If approved by the City Council, the package of proposed zoning changes will govern future development for hundreds of properties between Sherman and Yosemite streets with an eye toward ensuring ample shopfronts and more space for sidewalk users along Colfax.

The measure comes before the council as the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure marches toward a final design for the long-anticipated East Colfax Avenue Bus Rapid Transit network. Crews are expected to begin construction on the first segment of that project — which will install dedicated lanes and more than two dozen loading platforms to accommodate a network of high-frequency, fast-loading buses — next year.

While BRT will change the face of transportation along Colfax, the new zoning rule would change the face of buildings around the bus stops.

The rules — technically known as a design overlay — would not impact the base zoning or building heights allowed on any properties. The most important thing it will do is dictate that at least a portion of the ground floor of new buildings includes active, commercial uses. That could be anything from a pizza parlor to an office space.

New buildings would also have to be set back at least two feet farther from the street if the overlay is adopted, expanding sidewalk space, according to city planning documents. Property owners could leave more space between the fronts of their buildings and the property line, creating space for patios that might entice pedestrians.

The proposed standards won’t run for the entire 5-plus-mile length of the corridor, with gaps provided in some places where bigger residential projects could spring up. The impacted properties are all clustered within two blocks of planned bus rapid transit stops.

“The purpose of the design standards themselves is to promote walkability and small business,” said Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, one of the measure’s co-sponsors. Her east Denver District 5 is one of four council districts that will see properties rezoned should the bill pass. “We’re trying to find the right balance. We want businesses in places everyone walks to and rides to and we want housing, particularly affordable housing.”

There are a few uses that would not meet the criteria for nonresidential active uses facing Colfax, essentially banning them near future BRT stops. Those include storage facilities, car washes, auto shops and drive-thrus that would have entrances and exits on Colfax itself, according to city documents.

“It’s past time that Colfax prioritized people over stuff,” said Councilman Chris Hinds, the bill’s other co-sponsor who represents the city’s central District 10.

Long-term plans drafted over the last two to three years for the city’s east and east central neighborhoods both call for design standards that emphasize active uses like storefronts on busy street corridors while discouraging car-oriented development.

Hinds sees the design overlay, already in place on portions of Tennyson Street and Santa Fe Drive, as Denver living its values on Colfax.

The overlay plan cruised through the council’s Land Use, Transportation & Infrastructure Committee in October. But there was some heartburn among members of the Denver Planning Board when they reviewed it this fall.

The design overlay was created by District 1 Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval’s office to address concerns about the wave of redevelopment sweeping over Tennyson Street between 38th and 46th avenues. Sandoval and others were concerned about blocks of new apartment and condo buildings popping up, crowding the sidewalk and choking out the small business feel of the corridor, a historic node on the city’s long-gone streetcar network.

The overlay has since been adopted for a portion of Santa Fe Drive, another corridor of Denver that is rapidly densifying as developers seek to cash in on one of the priciest housing and rental markets in the country.

The Planning Board voted 5-2 to recommend the City Council apply an overlay to East Colfax but not before discussing whether it was the right fit for the storied avenue. Unlike Tennyson and Santa Fe, north-south streets where properties are generally deeper and backed by alleys that allow for deliveries and other services, Colfax is an east-west avenue and lots are much shallower and without alleys. That means new standards that increase setbacks from the street could make it harder to design a workable building.

“I think Colfax is unique enough with the BRT to deserve a little more attention than just implementing something that was started elsewhere. I think the conditions are very different here,” said Gosia Kung, one of the two members who voted against recommending the council approve the rezonings. “It’s a problem that we are expanding the right of way. We’re pushing buildings away.”

Andy Baldyga spoke at that Planning Board meeting. An architect and former member of the board, Baldyga is now the vice president of the Colfax Ave Business Improvement District, which covers Colfax from roughly Sherman to Josephine streets.

Baldyga lives within a block of Coflax and is excited by the prospect of improving transit services along a road that carries one of the Regional Transportation District’s highest ridership bus lines already. But he, too, has concerns about how an east-west avenue will fare under design standards created for north-south streets.

“Colfax can stitch neighborhoods together and become a uniting element. There are strong neighborhoods on the north and south; great density, great housing stock, people want to live there,” Baldyga said. “I think what the city needs to do is look at all the east-west corridors and develop new standards that incentivize new development in a way that works for east-west streets.”

Hinds, Sawyer and their partners in the planning department did consider tweaks as a nod to these differences. Skinny properties, those under 37.5 feet in width, are exempted from the commercial use requirement, Sawyer said.

