James Real Estate Services - Cherry Creek Perspective

University of Denver - Daniels College of Business

2009 Rocky mountain Commercial Real Estate Expo

June 2010

Koelbel and Company and Mile High Development announced that their Yale Station Senior Affordable Housing project will commence construction this fall adjacent to the Yale Light Rail Station at the I-25/Yale Ave. Mile High Development is developing the project for the Koelbel family which has owned the site and maintained an office there for over 45 years, and will own and operate the new facility. The project has received a tax credit allocation from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority under its Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. The $12 million project will consist of a 6-story apartment and retail building including a 2-story parking structure for 64 cars, 2,300 SF of retail space and 50 rental apartments above the garage. The project will be ready for occupancy in May 2011.

A new office building at 1800 Larimer Street opened recently. The 22-story, 500,000 SF building is to become the headquarters for Xcel Energy with relocation of 1,300 employees to the building. And several large office leases were signed recently in downtown Denver. AECOM leased 69,244 SF in the Johns Manville Plaza building at 717 17th Street and Newfield Exploration expanded their lease to 65,874 SF in the former Qwest building at 1001 17th Street. The Social Security Administration signed a lease for 99,000 SF in the former Qwest building and 100,000 SF was leased by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Public Building Service in the Denver Place Building at 999 18th Street. The U.S. General Services Administration signed a lease for 98,769 SF at 1001 17th Street, and finally Total Renal Care Inc./DaVita leased 69,364 SF at 1551 Wewatta Street .

On June 23, thousands of cyclists in the Denver metro area will take to the streets on 2 wheels instead of 4 for Bike to Work Day. Transportation Solutions, The Cherry Creek Bike Rack and Whole Foods Market in Cherry Creek are teaming up once again to host a Breakfast Station Block Party. They expect more than 300 riders. This year, the cycling activities will be at the Café on the south side of the Whole Foods Cherry Creek store along First Avenue east of University Boulevard. Top breakfast vendors will be featured along with free breakfast burritos from 6:30 AM to 10 AM. More at:

http://transolutions.org/

Construction of the Denver Union Station transit Improvements started in earnest in mid-February with utility relocations and a long-term traffic shift on Wewatta Street between 20th Street and 16th Street. As a part of RTD's FasTracks project, the transit complex will include:

an underground Regional Bus Facility some 1,100 feet long with 22 bus bays
a relocated light rail station with three sets of tracks and two platforms with canopies
a relocated 16th St. Mall Shuttle turnaround
a Commuter Rail Train Hall with 8 sets of tracks. 5 platforms and a 44,000 SF membrane canopy similar to DIA
numerous public plazas and pavilions

Amtrak will operate out of a temporary facility at 20^th/Wewatta from this fall until project completion in 2013. The Denver Union Station Project Authority (DUSPA), RTD and Union Station Neighborhood Company (USNC) are working to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification for the complex. And RTD is now beginning the process of examining its internal needs and seeking stakeholder comments to determine the eventual use of the historic Union Station Building.

DUSPA will conduct free walking tours of the Denver Union Station redevelopment site this summer. The tours will be held at 4:30 p.m. on the 3rd Thursday of the month beginning June 17 and continuing through September on July 15, August 18 and September 16. The one-hour tours will depart from the main entrance of the historic station on Wynkoop Street. The walking tours will include information on the storied history of Union Station, the new Union Station Neighborhood and its transformation of downtown, the expansion of RTD's transit services coming to the area and construction of the largest transportation redevelopment project in North America. Participation is limited to 25 people per tour. To reserve your spot, call 303-592-5462. More at:

http://www.denverunionstation.org/

This last week, Downtown Denver has been a little more musical than usual. Upright pianos were placed along the 16th Street Mall in May for the Downtown Denver Partnership's Your Keys to the City program. First launched last November, the inaugural Your Keys to the City had seven pianos. For this spring's program, nine pianos are spread out along the 16th Street Mall, all hand-painted by local Colorado artists. The idea of the program is to create a fun, spontaneous way for those living, working and visiting Downtown Denver to interact with their urban environment. Passersby are welcome to sit down and play or simply listen in on the impromptu performances occurring over the next weeks. The pianos will be around until mid-June when they will be stored and repainted, returning later this summer.

