REAL ESTATE
Broncos unveil initial plans for future Burnham Yard stadium neighborhood
“This is 150 acres, it’s a very large site, and so each of these zones within the development will have its own character. Some might be much more residential. Some might be much more mixed use,” said Josh Brooks, the Denver office director at Sasaki, an international design company the Broncos partnered with for its Burnham Yard development plans. The Broncos’ development plans include the stadium, an entertainment district, a north neighborhood, a southern part of the stadium and south neighborhood, according to the team’s presentation.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/12/denver-broncos-stadium-neighborhood-timeline.html
The High Cost of Throwing Things Away
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, half of that waste goes to landfills while some 20 percent is incinerated. Just over 30 percent is recycled. But these aren’t long-term solutions; our landfill space is shrinking, for one. Since 1990, the number of landfills in the U.S. has decreased by nearly 75 percent. Recycling doesn’t happen nearly enough, either, experts warn. Yet most consumers assume it does, making them more likely to justify single-use plastic or aluminum products, despite the evidence they’re more likely to wind up in landfills rather than in a recycling facility. A 2019 study found recycling is not addressing the nation’s plastic waste problem nearly at the rate it should; and, in fact, it may be making matters worse.
https://the-ethos.co/throwing-things-away-climate-change-impact/
Population Shortfall Puts $100B Dent in Economy, Raising Questions for U.S. Housing Demand
A sharp deceleration in U.S. population growth over the 12 months ending in June 2025 has created a measurable gap in consumer spending, output and jobs, with housing positioned at the center of the adjustment. Between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, the U.S. population increased by about 1.8 million people or 0.5%, bringing the total to roughly 342 million, one of the slowest annual growth rates on record outside the early Covid era. A year earlier, the country had added about 3.2 million residents and grown at roughly a 1% pace, leaving what economic modelers describe as a 1.4 million-person “growth gap” relative to the prior trend.
https://www.globest.com/2026/02/12/population-shortfall-puts-100b-dent-in-economy-raising-questions-for-us-housing-demand/
Rethinking Residential Unit Design: Lessons from Office-to-Residential Conversions
Standardized residential units are often the default in housing design because they streamline construction, cut costs, and speed up delivery. But this efficiency comes at a cost, limiting residents’ ability to choose homes that reflect their personal needs. Gensler’s 2024 Residential Experience Survey of 1,300 New York Metro residents reveals that 53% of residents’ satisfaction with their housing experience stems from what happens inside their unit. While community and amenity spaces are important drivers of the overall experience, introducing variety in unit layouts expands market appeal and drives resident satisfaction.
https://www.gensler.com/blog/residential-unit-design-lessons-office-to-residential
5 Major Brokerages’ Stocks Plummet Amid Fears Of AI Impacts
Shares of Cushman & Wakefield were down 14%, and Newmark was down about 13.4% at market close, Bloomberg reported. CBRE Group and JLL dropped 12%, while Colliers fell a little more than 11%. For CBRE and Cushman, the drops marked the biggest since 2020, Bloomberg reported. JLL, CBRE and Cushman are not only among the largest companies in CRE but also the firms that have leaned most heavily on their own internal AI platforms — JLL with Falcon, CBRE with Ellis and Cushman with AI+.
https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/commercial-real-estate/jll-cbre-cushman-wakefield-cre-ai-scare-133185
New Ways to Power Data Centers and Other Large Energy Users
Large energy users such as data centers and other advanced manufacturing facilities are driving demand for electricity. This demand is outpacing the rate at which existing resource planning, procurement, and market processes can identify and integrate new generation in the United States. This mismatch is raising concerns for public utility commissions and grid operators as they consider how to connect large loads without comprising system reliability, affordability of electricity bills, and state decarbonization policies. To address this, states are turning to large load tariffs to bring large energy users onto the grid in a transparent, standardized way. These tariffs are focused on establishing (1) rates that account for large loads’ potential grid impacts, and (2) measures that reduce the risk of cost increases to other ratepayers, primarily by focusing on the risk of overbuilding due to load that doesn’t materialize.