Exemptions for shallow properties along Colfax, those that are less than 70 feet deep, were also considered, but the group determined those properties would also struggle to fit new projects into the existing zoning code. Instead, the overlay was extended at least 100 feet to the north and south of Colfax to make sure that developers who assemble multiple properties for a new project would also be subject to the new rules.

BRT itself will completely reshape East Colfax. The high-frequency transit service will be made possible by converting two general-purpose lanes between Broadway and Yosemite Street into dedicated, center-running bus lanes, said Jonathan Stewart, the project’s director within the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, or DOTI.

It is worth noting that Aurora is the city’s partner in the project and once the BRT lanes cross into that city’s territory east of Yosemite the buses will share lanes with traffic, Stewart said. The eastern terminus of the BRT line will be near the R Line rail station just before Colfax meets Interstate 225.

Design work is well underway for the project ahead of an anticipated fall 2024 groundbreaking on the first segment between Broadway and Williams Street. City transportation officials have pinned 2027 as the projected start of revenue-generating operations on the new mass transit service.

DOTI was not directly involved in the design standards discussions, Stewart said, but the department is soliciting feedback from business improvement districts along the avenue about what the streetscape should look like between the curbs and the front doors of shops, restaurants, and other businesses.

“It’s part of the larger effort of the city, trying to plan more holistically,” he said of working alongside the planning department. “We’re both wanting to enact the people’s will transforming this into more of a Main Street-type corridor.”

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According to Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors, households with children under 18 decreased from 48 percent in 2002 to 40 percent in 2022. Meanwhile, families with pets increased from 56 percent in 1988 to 70 percent by 2022.

Not only do more potential homebuyers have pets, but they also make purchasing decisions with their dogs and cats in mind.

In a survey conducted by Realtor.com and HarrisX among 3,001 U.S. adults, 82% of Americans with pets 91% say their animals will factor in their purchase decision.

Pet owners want:

• Fenced yards with shade
• Nearby amenities include dog parks, vets, and groomers
• Pet-friendly neighborhoods
• Homes that include doggy doors, sunrooms, mudrooms, large windows, and main-floor bedrooms so older pets can avoid stairs.

Kendra Buck with West+Main said backyards are critical for dog owners.

“They also want good fences. In some newer neighborhoods, the homes come with a low four-foot split rail fence that’s problematic with a big dog.”

Ronaldo Mojica with 8z said he sees dog owners gravitating to walkable neighborhoods with other pet owners.

“Many of them do like to know there are other dogs in the neighborhood. That shows how dog-friendly its is,” Mojica said. “I don’t hear it from every pet owner, but some do like to know whether can will have opportunities to socialize their dogs.”

A Zillow survey by The Harris Poll showed that 60% of Gen Z adults value pet-friendly features when considering buying a home. According to the research, 48% prioritize a fenced backyard over other features, such as a double sink in the primary bathroom (28%) or a home office (35%).

If they must decide between a pet-friendly and kid-friendly home, most Gen Z pet owners (55%) will choose the former (45%).

Gen Z pet owners even prioritize their pets over their partners. According to Zillow’s research, 22% of these pet owners would prefer to move out if their current home no longer meets their pet’s needs, compared to only 12% who would do the same for their partner’s needs.

“For a lot of these buyers, their lives revolve around their dogs,” Buck said. “They want to know about dog parks, walking trails and any breed restrictions set by the HOA.”

Increasingly, Denver-area realtors see potential homebuyers searching for places that accommodate aging dogs.

“For some buyers with older dogs, a ranch is the only thing they will consider. Or if there are stairs, they want them carpeted since it provides grip and padding that helps the dogs,” Mojica said.

Buck agreed that ranches are popular with potential owners with older dogs.

“They look for space on the main level so the dogs can hang out and a bedroom on the main floor, especially if the dog is too big to carry up and down stairs. Nobody’s doing stair chairs for dogs yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see that someday.”

The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.

Buyers closed on 2,664 homes and condos last month, a 15.9% drop from the 3,169 homes sold in October. November closings were down 14% year-over-year and through the first 11 months of 2023, with the overall sales volume is down by nearly a fifth.

Properties took longer to sell last month, with the median number of days a listing spent on the market shooting up from 16 in October to 22 in November. A year ago, the median was 21 days.

There were 6,684 active listings available to buyers at the end of November, which is down 10.7% from October’s 7,482 and up 6.9% from the inventory available a year earlier. At the current pace of sales, the market has about 2.5 months of supply of listings.

