Denver lofts and condos

Denver has the 10th largest downtown in America.

2005-11-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

Denver has the 10th largest downtown in America. Unlike some Western cities, Denver has a definitive, exciting and walkable downtown - the 10th largest in the nation. Within a mile radius, downtown Denver has three major sports stadiums, the nation's second largest performing arts center, three colleges with 30,000 students, an assortment of art and history museums, a mint producing 10 billion coins a year, a river offering white water rafting, over 5,300 hotel rooms, a $140 million amusement park, a $100 million aquarium with sharks and sea otters and well over 300 restaurants.

Tony Cline

Cliffdwellers.net Real Estate

303-292-LOFT (5638)

www.cliffdwellers.net

Downtown Denver 3rd Quarter Housing Market Update

2005-11-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

This information is from the Downtown Denver Partnership 2005

Housing Market Breakdown

Downtown’s core has 9,000 residents, with a total of 83,000 in center city area (2-mile radius).

Completed projects in 2005 include 2500 Walnut Lofts, Kerouac Lofts, The Diamond at Prospect, Brownstones at

Riverfront Park, and Monarch Mills.

Projects under construction include the Museum Residences (13

& Broadway) 58 market-rate for sale units, and Glass

House (1700 Bassett) 389 for-sale units.

There is a total of 6,171 units in Downtown. Fifty-four percent of these units are for rent.

There are 1,083 units currently under construction, which is close to the high of 2,200 units in 2003. Forty-six percent of

these are rental units. There are over 2,500 units planned in the next 18 months.

Tony Cline

Cliffdwellers.net Real Estate

303-292-LOFT (5638)

www.cliffdwellers.net

Construction Boom Topping $1B, Changing Skyline

2005-11-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

Construction Boom Topping $1B, Changing Skyline

Friday, November 4, 2005
By John Rebchook

DENVER-More than a dozen new buildings, either under construction or on the drawing board, are planned in Downtown. Together, the buildings will have a completed value of more than $1.5 billion. The buildings include high-rise hotels, some hotel-condo towers, residential skyscrapers, build-to-suit offices, and public buildings. Not surprisingly, there are no major office spec buildings planned, other than some relatively small condo-office buildings.

George Thorn, principal of Mile High Development and a long-time local developer, says that because most of the buildings are being constructed along the edge of the CBD, Denver’s skyline will change. If they were in the core of Downtown, much larger buildings that were constructed in Downtown Denver in the 1980s would hide them, Thorn tells GlobeSt.com. These latest high rises are the first to be built in Downtown since 1999 Broadway opened in 1985.

Thorn notes to GlobeSt.com that the last building boom Downtown in the early and mid-1980s, primarily by Canadian developers, largely brought spec office buildings downtown. That building boom was predicated on oil reaching $60 or more per barrel, something that didn’t occur for another 20 years. When the energy prices collapsed in the 1980s, Downtown’s office demand dried up for years, and was extremely overbuilt. Now, Downtown’s office market is the healthiest of all the submarkets, but buildings still don’t command the rents that would justify new spec office construction.

A partial list of the buildings under way or planned, include:

the $378-million justice center and jail the City of Denver will build on the site of the Rocky Mountain News;
the $355-million Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, a 37-story, 1,100-room hotel being developed by Mosher Sullivan that will open in December;
the proposed Four Seasons and Private Residences planned by Jeff Selby and Michael Brenneman, which will cost an estimated $350 million;
the $110-million, 41-story Spire condominium tower by Randy Nichols that is being designed by RNL;
the 31-story, $140-million Lincoln Park by Erik Osborn that is being designed by Buchanan Yonushewski Group;
a 30-story, $65-million building that will target senior citizens by the St. Charles Town Co. and Wally Hultin;
the 23-story, $125-million Glass House by East West Partners;
the 22-story, 138-room Inn at the DAV proposed to be built next to the Denver Athletic Club;
the 14-story, $44-million Residence Inn by Marriott that is under construction and being developed by Sage Hospitality;
the $88-million, Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post and Denver Newspaper Agency build-to-suit that is under construction;
the $65-million EPA Regional Headquarters under construction in LoDo that is being developed by Opus Northwest;
the $5-million, 56-unit Museum Residences being developed by Thorn’s Mile High and Corporex Colorado, and marking well-known architect Daniel Libeskind’s first Denver residential project;
the 220-room, 12-story Hilton Garden Inn that will start construction later this year by Stonebridge Cos.;
and the Museum of Contemporary Art to be designed by London-based architect David Adjaye. A fund-raising effort is under way to pay for the new museum in the Central Platte Valley.