https://rmi.org/new-ways-to-power-data-centers-and-other-large-energy-users/
Data center developers are zeroing in on a new target
Across the country, so-called “mega-scalers” looking to build data centers in the gigawatt range have unlocked hundreds of billions of dollars to support an unprecedented effort to increase both the intelligence of AI products and deploy them widely. That means companies such as Microsoft, Google, Oracle, OpenAI and Meta are pouring money into projects across the country. But the bottlenecks are growing, with mounting local resistance to projects, concerns over water and electricity usage, and yearlong delays to connect to the wider grid for the massive power needed to operate. These companies, designed with the computer power needed to produce new bitcoin, already have a lot of what the hyper-scalers need: Massive, secured electrical power capacity in areas with low rates, industrial-level cooling systems, large campuses and high-bandwidth networking potential.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/10/ai-data-center-bitcoin-mine-2026-openai-oracle.html
$150 million in renovations proposed for two downtown Denver towers
The largest changes are expected in Tower Two, at 1675 Broadway, which Luzzatto plans to convert from offices into 360 housing units with various amenities like a coffee shop, gym, theater and coworking space. Tower One, at 1625 Broadway, will remain office space, but will see upgrades to building systems and amenities, Luzzatto said. The outdoor plaza, set between the towers and 16th Street, will be activated to better tie into the recently renovated pedestrian mall, he said. The estimated project cost is $150 million and an application will soon be submitted for funding support from the Downtown Development Authority, Luzzatto said.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/10/denver-energy-center-renovations-proposed.html
Why your Colorado [residential] property tax bill still increased this year
We are now in the sixth year of the state’s latest debate over property taxes. The state’s property tax bills were governed for decades by the Gallagher Amendment, which was repealed in 2020 by a bipartisan effort. Gallagher had the effect of continuously lowering the assessment rate for residential property — a perk for homeowners, but one that eroded the tax base for rural areas and schools, repeal advocates argued. Before the Gallagher Amendment passed, homeowners were taxed on 30 percent of their value. Without Gallagher, the state no longer had an automatic brake on residential taxes. That led to shocking increases to the final bill, more than 30 percent for many homeowners, as the market accelerated in the early 2020s. The rate jumps spurred a complicated political war that lasted several years, resulting in several rounds of temporary rate cuts before a grand compromise was passed in a special session last year. The compromise set a permanent residential rate that was not as low as the discounted rate, but also wasn’t as high as the old long-term rate. It also established lower permanent rates for commercial property owners, who have been paying much higher tax rates than homeowners for years.
https://www.cpr.org/2026/02/09/why-colorado-property-taxes-increased/
Denver Water snowpack and water supply update
Reservoir storage conditions are below average, but in reasonably good shape: 81% full versus an average of 85% full for this time. Those levels are also artificially affected by the need to keep Gross Reservoir low during construction to raise the dam, a project designed to increase the storage capacity of the reservoir. Denver Water has been here several times over roughly 50 years of reliable records. On the positive side, we have experienced years that started dry and conditions dramatically improved in March, April and May. This year, however, we are running out of time to build a healthy winter base.
https://www.denverwater.org/tap/denver-water-snowpack-and-water-supply-update
Denver’s Cherry Creek mall to get makeover as Simon invests $250 million
The Cherry Creek Shopping Center in Denver is among three U.S. properties that mall-owning real estate giant Simon says it will spend $250 million to redevelop in projects starting this year. Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) announced on Wednesday that it start renovating the 1.2 million-square-foot shopping center in 2026. It will also renovate the Mall at Green Hills in Nashville and the International Plaza in Tampa. Not much is known about what renovations will take place at the Cherry Creek mall, which is the Denver area’s fifth-largest shopping center, Denver Business Journal research shows. Simon said it plans to implement designs that will “enhance the guest experience” and the shopping center’s reputation as a top regional destination for luxury retail.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/04/cherry-creek-shopping-center-mall-redevelopment.html
Metro Denver home sales in January the weakest since 2008
Closings were down nearly 20% compared to January 2025. But there are signs the windmilling market may regain its balance in February, with 3,060 pending sales in January, up 47.2% from December. Pending sales represent homes under contract, but not closed yet. Conversely, the number of new listings surged nearly 153% between December and January, reaching 4,455. The jump was large, but on par with the 4,350 listings in January 2025. That increase didn’t translate into a comparable rise in the inventory of listings available at the end of January. There were 8,228 active listings at the end of January, up from 7,607 in December and 7,688 a year earlier. The monthly gain was 8.2% and the annual gain was 7%. Listings were taking a median of 53 days to sell, up from 45 days in the month-ago and year-ago periods.
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/02/04/denver-home-sales-january/
How Denver is trying to rescue its development permitting
Mayor Mike Johnston ran on a platform that included fixing the permitting department. He addressed the timeliness issue in April, using a rare mayoral executive order to create the Denver Permitting Office. The new office is designed to eliminate hurdles to project approval and mandate that each submission be processed through the system within 180 days of city time. Johnston also brought Brad Buchanan, former Denver planning director, back into the fold to lead the Community Planning and Development department, a role he now holds alongside being CEO of the National Western Center Authority. Buchanan and Jill Jennings Golich, who leads the new permitting office, say they have made quick progress, offering much-needed hope to those seeking permits in the city.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2025/11/07/denver-permitting-system-problems-solutions.htm
The Housing Market Is Swinging Toward Buyers
About 62% of buyers last year purchased a home below the original listing price. That was the highest proportion since 2019, according to a new analysis by the real-estate brokerage Redfin. The average discount for the homes that sold below their original listing price was around 8%—the largest since 2012.