In one of the bigger declines in the report, new listings, a signal of how motivated sellers are, dropped 29% from October and they are flat with November 2022 levels.

“It’s not that sellers don’t desire to sell their current home and move, it’s that they don’t desire to part with a low APR rate on their current mortgage and trade it for a rate that could be three to four times higher,” said Susan Thayer, a member of the DMAR Market Trends Committee member and area Realtor, in comments accompanying the report.

“Sellers who desire to sell and price their homes accordingly will find there are still plenty of buyers out there – even in the top price range of our market,” she said.

The median or mid-point price of a single-family home sold in November was $625,000, which was down 3.1% from the median price of $645,000 in October. Even with that decline, the median sales price remains up 1.6% from a year earlier.

For condos and townhomes, the median sales price was $418,475, down 1.14% from October’s sales price of $423,300. Measured annually, the median sales price remains up 2.1%.

Libby Levinson-Katz, chairwoman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and an area realtor, said that a drop in interest rates last month helped spur activity and that continued drops will boost demand going forward.

“Depending on where rates trend, we may see bidding wars return before we know it,” she predicted in comments accompanying the report.

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The project represents a vote of confidence in downtown Denver at a time when office vacancy rates have soared above 30% and remote work has left the future of central business districts uncertain.

And it conveys a degree of faith by Amacon, the Canadian developer behind the project, that Colorado’s litigious environment around construction defects won’t come back to bite it once it completes the city’s largest condo project since 2009.

“We have been visiting Denver for years and over time we fell in love with the city and realized early on there was a need for and shortage of homes,” said Stephanie Babineau, vice president of sales and marketing with Amacon, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

About 70% of residents in central Denver are renters, and only 30% are owners, she said, and Amacon expects to find a willing market for its luxury condos with their high-end finishes and central location.

The company has lined up its insurance coverage, is confident in its quality control measures and is pushing toward a 2025 completion date for its 38-story and 32-story towers, which will include structured parking and ground-floor retail.

“This is what we do all day — build condos. It seems like there weren’t that many developers willing to take on that risk,” Badineau said.

That wasn’t always the case. Before 2007, about one in five homes built in Colorado were condos, and many of those targeted first-time buyers transitioning from renting, Ted Leighty, CEO of the Colorado Association of Homebuilders, said during a panel on construction litigation reform hosted by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce on Nov. 8.

Currently, condos are running closer to one in 20, or about 3% to 6% of the total. Most of the condos getting built are high-end, like what Amacon is building in Denver. Although there was a brief spike in condo construction following defects litigation reforms in 2017, that quickly faded.

In 2005, there were more than 4,000 permits pulled for condos, according to a white paper on the lack of condo construction in the state, by Peter LiFari, a housing fellow at the Common Sense Institute and CEO of Maiker Housing Partners, a developer and operator of affordable housing based in Adams County.

Last year, there were only 515, despite the new rules in 2017 that required a majority of homeowners in an association to vote in favor of pursuing a lawsuit rather than just the board. The change was designed to make sure homeowners understood the road they were taking when they moved to litigate.

It isn’t that developers have shifted their focus away from multi-family to single-family. For every new condo built in Colorado, there are 14 new apartments built. In the ’00s, before the housing crash, that ratio was close to 1 condo for every 1.25 apartments, LiFari found.

Viewed another way, condo construction from 2018 to 2022 ran 76% lower than what it was from 2002 to 2008. Buyers are desperate for entry-level condos when they do come up on the resale market, a sign that new ones would also be snapped up if they were built.

Litigation, however, has greatly reduced the number of insurers and developers alike who are willing to tackle new condominiums. From 2007 to 2022, the number of condo developers in the state has dropped from 146 to 23, LiFari found.

While the housing downturn and financial crisis wiped out a large number of developers of all types, construction levels for single-family homes and apartments have rebounded. That isn’t the case for condos.

“This stark decline underscores the significant impact of construction liability litigation laws on the willingness of developers to engage in condominium projects,” he writes.

Kevin Walsh, an attorney with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck who has both pursued and defended construction defect cases, said Colorado’s system is designed in a way that drives up costs without always resolving problems.

Plaintiff attorneys are paid primarily on a contingency basis with fees typically about 35% of damages. They are incentivized to scour for every defect possible once a case is opened and get the highest settlement or judgment possible.

They also bring in third-party contractors who charge 30% to 50% above the going rate for repair work. One reason contractors overcharge is that they fear being sued themselves and need to cover future liabilities. Colorado’s defects litigation system remains so broken that it has scared away insurers.