New high-rises will forever alter face of Denver

2005-11-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain News

Denver's skyline has changed little over the past 25 years. That has begun to change, first with the convention center expansion and next with a dozen or so notable buildings on the books or under way. 1860: Denver was founded as a mining supply settlement, and this model at the Colorado History Museum shows Denver's dusty "cowtown" past.

Skyline makeover

New high-rises will forever alter face of Denver

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
October 28, 2005

Downtown Denver's skyline is set for its biggest metamorphosis in 20 years.

At least a dozen buildings along the fringe of the Central Business District - the core of downtown - either are under way or on the drawing board.

Together, the buildings represent more than $1.2 billion in new construction. And no one doubts that others will follow in the coming years.

The buildings will not be as large as skyscrapers such as Republic Plaza, the Wells Fargo Center (the "cash register" building), the Tabor Center and other buildings constructed during the oil boom days of the 1980s.

But there's little doubt that the new buildings will change the fabric of downtown.

"This will clearly be the first major time the skyline has changed since the '80s," said developer George Thorn.

For the most part, the new breed of buildings will be hotels and condominium towers instead of the office projects of the previous boom.

But the new buildings, which range from the first Four Seasons in Denver to smaller buildings by famed architects Daniel Libeskind and Daniel Adjaye, will change the view of downtown from every direction.

The buildings are coming at a time when there's a worldwide trend to spend more money on architecture, especially for residential properties, as developers are finding that the well-heeled are willing to pay a premium for great design.

The concept even has led to a new word: starchitecture.

The latest buzzword is used to describe works of celebrity architects such as Libeskind and London-based Adjaye. A recent Time magazine article on starchitecture used a drawing of Libeskind's Museum Residences in Denver as its main illustration. This marks the first residential development in the U.S. for Libeskind, who created the master plan for the World Trade site in New York City.

"I think the key here is that I hope that the buildings that are constructed are of such significance that they do arouse national and international attention," said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. "I think there are a lot of high-quality buildings planned in premier locations. It makes them a kind of legacy project. I hope 100 years from now, people will cherish these buildings like we cherish buildings constructed a century ago."

Skyline as symbol

Why is the skyline important?

Mark Hinshaw, director of urban design for LMN Architects in Seattle, has an answer.

"Skylines are powerful symbols of culture and community," Hinshaw said. "They're a literal bar chart. You can see it from a distance, and you know it is something that is dynamic and growing."

In earlier eras, churches often created skylines for cities, he said. And as commerce began to take off in Europe, often a "tower was built just for the sake of marking the center. Sometimes it was just a pure symbol," serving no utilitarian purpose, he said.

Architect Brad Buchanan, who is designing the 31-story One Lincoln Park condo tower at 20th Avenue and Lincoln Street, said that Denver is lucky that residential buildings are fueling downtown's latest growth spurt.

Buchanan was recently in Vancouver, British Columbia, and he found himself thinking that he was looking at Denver's future.

"Talk about a phenomenal skyline," Buchanan said. "When you look across the bay at downtown Vancouver, you see all of these residential buildings. Residential buildings have a couple of things going for them naturally. They are inherently more intriguing than office buildings from an architectural and design viewpoint."

The reason is economics.

"Denver buys views," Buchanan said. "If you go from the 12th floor to the 44th floor of an office building, the tenant typically will pay a slight premium. But in residential, you get big upticks in what people are willing to pay by going higher."