The Denver Post reports that the Stapleton Park-n-Ride and bus transfer center will be relocated in August, and the parking garage that served the old airport will be demolished so more housing can be built in the area. The Regional Transportation District had planned to move in about 5 years to a new Park-n-Ride at the Central Park station in time for the east corridor train line to open. But Forest City Stapleton Inc., developer of the area, recently decided to accelerate its takeover of the current RTD parking lot and bus center, which includes parking spaces on the ground floor of the old airport garage. Forest City spokesman Tom Gleason said factors propelling the company's effort include:

Planned construction of a new Denver public school near the current park-n-Ride.
The planned opening in 18 months of a new Interstate 70/Central Park Boulevard interchange that will shift corporate campus and other commercial development to that location.
The recognition that more residential development is appropriate for the area near the new school.

The current Stapleton lot, which has capacity for about 1,800 cars, handled a daily average of about 900 cars in the fourth quarter of last year, according to RTD. The lot sees higher volume during peak air travel times from passengers who take SkyRide buses to and from Denver International Airport. Forest City has agreed to build a 1,200-space temporary Park-n-Ride and bus transfer center for RTD at East 36th Avenue and Central Park Boulevard, said Jessie Carter, RTD's acting manager of service planning and scheduling. "Our objective is to move to the interim site by Aug. 22," Carter said.

The new residential neighborhood constructed on land where the old Stapleton garage and current Park-n- Ride now sit will be called Central Park West. The first housing lots will be made available to home builders early next year, Gleason said. The northwest corner of Central Park West, at East 35th Avenue and Syracuse Street, will be home for the new Denver public school with classes through 8th grade. It is scheduled to open in August 2011. The school site is just east of the United Airlines flight training center and south of the new regional office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Removing the parking garage will leave the 170-foot-tall former Stapleton air-traffic-control tower that sits just east of the garage, as one of the last remaining unused vestiges of the old airport. Forest City has not decided whether it will market the former tower for commercial use.

Cableland, the former "bachelor pad" of cable TV magnate Bill Daniels on Leetsdale Drive overlooking Burns Park east of Colorado Boulevard may become available. Daniels died several years ago and donated the mansion to the city as a mayor's residence. Neither of the mayors since then has lived in the house and Mayor Hickenlooper has proposed selling the mansion with the proceeds to go to the Denver Scholarship Foundation, which gives college scholarships to Denver high school students. The Denver Post reports that the donation could be as much as a $16 million, which would translate into as much as $800,000 annually for scholarships. The Daniels Fund, which Daniels established, agrees with the Hickenlooper proposal, but the Denver City Council Finance Committee refused to approve the deal yet.

The Post said Councilman Charlie Brown feared the decline in the real estate market would make it difficult for the city to get a good price. He also wondered whether the property had been properly marketed for use by charities. Councilwoman Marcia Johnson said the current zoning would allow for someone to raze the property after buying it to build seven new homes on the site.

Westword reports that East High boosters aren't "digging" a proposal that would put a dog park alongside an urban garden at the site of the former Church in the City, less than a block away from the historic school. Earlier this year, the city used $6 million in bond money to buy the 2.6-acre site that the church had occupied for 16 years. Denver's Department of Parks and Recreation plans to build a new regional recreation center there, but the city doesn't have the money right now - and may not have it for 5 to 10 years.

The vacant church building, a former Safeway at 1530 Josephine Street, had regularly provided a roof to a dozen or more homeless people. But it had also created dangerous living conditions for those people and presented a menace to students, according to East officials. So was to be installed around the property so the building could be torn down by the end of the month, says Denver City Council president Jeanne Robb.

To come up with an interim use for the land, Robb and fellow councilwoman Carla Madison convened a committee of representatives from the neighborhood, local businesses and East. In late May, the group voted to turn the site into a combination community garden and dog park - but only if responsible, dog-loving volunteers take the lead in keeping the park from getting nasty. A proposal for a fenced dog park in nearby City Park was shot down earlier this year after neighbors protested and the city decided it didn't have the money for a fence.

While Robb and Madison say there haven't been any complaints about the Fuller Dog Park, which is located behind Manual High School, East High principal John Youngquist isn't very excited about the prospect of cavorting canines so close to his school. "Our stance is that a dog park isn't the most collaborative use. We are trying to figure out how our students would engage in that activity," Youngquist says. A garden, on the other hand, could be used as a teaching tool - and both Denver Urban Gardens and the GrowHaus have expressed an interest in getting involved with that part of the project.