Buyers are also obtaining concessions from sellers, including cash that can be used for closing costs or to buy down a buyer’s mortgage rate.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/the-housing-market-is-swinging-toward-buyers-7c24d78e?mod=djemRealEstate
As Colorado’s wildfire threat grows, Douglas County turns to biochar as ‘next level’ mitigation tool
“By converting woody debris and forest byproducts into biochar, we’re reducing wildfire risk, supporting responsible forest management, and creating a valuable resource that can improve soil health and support long-term environmental resilience,” Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon said last week. The county has been moving quickly to get the plant up and running, said Nash Leef, a partner in Carbon Dynamics. Leef’s company works with local governments to stand up biochar operations and has been collaborating with Douglas County for about a year to prepare the plant’s debut, expected this fall. “The technology to produce biochar at scale is nascent,” he said. “There are so many communities watching Douglas County to see if it will work for them.”
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/02/01/douglas-county-biochar-plant-wildfire-mitigation/
New Breed of Shared Offices Is Bringing Co-Working Market Back to Life
Now, as companies adopt a mix of office and remote work, co-working is once again one of the fastest-growing segments of the office market. Economic uncertainty and the rise of artificial intelligence are compelling more companies to embrace flexibility for their workspace. This time, it isn’t only smaller firms or entrepreneurs flocking to these shared conference rooms and cubicles. Some of the world’s largest companies are jumping on the co-working bandwagon, including Pfizer, Amazon.com, JPMorgan Chase, Lyft and Anthropic.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/a-new-breed-of-shared-offices-is-bringing-the-co-working-market-back-to-life-8f7287eb
REAL ESTATE AND MOBILITY
I’m walking here! A new model maps foot traffic in New York City
Now, an MIT research group has assembled a routable dataset of sidewalks, crosswalks, and footpaths for all of New York City — a massive mapping project and the first complete model of pedestrian activity in any U.S. city. The model could help planners decide where to make pedestrian infrastructure and public space investments, and illuminate how development decisions could affect non-motorized travel in the city. The study also helps pinpoint locations throughout the city where there are both lots of pedestrians and high pedestrian hazards, such as traffic crashes, and where streets or intersections are most in need of upgrades.
https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-model-maps-foot-traffic-new-york-city-0206
DIA eyes infrastructure investment after losing $475M project
The lack of infrastructure on an airport-owned site is what halted the project with Swire Coca-Cola. The Utah-based beverage manufacturer and distributor inked a land lease at DIA in 2023 with plans to build a 570,000-square-foot bottling facility in the airport’s Second Creek Campus commercial district. Swire withdrew from the project in July and later chose to build its plant instead in Colorado Springs, citing “unforeseen delays and ongoing timeline instability” concerning the infrastructure it needed to build the plant near DIA. Several weeks after Swire said it would no longer build at DIA, the airport put out a news release saying that it was “moving aggressively” to get more development on airport land.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/10/denver-airport-swire-coca-cola-infrastructure.html
Colorado’s would-be second Buc-ee’s withdraws after year of controversy
Buc-ee’s, the Texas-based travel center chain known for its massive roadside stops, has withdrawn its application to annex roughly 25 acres into the Town of Palmer Lake, according to town officials and the company. The decision follows more than a year of public meetings, legal challenges and political upheaval in the small El Paso County town. Located between Beacon Lite Road and I-25, the proposal dominated civic life in Palmer Lake.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/05/colorado-buc-ees-palmer-lake-canceled.html
MOBILITY
RTD ridership is down 40%, its budget has holes, and lawmakers are fed up
Ridership is down nearly 40% since 2019. State lawmakers who oversee the RTD are fed up. “RTD has failed my community, and they continue to fail my community,” Sen. Kyle Mullica (D-Thornton) said in a legislative accountability hearing. “That is unacceptable.” The lawmakers have begun crafting an overhaul of the RTD board based on recommendations from a panel they created to replace 10 of 15 publicly elected directors with appointees who would bring greater expertise. Meanwhile, Colorado intercity rail leaders, with backing from Gov. Jared Polis, are targeting RTD funds to help launch Front Range Passenger Rail.