Buchanan was a bit coy as far as his opinion of downtown's current skyline. "Let's just say that overall, Denver is due for some exciting additions."

John Schafer, general manager of the new Hyatt Regency that opens in December, said the 37-story hotel will play off the Colorado Convention Center, something that already has changed Denver's skyline. The architect of the convention center, Denver-based Curt Fentress, once compared his design to that of the Sydney Opera House in Australia, although some critics consider that hyperbole.

Love it or hate it, Schafer said there's no question that the convention center makes a huge architectural statement. And the Hyatt will be just as bold, he said.

"We've got the convention center all lit up at night, and it is clearly a new, big presence in the skyline," Schafer said. "The design of the Hyatt is going to play off that. It's not a big, square structure. And it has this 10-story, all-glass beacon that will be lit up at night. It's probably 10 or 15 feet around, so I think it will be pretty spectacular when it's lit up."

Ripe for a change

Chris Frampton, of East West Partners, the development company that is building the 23-story Glass House condo tower in the Central Platte Valley, said downtown's skyline has been "staid" for a while.

That will soon change, he said.

"All of the drawings I've seen for new buildings are really pretty thoughtful," Frampton said. "I think that is pretty darn cool. Taken together, it's going to be pretty spectacular."

On the other hand, "it will never be like driving along the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) and looking at Manhattan," Frampton said. "But it's pretty exciting to think that on Monday Night Football, millions of fans are going to be seeing a different view of downtown."

Charlie Woolley, president of the St. Charles Town Co., which is co-developing a 30-story residence tower aimed at seniors along 14th Street, said the skyline will change from every direction. It won't matter if you take the classic Chamber of Commerce shot from City Park or you are looking at downtown Denver from the southwest, southeast or north, there will be new jewels of buildings in the view, he noted.

Some buildings, such as Adjaye's Museum of Contemporary Art at 15th and Delgany streets, will be too small to be seen from many vantage points. But it will stand out if you're gazing at downtown from the Highland neighborhood, Woolley said.

"I think these new buildings will fill up your view of downtown all the way around," Woolley said. "It doesn't matter if your angle is from Curtis Park or Highland, you're going to get a different feel of downtown than you have today."

Developer Randy Nichols, who plans a 41-story high-rise condo project, which he is calling the Spire, takes a contrarian view regarding the aesthetics of most of the new buildings.

"I don't think most of them will be considered icons," including his own, he said. "Now, I think the new Hyatt is a great piece of architecture. It is the best-looking high-rise downtown. And the new Four Seasons looks like a very nice, very traditional building."

Nichols developed the Clayton Lane development in Cherry Creek. He said he thinks the Janus building in Cherry Creek has very nice architecture, because it serves as a world headquarters and the mutual fund company was willing to pay a premium. The nearby J.W. Marriott hotel, by contrast, has to pay for itself solely based on revenues from the rooms and restaurants, so its architecture and materials aren't as nice, he said.

"It is a pretty ordinary, plain box," he said.

"It all comes down to what the market will bear, and most of this will be for (relatively) lower-point residential, and so you don't have super, dramatic architecture," Nichols said.

Still, they could be an improvement over the high-rise offices built 20 years ago.

"I do think we have some great buildings in downtown; they just don't happen to be the high-rise buildings," Nichols said. "If you look at the tallest buildings, nothing stirs the imagination."

'80s featured plain facades

One reason is that the 1980s was the latter part of the International style of architecture, which favored "pretty rectangular, simple structures," Nichols said. "In the '90s, we started seeing more glamorous architecture, like the AT&T building in Chicago and a number of buildings by (Gerald) Hines in New York. But Denver completely missed two building cycles by not having any high-rises built for 20 years."

Paul Goldberger, arguably the most important architectural critic in the country, blasted Denver's skyline when he was a guest speaker at a University of Colorado School of Urban Design symposium in 1982, when Denver was in the early stages of its downtown building boom. At the time, Goldberger was the architecture critic for The New York Times. Now, he serves that role at The New Yorker magazine and is the dean of Parsons, The New School for Design in New York City.