“There is only one insurance carrier in Colorado willing to cover condos,” he said during the chamber panel.

That contributes to much higher premiums than what a competitive market would generate. Given all the other escalating costs developers face from land to labor to soaring interest rates, higher insurance costs can make a project untenable and the fear of litigation makes them unpalatable.

Insurance premiums now account for 5.5% of the “hard” costs of building a condo compared to rates of 1.1% to 1.6% for apartments and other multifamily rental projects, LiFari estimates.

Whatever changes the state has made to address the construction defects litigation issue haven’t been enough in the eyes of insurers, and because of that, it isn’t enough for developers.

“It has driven us out of the market we are not alone. We have to make a change,” said Carl Koelbel, chief operating officer at Koelbel and Co.

Developers are fully aware that entry-level condos are desperately needed, and that they would sell quickly if they were built, benefitting people.

But because of insurance costs and fear of litigation, Koebel said his company will no longer touch them. The cheapest townhome the company can build in metro Denver right now is in the low $500,000s and that is hardly entry-level.

Resolving construction defects litigation is important but there are other roadblocks that need to be addressed, Koelbel said. Zoning restrictions and the lack of available land work against condo construction, and so does what Koelbel refers to as  “bureaucratic gumming up.”

Even a use-by-right project, considered the easiest to get through the planning process, took more than three years for his company to get approval, he said. There was nothing expedited about the process.

What is needed

LiFari, in his white paper, doesn’t argue for repealing the existing Colorado Construction Defect Action Reform Act (CDARA), which was passed in 2001 and modified in 2003. The act tried to push disputes more toward arbitration or mediation, but many cases are still ending up in the courts.

He argues for the implementation of a “strategic series of incremental reforms” that balances the protections offered to homeowners and developers. One would involve creating a statewide warranty standard that would provide developers who meet specific quality levels of construction established by the state extra legal protections.

Another reform would require individual parties involved in the construction process to take specific responsibility for their expertise. A licensed plumber or electrician, any subcontractor for that matter, would be responsible for the work they do, rather than the developer, who is almost always at the center of defect disputes. Likewise, contractors wouldn’t get dragged into litigation that is the developer’s fault.

He also argues for stronger language to allow a right to remedy, meaning the responsible party has a right to fix a defect promptly or assign a qualified third party to fix it. One model could follow the state’s “lemon laws” where a car manufacturer is allowed to fix a defective car or if they can’t, a third-party vendor can be brought in.

“We can’t build perfect homes,” Leighty said, adding a way needs to be found that addresses defects when they do arise that won’t do long-term damage to either side and to Colorado’s housing market as a whole.

Denver attorney Chad Johnson, who represents homeowners and homeowners associations, said impacted property owners typically only consult an attorney after they have failed to get a contractor or builder to resolve a problem. It is not something they take lightly.

“They have spent more time trying to vilify homeowners and HOAs for discovering their defects than they have been to tighten up their own practices. I haven’t seen any difference in construction practices. We are busier than ever,” he said.

Of around 1,000 requests he has filed under CDARA to request mediation or arbitration and avoid costly legal battles, none have been honored, Johnson said, adding that insurers encourage their clients to stretch out and delay cases rather than resolve them by making satisfactory repairs.

“I have had brand-new homes that have collapsed, where that builder and that insurer should know they will have to pay. They will do everything in their power to drag it out. It is a game of delay,” he said.

Johnson said many of the reforms builders have sought in the past failed because they don’t get to the core of the problem: bad construction practices. He disagrees that separating out liability among different parties is an answer. Owners often don’t know what specific contractors were involved in building their condos and homes and can obtain that information only from the developer or builder.

“A builder is 100% responsible for what they build. That would be a big mistake for a lot of reasons,” he said of separating out liability. Also, developers have contractual relationships with their subcontractors and can go back and sue them because of their shoddy work.

Changes made in 2017 requiring a majority of owners in a community to approve defects litigation also didn’t stem the tide, because builders were offering inadequate solutions when problems arose and losing the votes, he said.

He agrees that insurance is an important part of the equation and argues that solutions can be found. But he said insurers need to provide more information about the claims they are paying out, how they determine premiums, and why they are averse to lower-cost solutions like mediation.

“Immunity from defects won’t solve the problem,” he said. “You are just passing on the cost of fixing these builder mistakes.”

U.S. News & World Report named the Denver metro the healthiest housing market in America, surpassing Raleigh, North Carolina.