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/02/13/rtd-denver-public-transit-future/
Commute times are nearing a milestone amid return-to-office push
An analysis by coworking management platform Yardi Kube found that the average national one-way commute time in 2024 was 27.2 minutes, 0.4 minutes higher than in 2023. While that is still lower than a peak of 27.6 minutes seen in 2019 (before the pandemic), it’s far higher than the 25.6 minute average that commutes fell to in 2021 as remote work soared. “The data reveals a consistent pattern: As remote work continues to recede, commute times are climbing at a noticeably faster pace, underscoring just how deeply remote and hybrid work models have influenced modern work-life dynamics,” the report said. The report found that the number of permanently remote workers soared to 27.6 million in 2021 and gradually fell to 21.9 million in 2024.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/02/05/commute-traffic-remote-work-rush-hour.html
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Record year for affordable housing construction — Seattle leads the nation
Notably, affordable housing is starting to make up a larger portion of all new apartment construction. In 2024, nearly 14% of all new apartments were income-restricted — up from just under 9% ten years earlier — indicating a growing emphasis on affordability in new development. The American Rescue Plan has helped move things forward by directing billions of dollars into housing through State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. On top of that, many states introduced or expanded their own tax credit programs. These efforts helped developers cover rising costs and move projects across the finish line faster while simultaneously keeping rents affordable for the long term. Between the two five-year periods (spanning 2015 to 2019 and 2020 to 2024), the U.S. saw a dramatic increase in the completion of affordable apartments: The number of apartments for lower-income renters delivered nationwide surged by 73%, rising from approximately 179,000 in the first half of the 10-year period to nearly 310,000 in the latter. The nationwide growth in affordable housing construction between 2020 and 2024 was driven in large part by expanded public funding and policy support. At the federal level, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) continues to play a central role in getting projects built. Additionally, a key update —in the form of income averaging — gave developers more flexibility by allowing a wider range of income levels across units, while still meeting affordability requirements.
https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/market-snapshots/affordable-housing-construction/
Why Building Alone Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis
But a new report raises doubts about that narrative, finding that in cities that aggressively built housing in recent years, rents rose dramatically for low-income households and stabilized for wealthier ones. The new rental housing that was built was often luxury housing, with studios and one-bedrooms, units that targeted young, single professionals but were too small and too expensive for low-income households with children. New single-family homes for sale were larger than they were in the past, aimed at wealthier buyers, rather than cash-strapped, first-time home buyers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/realestate/affordable-housing-insurance-studies.html
Developers Scramble To Fill Gaps In Critical Funding To House Most Vulnerable Tenants
A court order has paused any changes following HUD’s November notice of funding opportunity, or NOFO, which made available $3.9B for continuums of care, a federal effort that seeks to end homelessness by coupling grants for housing access and supportive services. For now, those grants can be renewed, but funds won’t be disbursed until a ruling is made in a lawsuit brought by a consortium of nonprofits and local governments protesting the changes laid out in the November NOFO. The suit is playing out in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. The changes introduced in November signal a major shift from a focus on permanent housing to more temporary housing solutions, which are generally capped at two years of residence.
https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/affordable-housing/continuum-of-care-permanent-supportive-housing-132913
Denver’s affordable-housing vacancy rate is at a 10-year high. Experts say the city still needs more units.
CoStar analysts anticipate that Denver’s affordable-housing vacancy rate will likely rise in 2026 and may peak at up to 10%. But beginning in 2027, demand will catch up and overwhelm what’s available. “We just haven’t seen a lull of supply quite like this in the Denver market,” said Jeannie Tobin, the director of market analytics for CoStar in Denver. “Deliveries are going to fall off a cliff this year and into next year. It’s just a pretty volatile market right now.” Johnston said one of his goals for 2026 is to bring another 2,500 affordable units online and 5,000 more market-rate units.
“If we don’t see recovery in the total number of units coming through the pipeline, we’ll get a shortage in supply again. We will get too much demand, too little supply, and we’ll see rents spike,” he said.
https://www.denverpost.com/2026/02/06/denver-affordable-housing-vacancy-rate/
How design of public housing can lift future prospects of children
The HOPE VI project, launched in the 1990s by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), sought to replace these architectural islands with a mix of public and market-rate housing that fit more seamlessly with the urban grid. According to new research, led by economists at Opportunities Insights, these changes had no effect on the income of adults in public housing. But the expanded social milieu offered children big returns in adulthood. “We find that kids who moved into these revitalized units, and spent some portion of their childhoods there, ended up earning about 16 percent more,” explained Staiger, one of the paper’s seven co-authors. “We also see increases in college attendance as well as reduced incarceration rates for boys.”
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/01/how-design-of-public-housing-can-lift-future-prospects-of-children/
