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If you haven't been near
Union
Station recently go to 17th and Wynkoop
streets and take a look at the amount of construction,
public and private, underway. The restoration of the
historic depot into Denver's central transportation hub
is part of the FasTracks program. The $488 million
station project will, when completed in the spring of
2014, combine RTD light rail, commuter rail, bus and
AMTRAK terminals into one multimodal hub. The 2007
Federal Environmental Impact Statement projected 205,800
one-way transit trips per day in and out of Union
Station in 2030.
The historic depot long sat forlorn and virtually
abandoned. The only activity was two daily AMTRAK
trains, a couple of restaurants occupied the ground
floor of the south wing over the years and, in the
basement, the popular model railroad layouts. That
changed with FasTracks. The renovated Union Station
will feature a 100-room hotel, restaurant and retail
space (and the model railroads). Union Station
Alliance, the developer of the historic building
recently received approval from the National Park
Service of the design under historic guidelines. Large
public plazas at the Wynkoop Street entrance will help
activate the area as will two new office buildings on
the north and south wings.
The station project is only part of what's happening in
the neighborhood. The confluence of transit service and
convenient access to downtown is encouraging more
residential development. In the area generally bounded
by Wynkoop Street, 20th Street, Speer Boulevard and the
South Platte River there are three new apartment
buildings under construction and at least four more
planned. This is in addition to the apartment and condo
buildings that were developed along Little Raven Street
near the river prior to the advent of the Great
Recession. By the time Union Station opens nearly 750
new apartment units will be completed nearby.
The following apartment projects are currently under
construction:
-
AMLI Riverfront Park,
242 units at 1900 Little Raven Street by AMLI
Residential
-
Cadence,
a 219 unit building by Zocalo Community Development at
1920 17th Street
-
1490 Delgany Street,
Opus Group's 285 unit tower just south of 15th Street
According to Pierce-Eislen (www.pi-ei.com),
which tracks apartment development activity in metro
Denver, there are four apartment buildings in various
stages of planning or approvals, including:
-
Alta River House,
281 units by Wood Partners at 1801 Chestnut Place
-
Confluence,
a two-phase, 200-unit building by Suppa Properties at
2166 15th Street
-
1959 Chestnut Place,
314 units by Loftus Properties
-
Holland Partners' 314 unit tower at 16th and Wewatta
Streets
And
www.denverinfill.com reports that the Nichols
Partnership continues to plan its
20th and
Chestnut development of 312 apartment
units together with the first full service grocery in
the Central Platte Valley. Ground breaking has been
anticipated and King Soopers and Trader Joe's have been
mentioned, but Nichols, the developer of Spire nearby
and Clayton Lane in Cherry Creek North has not announced
the grocery tenant.
These proposed projects would add over 1,500 units to
the neighborhood. But, as the television pitchmen say,
there's more! Developers are also building office space
in the surrounding neighborhood, including:
-
Trammell Crow Company is completing the 270,000 square
foot headquarters for
DaVita,
the medical products company moving its headquarters
to Denver from California. The building at 16th and
Wewatta streets is almost finished and ready for
occupancy.
-
Work has started on
One
Union Station, a 115,000 square foot
building at 1601 Wynkoop Street (Union Station's south
office wing). Antero Resources will anchor the
building, taking about 70,000 square feet.
-
The north wing of the depot is also under
construction.
IMA
Financial will occupy the 108,000
square foot building.
Both of the Union Station office buildings are being
developed by Union Station Neighborhood Company (www.unionstationdenver.com),
a joint venture of East-West Partners and Continuum
Partners which several years ago was awarded the
contract to buy the land surrounding the historic Union
Station building from RTD.
One of the largest announced projects in the
neighborhood is
1601
Wewatta Street, a 280,000 square foot
office building to be developed by Jordan Perlmutter &
Company and Hines. The project will include about
17,000 square feet of retail space.
Nearby, East-West Partners plans two more office
buildings.