MetroIntelligence compiled the ranking using the Housing Market Index for June 2023, an interactive data set that aggregates public and private data points categorized by impact on housing demand, supply, and financing.

“When we looked at the data sets for June, it was pretty clear that Denver jumped to the front of the line due to one key factor: demand. With its mile-high elevation and proximity to the Rockies, it’s not surprising to see more consumers looking to maximize their lifestyle options by relocating or opting to stay in Denver,” said Patrick S. Duffy, the principal real estate economist for MetroIntelligence, who analyzed the data for U.S. News & World Report.

But that continued popularity comes at a cost. Housing prices continue to climb in Colorado.

According to a study from the real estate research firm Zonda, the top four most expensive non-coastal cities for home prices are in Colorado.

“Housing affordability generally improves as one moves away from the coast, but even inland markets are reaching affordability extremes,” said Zonda’s chief economist, Ali Wolf.

With a median home price of $833,622, Boulder tops the list. Denver follows at $636,651, with Fort Collins third at $593,282. For the first time, Greeley made the list at fourth place with a median home price of $573,957.

Limited supply makes housing more expensive. And Colorado needs to build more houses.

According to Up for Growth, a group dedicated to increasing housing affordability through construction, Colorado had a shortage of 127,000 housing units in 2019. This was the second-largest deficit, following California.

However, by the end of 2021, that shortage dropped to 101,141 units, placing the state with the eighth most severe shortfall. A significant portion of this deficit — about 49,581 homes — was centered in the Denver metro.

Jackie Weinhold with West+Main primarily works helping transplants relocating to Denver for work find their new homes.

“People are still moving here in droves,” Weinhold said. “Colorado is one of the most educated states in the nation. We’ve got a diverse business climate. Not many places have we have.”

Colorado’s housing prices are still a bargain for people moving from New York or California.

“Compared to what people are paying in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, Colorado is still a deal,” Weinhold said. “It’s definitely more affordable than the coastal cities. They’re pleasantly surprised by what they can buy here.”

She said many people who move to Denver want to live in a bigger city.

“Denver’s a cultural hub with a thriving performing arts scene and a dining scene recognized nationally with Beard Awards and Michelin stars.”

But most people choose Colorado for the outdoors.

“People want to take advantage of Colorado’s diverse outdoor recreation opportunities: biking, hiking, and skiing,” Weinhold said. “They love having easy access to the outdoors.”

The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.

Its purchase deal with the New York-based owner of 101 W. Colfax Ave. is intended to make room for the city and county’s courts. Many of the non-criminal courts are squeezed into the historic City and County Building across Civic Center Park. They’re expected to need another 280,000 square feet of space by 2040, according to a courts master plan.

The building is just shy of 306,000 square feet and is located in the heart of downtown, with building security, an auditorium, connections to the city’s computer network and a 635-space parking garage. The Post reported earlier this week that city officials were considering purchasing the building.

The proposed contract is up for consideration before the City Council’s Finance and Governance Committee on Tuesday morning. If it earns approval from the entire council in coming weeks, the deal could close in March, according to city documents.

“The Post building would help the city meet space requirements for district, county, probate and juvenile courts as well as provide dedicated space for non-profit and judicial advocate services, like Colorado Legal Services and multiple rental assistance programs, which currently have undedicated space in other city buildings,” Laura Swartz, a spokeswoman for Denver’s finance department, said Thursday.

In addition to courtrooms in the City and County Building less than two blocks from the building it plans to buy, Denver has court uses in the Minoru Yasui Building, the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse and the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center today, Swartz said. All of those buildings are clustered along West Colfax Avenue, between Bannock and Fox streets.

The building opened in 2006 as the joint headquarters of The Post and the Rocky Mountain News, which went on to close down in 2009. The Post’s newsroom and other operations moved out of the building in 2018, into space at the paper’s printing plant in Adams County. But The Post’s ownership group still holds a master lease for the building and subleases that space to other tenants, including the city.

The building is owned by Kayan LLC, an affiliate created by American Properties, which paid $93.4 million for it in 2006, as construction was concluding. That price was higher than the city proposes to pay now, especially when adjusted for inflation.

The difference likely reflects, in part, the impact of high vacancy rates in downtown office buildings after the pandemic changed commuting and remote-work habits. A presentation prepared by the city for the council committee hearing says the negotiated price “falls within the appraisal value.”

Bill Mosher led the development of the Post building. Now with Trammell Crow Company, Mosher also developed the city’s Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building and the state’s Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, among other buildings near Civic Center.