Xcel Energy has restored power to approximately 31,000 customers who lost service recently, the result of a transformer fire at the company's Harrison Substation, 14th and Jackson Streets. The cause of the explosion was failure of one of the transformers which triggered explosion of the second transformer.

Council Member Robb also reports that the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has begun a resurfacing project on Colorado Boulevard between Alameda Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The project will rotomill and pave 3.5 miles of Colorado Boulevard in asphalt, reconstruct the median and curb ramps, upgrade three traffic signals and improve turn lanes at three intersections. This work is scheduled to be complete by the end of July 2010.

During May, the Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods Zoning Committee, the board of the Country Club Neighborhood Association, and the Cherry Creek East Neighborhood Association all heard presentations about the Cherry Creek Business Improvement District's new conceptual design for Fillmore Plaza (often known as a hybrid street). Neighborhood representatives and the BID representatives agreed to work together to try to find something that can meet the various needs of the entire community. According to Council Member Jeanne Robb, the group has met once and will probably meet several more times before a concept will be agreed on for the renovation of Fillmore Plaza budgeted at $1.8 million. Life on Capitol Hill says that at a May 20th meeting Wayne New, President of the CCNNA, "suggested that perhaps a street could work." But in a more recent conversation, New indicated that the CCNNA prefers no street through Fillmore Plaza. To view the Study Area Map or for more information go to:

www.denvergov.org/cherrycreek

The CCNNA website has several documents related to the issue at:

http://ccnneighbors.com/

and the CCN BID website has more at:

http://cherrycreeknorth.com/about/fillmore-plaza-hybrid-design/

According to CBS4 and the Denver Post a member of the violent activist group Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for a fire that gutted the Sheepskin Factory store on Colorado Boulevard at Cherry Creek in Glendale earlier this year. The website for the activists' magazine, Bite Back, posted a comment from "ALF Lone Wolf," who also claimed responsibility for a May 31 attack on a leather store in Salt Lake City. The Animal Liberation Front is reportedly aligned with the Earth Liberation Front, whose members were convicted in a 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort that did $12 million in damage. The Sheepskin Factory sells pet toys and sheepskin seat covers and has reopened at a temporary storefront in the former Le Petit Gourmet building on East Virginia Avenue east of Colorado Boulevard. Anyone with information is asked to call the Glendale police hotline at 303-639-4328. A $10,000 reward is offered.

Hangar 61 at the former Stapleton Airport was purchased recently by Stapleton Fellowship Church. The Colorado Real Estate Journal and the Denver Post report that the 8.500 SF thin-shell concrete hangar, built in 1959 on Montview Boulevard east of Quebec Street, was slated for demolition. Historic building developers Larry Nelson and Ruth Falkenberg renovated the building last year with help from Colorado Preservation, which used grants from the State Historical Fund. The building was originally built to house the corporate airplane of Ideal Basic Cement Company. The church bought the hangar in May for $1.83 million and plans to invest another $1.1 million turning the structure into a suitable house of worship. The ministry plans to use the transportation building's history as a metaphor for the church's mission of "helping people on their spiritual journey." The church plans to break ground in August with the hope of finishing construction by December.

The first two newly built hotels in downtown Denver in nearly five years are preparing to open this fall as the city's lodging market begins to rebound. The Denver Business Journal reports that the 239-room Four Seasons Hotel Denver is set to open in late October at 14th and Lawrence streets. And the 403-room Embassy Suites Hotel Denver-Downtown Convention Center at 14th and Stout streets is scheduled to open in early December. Work on both facilities began before the market crash in 2008 that hit the national industry more severely than the Denver market. The 1,110-room Hyatt Regency Denver opened in December 2005 and was the last newly built hotel to open downtown. The city center had an Embassy Suites facility until 2006, when it closed and was remodeled as the Ritz-Carlton before reopening. The Four Seasons has aspirations to become downtown Denver's first five-diamond hotel, with a planned open-air, third-floor pool and televisions inset into all bathroom mirrors.

Sponsorship of Real Estate Perspective and Cherry Creek Perspective by the Colorado Chapter of the Appraisal Institute does not constitute endorsement of James Real Estate Services, Inc. by the Chapter.