16
Chestnut will be located on the corner
of 16th Street and Chestnut Place and contain about
320,000 square feet. In the triangle at 16th and Wewatta
streets (a busy location for development) East-West
plans to develop 16 Wewatta, a 200,000 square foot
building.
Altogether the office space being developed within a
couple of blocks of Union Station totals 1,093,000 SF.
And nearly all buildings will have extensive retail
space on their ground floors. One means of
understanding the magnitude of the Union Station project
and the surrounding private sector development is to
take one of the periodic walking tours conducted by Ken
Schroeppel of
www.urbaninfill.com fame. Check Ken's website for
dates of his Saturday morning walks around the
neighborhood. His blog is also an excellent means of
keeping up with construction progress on Union Station.
There are few comparable cities in the United States
with so much development underway in their downtowns.
In addition to the new apartment projects in the Union
Station/Riverfront area there are several dozen other
projects under construction or proposed in other parts
of downtown.
Changing demographics and ease of access to downtown's
amenities are driving demand for central Denver
apartments. We'll have to wait for a few years to see
if the boom in central city housing is excessive but,
for now it's quite a change from what was happening (or
NOT happening) in downtown Denver not that many years
ago.
A 1.58-acre site in Prospect Park was recently
purchased by apartment developer Edwards Cos. Located
at
2901 Huron
Street, A.B. Hirschfeld and Sons CEO
Barry Hirschfeld sold the property for $6.25 million, or
$91/SF.
The former Xcel building in downtown Denver is now in
the process of being converted into the first dual-hotel
in the state. Performed by Alliance Construction
Solutions, the 12-story building at 550 15th Street is
to host a 120-room
Homewood
Suites by Hilton on floors 2nd thru
5th and a 182-room
Hampton
Inn and Suites on floors 6th thru
12th when it completes in April, while the 1st floor
will be split among both to provide separate entries,
lobbies, kitchen pantries and dining areas for each
hotel.
The downtown Denver hotel industry is experiencing an
improved market this year from 2011. According to data
by the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association, the
sector managed to gain a 3.2% increase in the measure of
revenue per available room to $109.80 due respective to
increases in occupancy and rent growth for the
year-thru-July of 2.4% and $0.03 from the year-ago
period. Posting rates of 73.5% and $149.42 for the
respective measures, the gains strengthen optimism that
the sector will be able to easily absorb new hotels as
they enter the market.
Seven hotels were recently purchased by limited
liability companies affiliated with Sage Hospitality.
Operating under the TownePlace Suites by Marriott brand
and sold by JER Partners, the transaction included the
addresses of 480 Flatiron Boulevard in Broomfield, $13.2
million;
685 Speer
Boulevard in Denver, $14.1 million; 800
Tabor Street in Lakewood, $7.5 million; 3699 Monaco
Parkway In Denver, $6.4 million; 10920 West Toller Drive
in Littleton, $4.9 million; 4760 Centennial Boulevard in
Colorado Springs, $4.33 million; 7877 South Chester
Street in Centennial, $4.2 million.
Officials for the
U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office have
announced that the Byron G. Rogers federal office
building at 1960 Stout Street has been chosen for its
Denver location. Expected to open by 2014, the office
is expected to have an economic impact of $439 million
over 5 years, with its initial workforce of 130
increasing to 595 over that time.
A mixed-use development has been announced to replace
the Office Depot store at 16th and Market streets by
Integrated Properties Inc. To be known as
16M,
the 10-story building is to offer 15,000 SF of retail
space on the 1st floor while the 2nd through 6th floors
will total 130,000 SF of office space and the remaining
3 floors will offer 43 rental units. Construction of
the project is estimated for completion in early 2014.
A price of $134.8 million, or $334,491/unit was garnered
by WMB IX LLC in the sale of the 403-room
Embassy
Suites Denver-Downtown / Convention Center Hotel
to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors LLC. Purchased on
behalf of Denver Downtown Hotel LLC, the sale price of
the 14-story property at 1420 Stout Street is considered
among the top prices for a Denver hotel.
The recent purchase of a 1-acre site at the
southeast
corner of 1st and Steele Street in the
Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver is marking the
beginning of a new apartment development in the area.