Even as values have declined, Mosher says he views the proposed sale as a good deal for both the city and the seller. The city’s occupancy should generate plenty of needed activity on the eastern end of the under-renovation 16th Street Mall, he said.

“There are cheaper buildings in the Tech Center and downtown right now,” Mosher said. “I think it’s well located,” he added, in a way that allows the city to consolidate courts and courts-adjacent uses.

The city’s contract will come before the council just as work is ramping up on a two-year, $133.5 million renovation of the Webb building at 201. W. Coflax, across the street from The Post’s old building

The Webb building is already home base to 2,100 city employees. The renovation has been touted as a way to maximize space in that building and make room for 600 city workers now using subleased floors in the former Post building.

“The Post building’s proximity to existing downtown courthouses makes this a preferred location,” Swartz said. “The building also already houses city staff and has the city’s IT infrastructure installed.”

The city began subleasing space from The Post’s owner in 2016, and it has expanded since then to include more floors. The city’s cumulative sublease deal is worth just shy of $44 million through 2029.

Late that year is when The Post ownership’s master lease will expire, according to the council hearing presentation. Until then, city documents say, the building’s leasing structure will help pay off debt the city is taking to finance the purchase.

The city plans to issue certificates of participation, a form of borrowing that pledges city assets and isn’t subject to voter approval, unlike municipal bonds. As the city takes over as landlord, it plans to continue charging rent to The Post’s ownership, amounting to $7.8 million in the first year. That money will come from parking revenue and sublease payments made by tenants — including the city.

After 2029, the city will take over all leasing functions, according to the documents.

City Councilman Chris Hinds represents the Civic Center area as part of his District 10. Moving to buy the former Post building is the city “putting our money where our mouth is,” he said.

“Here we are demonstrating that we truly believe that downtown is at an inflection point,” Hinds said, “and that it will reemerge as a welcoming place to live, work and play — just as it has been in the past.”

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Xcel, Colorado’s largest electric utility, and real estate firms Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery said Wednesday that the company has pre-leased all the office space at T3 RiNo, a new six-story, mass-timber building. At 220,172 square feet, Xcel Energy will be the largest office tenant in RiNo, according to a statement by the companies.

About 1,200 employees will be based at the new headquarters.

Work on the building is expected to be completed by the end of the year. T3 RiNo, made of black spruce, is among recent new buildings in the Denver area that are using wood as a way to reduce carbon emissions in construction.

Buildings and construction account for about 40% of the global greenhouse-gas emissions, according to RMI, a Colorado-based research and consulting organization focused on environmental sustainability. According to data from the International Energy Agency, the cement sector consumes about 7% of the world’s industrial energy use and produces 7% of the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions.

The T3 RiNo building features heavy-timber structured design that is “100% renewable, recyclable and nontoxic,” the companies involved in the project said. They expect the building to meet the highest levels of certification for standards of energy efficiency, health and environmentally sustainability.

Amenities include a state-of-the-art conference center, private outdoor terraces on each floor and 5,000-square-foot fitness center. There will be retail space on the ground floor. The is accessible to the Regional Transportation District’s train system.

“As one of the most environmentally friendly developments in the City of Denver to date, T3 RiNo is a natural fit for a tenant customer who shares our commitment to prioritizing sustainability in a tangible way,” said Charlie Musgrave, vice president of U.S. office and life science leasing at Ivanhoé Cambridge.

Xcel Energy has set a goal of producing carbon-free electricity by 2050. The utility filed a proposed energy resource plan with state regulators that says it expects to cut its emissions 87% below 2005 levels by 2030 and produce 83% of its power from clean sources by 2028.

“T3 RiNo will provide several benefits important to our coworkers including more parking, proximity to the RTD light rail system, greater security and more. Being in a single-tenant building allows us to design collaborative workspaces for increasingly interconnected teams,” Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy-Colorado, said in a statement.

Xcel is committed to staying in the Denver metro area “as part of our commitment to our communities, service areas and stakeholders,” Kenney said.

The company expects the move to reduce its annual operational costs by an estimated $2.5 million.

Xcel was represented in the transaction by Rick Schuham and Brendan Fisher of Savills. Co-developers, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery were represented by JLL’s James Roupp, John Beason, Don Misner and Maddy Stevenson.

Xcel currently occupies about 300,000 square feet on several floors of a 22-story, 500,000-square-foot glass and steel tower at 1800 Larimer St. The building opened in 2010. At the time, It was celebrated as the first LEED Platinum-certified high-rise in Denver, the highest rating of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

News of Xcel Energy’s decision to move its headquarters out of downtown comes as the area’s total office vacancy rate hit 30% for the first time since 1990. BusinessDen reported that vacancy went only as high as 17.4% during the Great Recession.