"It doesn't make much difference in a Houston, because all you have is ugly, flat Texas land," Goldberger said at the time. "But when you have an extraordinary natural setting, you shouldn't treat it indifferently. . . . Denver is a little like a singer who is always being reviewed as promising. One day she is 60 years old and still showing talent. There comes a point where that singer or this city has to deliver."

Libeskind, who is typically ranked as one of the world's most influential architects, couldn't disagree more with Goldberger's 1982 musings.

"Well, it shows the limitation of architectural criticism," Libeskind said from New York City in a recent cell-phone interview. "Denver has a gorgeous, crystalline skyline."

And with all of the new buildings moving forward, it's only going to get better, he said.

"Denver is a city of the future, not of the past," Libeskind said. "Clearly, Denver is going to be on the cutting edge. What is happening in Denver represents the best of what modern architecture is about. I say let it grow, let it develop."

Rail Yard Lofts is Danielsen's latest

2005-11-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 31, 2005

Rail Yard Lofts is Danielsen's latest

Erin Johansen

Denver Business Journal

Development of a loft project near Coors Field is the latest family business Sonia Danielsen is managing.

Danielsen, 44, and her father, Nick Siegel, 73, started planning the project, Rail Yard Lofts, in spring 2004.

It was less than two months after Danielsen sold Eastwood Printing, a family-owned business she'd bought from her father 12 years earlier.

"I'd been retired from the shop for 10 days when Dad said, 'Let's develop this into lofts,'" Danielsen said.

The loft project, at 3031 Blake St. in Denver, involves the redevelopment of a site that had been in the family for about 25 years.

Shortly after they started working on the 29-unit project, Siegel was diagnosed with prostate cancer and started undergoing treatment.

Danielsen is overseeing the project on her own.

"He's really the idea person and I'm the executor," she said.

Danielsen had worked with her father for almost a decade at Eastwood Printing before buying the commercial print shop from him. Her grandfather bought the business in 1946 from its founder.

After spending more than 20 years in the printing industry, Danielsen said she loves her new career.

"I'm having a blast," she said. "I haven't had this much fun in years."

Sales of the lofts started in June. Even without a model home to show, 10 units have sold.

Danielsen said the market includes young singles and couples who can't afford LoDo prices.

The lofts range in size from about 900 to 1,500 square feet, with prices between $256,500 and $505,000.

Danielsen's family bought numerous buildings in the area northeast of Coors Field, also called the Ballpark Neighborhood, 25 years ago. Many of these industrial buildings were associated with the Fire Clay Co., which made bricks, she said.

In the 1990s, the family sold some buildings to Urban Ventures Inc., which is developing the Fire Clay Lofts, adjacent to the Rail Yard project.

Other new loft and retail projects are cropping up in the neighborhood as well. While the Fire Clay Loft development includes new construction, most of the neighborhood projects have been redevelopment projects, said Tammy Beyerle of Denver Realty Services Inc., who's handling sales for the Rail Yard project.

"It's tons of old commercial warehouses and lots of infill that could be renovated," Beyerle said about the neighborhood. "In Uptown, we're seeing a lot more scrapes and new condo projects."

Danielsen and her architect initially thought the old buildings on the Rail Yard site would need to be torn down.

"In most cases, you'd look at this and just tear it down and build new," architect Tim Van Meter said. "After visiting the site and walking around, I found there are four buildings there. It's like an old ship that gets barnacles. This isn't so much about creating something but more about uncovering something."

Van Meter is a partner with Van Meter Williams Pollack architecture and design office in Denver.

In redeveloping the project, Danielsen is keeping a facade that will tie the project together. The original brick and timber will be incorporated into the project.

Paint is now being removed from the old brick and demolition is under way. After construction begins, one of the first priorities is building a model unit.

"With these old buildings it's like a heart, lung and liver transplant," Van Meter said. "A new use for some very old buildings. Sonia's going to do quite well when it starts coming together."