Purchased by BMC Investments for $15.75 million, the
12-story project is planned to offer 250 apartments of a
minimum size of 560 SF, a maximum size of 750 SF, and
2-bedroom units totaling 1,100 SF. To offer a rent rate
above $2/SF, the $80 million U-shaped development is to
also offer 16,000 SF of ground-level retail space.
Construction is not expected to begin for at least 9
months and could possibly take 22 months to complete.
Separately, The Pauls Corp. has plans to anchor 100 St.
Paul Street with an 8-story building offering 135,000 SF
of office space and 14,000 SF of retail space.
The 3rd Colorado opening by Swedish fashion retailer
H&M occurred recently at the
Cherry
Creek Mall. Trailing the opening of
their Flatiron Crossing store by only 3 weeks, it is a
coveted addition to the center, which first disclosed
plans for the store in August 2011.
Sprouts Farmers Market
is readying itself to build its newest location in
Denver soon with the beginning of demolition on the
site. To be located on the north side of Colfax Avenue
between Monroe and Garfield streets, the 26,000 SF store
is to offer more parking spaces than is required by zip
code, will feature a roll-up garage door along Garfield,
and will hide the view of asphalt from the surrounding
neighborhood via the installation of a brick wall and
landscaping. Completion is scheduled for April.
The
Denver
Merchandise Mart is slated for
improvement following its recent purchase by the
Woodhaven-Hawthorne Group. Located at 451 East 58th
Avenue, the company intends to improve the roughly
830,000 SF facility with a redesign of all four lobby
entryways and facades, new directional signage,
upgrading of the HVAC systems, and repaving the entire
lot of the facility. The company has already completed
other improvements that include exterior painting,
flooring replacement in portions of the exhibition
halls, repaving the Mart expansion lot and clearing the
main entrance of the porte-cochere. The entire
improvement cost is estimated at $4 million.
A new mixed-use development near the Dicks Sporting
Goods Park soccer and lacrosse stadium could possibly
break ground in 2013. Led by Kroenke Sports and
Entertainment, the 250-acre
Victory
Crossing Park will be the first sports
and entertainment-oriented development of its kind in
the Denver metro area. To be located in Commerce City
near Quebec Street and 56th Avenue, the $31 million
development has been approved for tax-increment
financing by the Commerce City Urban Renewal Authority.
A property that has been vacant since 2010 in the River
North (RiNo) neighborhood is now to be the focus of a
redevelopment project by Zeppelin Development. To be
known as
The
Source, the project will transform
25,600 SF of the Ironworks Foundry site with retail,
restaurant, and kiosk-type artisanal tenants. The
project was recently advanced via the passage of an
urban redevelopment plan for the site that allowed it to
receive tax-increment financing through its designation
as an urban redevelopment area.
An opening date of 2013 has been announced by specialty
grocer
Trader
Joe's for its first-ever store in the
Denver metro area. Slated to be one block south the of
the retail development planned for the 9th and Colorado
intersection by Jeff Fuqua that was anticipated to
include a
Walmart
store, the East 8th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard
location is to feature a separate wine shop adjacent to
it, and its opening will place it in close-running with
a location at the Twenty Ninth Street Mall in Boulder to
be the first-ever Trader Joes store in Colorado. The
announcement follows months of speculation that began
when the Denver City Council gave its approval in May to
rezone the site for an unnamed grocer after the economic
downturn forced plans to place a hotel on the site to be
abandoned. The site had formerly been the location of
Annies. The Walmart store now appears unlikely because
Denver City Council Members Jeanne Robb and Mary Beth
Susman have declared opposition to the tax increment
financing important to Fuqua development.
The application for historic status for the old
Gates
Rubber Co. property at Broadway and I-25
was again unanimously met with rejection, this time by
the Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
of the Denver City Council. Filed by University of
Colorado senior Eugene Elliot, members of the Committee
endorsed the rejection due to the need to remove the
pollutants on the property and the lack of support for
its preservation by neighborhood groups in the area. |