Downtown offices have been slow to fill back up after the COVID-19 pandemic as people have continued to work from home or returned to the office for just part of the week. The Denver office of the real estate firm JLL said in an analysis of this year’s third quarter that despite reports of return-to-office mandates, the overall office occupancy rate fell for the fifth consecutive quarter.

While some business owners aren’t sweating it, John Agnew has a less sanguine view of the effect REI’s presence may have on his snowboard and outdoor gear shop on Main Street once it opens in early 2025. The Seattle-based chain has 181 locations and reported nearly $4 billion in revenue last year.

“They’ll eat up a lot of goggle, helmet and snowboard sales,” said Agnew, who founded The Boarding Haus in downtown Durango in 1995. “I had to fight for many years to get the brands I want.”

REI, which has several locations in Front Range cities, has expanded its mountain market footprint in recent years, opening outposts in Dillon and then Glenwood Springs. The next-closest REI to Durango is an older location in Grand Junction, 170 miles away.

In the eyes of Kendrick Williamson, who oversees operations at Gardenswartz Outdoors just a couple of blocks south of Agnew’s store, the opening of REI there is not a direct threat to his nearly century-old downtown business.

“We’re not going to be losing a lot of customers — there’s not a lot of overlap,” Williamson said, as customers browsed a wide selection of fishing poles, Stetson hats and knives on an early fall afternoon. “People are pretty loyal to the local concept here.”

Gardenswartz sells hunting rifles and ammunition, which are not available at REI. Plus, Williamson noted, the new REI location will be on Durango’s south side — away from the tourist-heavy Main Street in the city of 20,000.

“They’re not in the epicenter,” he said.

The epicenter is the 10-block stretch of shops and restaurants, where hundreds of people empty out of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad depot daily in the warm season to stroll and shop in the city’s historic district.

Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Durango Business Improvement District, said he’d been monitoring the situation on behalf of the businesses his organization represents.

There are more than a dozen sporting goods stores already in the city, which is surrounded by square mile upon square mile of wilderness that beckons campers, anglers, rafters, skiers and hikers.

The improvement district recently crunched the sales numbers for the sporting goods sector in Durango. It found that more than $23 million worth of merchandise was sold last year, down just slightly from $24 million-plus in 2021, Walsworth said. Those figures compare to less than $19 million in pre-pandemic 2019.

The state’s outdoor recreation industry generates $37 billion in consumer spending each year and contributes 511,000 direct jobs, according to data from the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade.

“Our existing local sporting goods stores are concerned, of course, but also have spent many years cultivating their customers and providing good service and products,” Walsworth said. “They know they will have to step up their game.”

Similar competitive concerns cropped up when Walmart and Home Depot came to Durango, but Walsworth said the two national chains “did not cause local businesses to close.”

“We are worried that this could impact the viability of some of our existing sporting goods stores,” he said. “But again, they have years of local experience and tons of local customers, plus better visibility by being located in the heart of our town.”

“Even so,” Walsworth said, “we expect REI to take some market share due to their name recognition and that they already have members here.”

When the improvement district first heard about REI’s interest in Durango, it reached out to a sporting goods store in Flagstaff, Arizona, and learned that REI claimed about 20% of the market during its first year in town — and about 10% annually after that.

REI currently has 9,000 members in the Durango area, according to REI spokeswoman Megan Behrbaum. Durango will be the co-op’s 10th location in Colorado.

“Product assortment will broadly include camp, cycle, run, climb and snow sports — also similar to other stores in the state,” Behrbaum said. “The store will also have a section dedicated to Re/Supply, our used gear and apparel offering.”

REI can co-exist peacefully in markets with established outdoor retailers, she said.

“We don’t believe it is a simple scenario of big retailers driving out smaller retailers, but we do recognize our presence can create competition,” Behrbaum said.

Corry Mihm, a project manager with the Summit Economic Partnership in Summit County, said the opening of REI in Dillon in 2017 has produced no definitive negative impact on local outdoor recreation businesses.

“We have seen a couple of mom-and-pop sporting goods stores close, but it is difficult to say exactly why — it could be pandemic impacts, aging and tiring of the owners or landlord renewal issues,” Mihm said. “We have seen all of these issues impact local business but don’t have specific store-by-store information.”

