahead.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

What are the chances that the Dikeous actually build a 17 story office tower in Golden Triangle?

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/n...RZ2TGDBdMLhQ5A

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

What are the chances that the Dikeous actually build a 17 story office tower in Golden Triangle?

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/n...RZ2TGDBdMLhQ5A

Slim and none. If the Dikeous ever build anything, that will be cold day in hell.

[TakeFive]

Carrots or Sticks?

If I were the Mayor (and City Council), I'd want to gather up all the Carrots and Sticks I could find and throw the kitchen sing at the problems. Denver needs to clearly define boundaries and stick to them.

If Denver only had a Homeless problem that would be relatively easy. There are legitimate homeless people and housing would be the primary solution.

But like everywhere else Denver has a Drug Addiction problem.

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Just like fuckin' Saigon, eh, slick?

I feel sorry for those that try to treat the drug addicted. It's probably not unlike Medics in Saigon. You do what you can and move on to the next person.

Will Tranq - the Zombie Drug make it to Denver? Hard to know or say. CNN covered the issue with video and an article.

Successful drug dealers in San Francisco can make as much as $350K a year, per a new report — more than the average senior software engineer at Google
July 14, 2023 By Lloyd Lee- Insider via Yahoo News

This problem has a ton of POWER behind it and it won't go away quietly. Take it for granted at your own peril.

[BrIced_Tea]

Live look of bulldurhamer posting on here.

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

What kind of crack are you smoking? There are twice as many guns around as there were four years ago but the difference being now that we go out of our way to avoid punishment for young gangsters now. Property crime and rape are at all time highs. Aurora may as well be flint michigan now. You can't send your kids to the best public school in town with them seeing someone get murdered

Denver was named the worst place to raise a family and i see it whenever a baby is born. The parents are pushed out. Denver is like vietnam with the gunfire, but there’s really nothing good countering that.

The water crisis absolutely will impact everything going forward negatively as well. And of course now Colorado doesn’t dominate the weed market? The state’s weed revenue is crashing and the same people who came for the freedom can now have their freedom in other places.

Denver is not attractive to outsiders and people aren’t moving here like they were. With work from home not going away, prices and taxes endlessly rising, a state legislature that keep making it harder and harder to put violent teenagers away, and elementary schools closing by the dozen, where is the appeal?

Nobody here ever mentions other things like how bad the grocery store and drug store situations are but they are absolutely awful. Shopping in a clean and not overcrowded place actually having stuff on the shelves is actually possible in other places. Not denver. The quality of life is really low here compared to most places.

Denver is done

I've legitimately read more optimistic suicide notes.

I also agree with every syllable Mojiferous wrote.

As soon as Eric Idle starts walking around Downtown Denver yelling "bring out your dead" get back to me. If many of the posters left in this tar pit are right, that should be about 4 or 5 days from now. Otherwise it would be nifty to control or at least blunt certain peoples' use of this site as a pillow to scream in when they should instead be paying a professional to listen to their all consuming fear of where they live and get them on meds for it.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

Denver is like vietnam with the gunfire, but there’s really nothing good countering that.

Chicago would like to have a word with you.......

Seriously though - I drop over here from time to time to see how Denver is doing since I still own a condo there. From everything I can tell, the biggest immediate problem continues to be the rampant homeless. The new mayor seems to have his approach he wants to take, but at the end of the day, the solution is going to be forcing these folks into treatment. It's a controversial opinion, but it is what it is.

As an outsider, Denver is doing relatively fine. It's not booming like it was ten years ago, but maybe that's not a bad thing. You guys aren't San Francisco that may be having their own Detroit moment with tech decimated.

Climate change is going to be a problem for everyone. Denver's silver lining is they are closer to the source of water compared to everyone downstream. So if push comes to shove, Denver will probably be ok. Phoenix on the other hand? I wouldn't invest in that city.....

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Brainpathology

I've legitimately read more optimistic suicide notes.

I also agree with every syllable Mojiferous wrote.

I get the disenchantment with bulldurhamer's bombastic rhetoric.

But nobody has addressed the substance of what he is saying. His primary issue is with the gun violence.

My primary concern is for the reputation of Denver's downtown

The night Denver celebrated the Nuggets winning the NBA championship there was significant violence in LoDo. The day of the Nuggets parade there was isolated gun violence in downtown. While not the end of the world both those 'shooting events' made National news.

Denver is in the home stretch of finishing a $220 million investment to their Convention Center. They need to pack that place with people going forward to pay off the bonds. If groups (continue) to bypass Denver because of their homeless and gun violence publicity that's tens of millions of $'s at risk. Denver downtown is also struggling with maintaining retail stores.

What's your fix for this? That's what is important and not bulldurhamer's rhetorical style.

[TakeFive]

Nice to hear from you

Originally Posted by twister244

Chicago would like to have a word with you.......

Seriously though - I drop over here from time to time to see how Denver is doing since I still own a condo there. From everything I can tell, the biggest immediate problem continues to be the rampant homeless. The new mayor seems to have his approach he wants to take, but at the end of the day, the solution is going to be forcing these folks into treatment. It's a controversial opinion, but it is what it is.

I share your wisdom.

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

Newly minted Denver mayor Mike Johnston issues emergency declaration over homelessness
Jul 18, 2023 By: Landon Haaf - 7Denver News

Johnston made the announcement at a Tuesday morning news conference, less than 24 hours after he was sworn in as Denver’s 46th mayor. He set a goal to house 1,000 unhoused people by end of this year.

That's quite the challenge and of course I wish him the best.

Judge in Phoenix ordered the cleanup of "The Zone" where roughly a 1,000 homeless hung out. The City has been going block by block but it's a bit like playing Whack-a-Mole. And trying to find housing, not so simple.

Where new Mayor Johnston expects to find housing units for a 1,000 people... I have no clue.