"She's very hands on," Beyerle said about Danielsen. "She's a tough business lady. For a new developer and somebody that hasn't done a project like that before, she's jumped right in and she's getting her feet wet."

ERIN JOHANSEN | 303-837-3513 ejohansen@bizjournals.com

Report sees a bustling rebirth of Union plaza

2005-11-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain News

Report sees a bustling rebirth of Union plaza

By Daniel J. Chacón, Rocky Mountain News
October 27, 2005

The plaza on the east side of Denver Union Station has the potential to be more than just an entrance to the regional transportation center.

It could be a cultural destination teeming with a wide range of people attracted year-round by a dynamic cavalcade of events and activities.

Such is part of the vision for the plaza as seen by about 200 downtown residents, business owners, elected officials and other shareholders at a workshop in April. Their visions were compiled into a 67-page report made public Wednesday.

"There's no major transportation center that I know of in the world - and I travel 150,000 miles a year - that uses a great square in front of the transportation center as a major destination," said Fred Kent of Project for Public Spaces Inc., which developed the report.

"With the vision completed . . . it'll be as good or better as Grand Central Station (in New York City), and Grand Central Station is the best in the world," he said.

The historic train station, which once served as a gateway to Denver and the Rocky Mountains but fell into a decades-long period of stagnation, is poised for a $1 billion redevelopment. The station, in the heart of lower downtown, is expected to be a regional transportation hub for commuter trains, buses and light rail.

"It'll raise the bar and other places will have to come to that level," Kent said.

The vision for the plaza is both a front door to the city and the region and a social gathering spot for the community, the report said.

"Denver already has many great places," the report said. "Union Station Plaza should join the ranks as one of the 10 great."

Jason Longsdorf, the city's project manager for Union Station, said the vision statement for the plaza along Wynkoop Street gives government agencies and other partners in the project "great direction."

"It gives us a lot of guidance to understand what those public stakeholders want to see there and for us to be able to work toward that," he said.

The plaza has to serve everyone from commuters and tourists to kids and neighbors, said Dana Crawford, a spokeswoman for Friends of Union Station. "Because there's this interface with the transit facility and the big open plaza, we can really have a world-class facility," she said

Landmark agency needs council check

2005-11-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain News

Landmark agency needs council check

Panel is unelected and not in charter

October 17, 2005

We have few architectural pretensions and are reluctant to weigh in on the merits of building a 320-foot condominium tower on what is now historic-district land near Cherry Creek in LoDo.

Instead we want to narrow the issue to this: Should an unelected board with no authority in the city charter have the final say over the borders of that historic district?

No, it shouldn't, and the law should be adjusted accordingly.

The Denver Landmark Preservation Commission was created three decades ago by ordinance. The voters were not asked to certify its powers.

It is in the news because it voted last month to kill a request to move the outer edge of the Lower Downtown Historic District boundary so the tower could be built. It could have forwarded the request to the city council with a go or no-go recommendation, but vetoing the project outright was within its authority.

The tower would go up on land near Speer Boulevard and Market Street that Mayor John Hickenlooper's administration swapped for a couple of parking lots at Fox Street and W. Colfax Avenue that it needs for the new Justice Center. The city originally agreed to pay $450,000 on top of a $2.7 million price for the parking lots if the land sale isn't completed by Nov. 1, but last week the developer said he won't demand the extra payment.

As far as we can ascertain, the preservation commission is the only non-charter board in the city with the power to terminate a proposed zoning modification. The Board of Adjustment for zoning appeals also has powers that city council can't override, but the board is established in the charter.

Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said she was astounded that the commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor for set terms, can keep the council from reviewing its decisions.

The commission is rarely asked to shrink district boundaries. Usually it is asked to expand them, or to designate certain structures as historically worthy. But there's no reason boundaries shouldn't be revised if a project would clearly benefit the city.

Council should make sure it has the power to review proposed changes in historic district boundaries, accepting or rejecting recommendations of the commission. Short of that, citizens should be asked to vote on a charter amendment that establishes the commission as final arbiter on what areas and buildings are eligible for historic designation.