But Agnew, The Boarding Haus owner, cringes at yet another big-box retailer setting up shop in Durango, which sits just a half-hour north of the New Mexico line.

He worries about what it’s doing to Durango’s character — and to its sense of self-identity.

“Part of the charm was the mom-and-pop businesses,” Agnew said. “This is another tick towards wiping that out.”

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The 13-story Populus hotel by Urban Villages is scheduled to open in the summer of 2024. The Denver-based developer said it intends to build the country’s first “carbon-positive” hotel, which can mean going beyond cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to producing such environmental benefits as generating a surplus of renewable energy.

Heather Wildman, principal and design director of Wildman Chalmers Design in Pittsburgh, said the architectural and interior design firm has worked with Urban Villages before.

“The good thing about that is we have trust there, which is huge. But we also understood their mission statement and their values, which is highly related to (environmental) sustainability and reverence to nature,” Wildman said.

A challenge of the project is the “iconic” nature of the building’s exterior, Wildman said.

Chicago-based Studio Gang, which has projects around the world, is the hotel’s architect. The hotel’s name, Populus, comes from the scientific name for quaking aspen: Populus tremuloides. The outside of the triangular building evokes the bark of an aspen tree, with the inset windows mimicking the dark, eye-shaped marks left on the tree’s bark when branches break off.

The eye-like windows at the base of the building are 30 feet high, serving as entrances to the lobby, restaurant and other areas.

“We wanted to complement, enhance and celebrate the architecture. We didn’t want to copy it in any way,” Wildman said. “We wanted to make our own statement, something that was bold enough to stand alone, but yet be cohesive.”

From the ground floor and moving up through the hotel, the interior design will use warm, earthy colors and natural materials. Wildman Chalmers Design is working with Fowler + Fowler Architecture on the interior. Aparium Hotel Group will manage the property.

Jon Buerge, president and partner at Urban Village, said in a statement that it was crucial the hotel’s “stunning architectural design” be paired with a design that could meld the building’s form with welcoming interiors while extending the nature-inspired ethos.

Wildman said the team built on the tree metaphor by staining the concrete floor of the ground level exposing aggregate to mimic the floor of a forest. “When you’re walking on a forest floor, there are these sorts of patches, needles covering things. It’s not a uniform texture.”

The ceiling will be lined with distressed wood slats that came from wood snow fencing in Wyoming. A sculpture made from leather-like material grown from mushroom roots will hang over the restaurant and entryway. The biotechnology and design company MycoWorks will supply the materials.

The check-in desk will be a kind of nook, almost as if carved out of a large tree trunk, Wildman said. The wall will be shingles fashioned from stained beetle-kill wood.

Wildman’s team is partnering with Colorado artist and environmental activist Katherine Homes on the artwork, which will include work by local artists and a painting by Cheyenne Arapaho artist Brent Learned. An elevator ride will feature bird songs recorded in Rocky Mountain National Park by Jacob Job, a Colorado-based conservationist and natural sound recording artist.

The rooftop will have a restaurant, outdoor bar, garden terrace, a private dining room and hospitality suites.

“I have been up there on multiple site visits,” Wildman said. “Of course the mountains are stunning.”

Wildman thinks the great views of downtown Denver’s architecture are also spectacular. Populus will be next to Civic Center Park, with views of the gold-domed Colorado Capitol, which Wildman called awe-inspiring; the Denver City and County Building; and the Denver Art Museum.

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The 380,479-square-foot Cornerstar in south Aurora is anchored by Target, Marshalls, HomeGoods, 24 Hour Fitness, Nike and Ulta. DLC said it plans to add a specialty grocery to the anchor spot previously occupied by the grocer Sprouts Farmer Market.

DLC bought Cornerstar from ShopCore Properties. The other shopping centers DLC acquired are in New Jersey, Arizona and Ohio. Cornerstar, the largest of the four, opened in 2008 along the intersection of Arapahoe and Parker roads.

Adam Ifshin, DLC founder and CEO, said the company “saw a tremendous opportunity in this deal to expand our national presence through the acquisition of great assets.”

Ifshin said the Cornerstar is in a great location. He said the shopping center will be 97% occupied when the new grocery store, which is under lease, opens.

“We have wanted for a long time as a company to gain entry to the Denver market and this is our entry point,” Ifshin said in an interview.

DLC previously found it difficult to figure out what part of the metro area to target. In recent years, residential and commercial development was focused on either side of Cornerstar, Ifshin said.

“Clearly, when you look at the level of residential development occurring now immediately south of the center along Parker (Road), it’s pretty clear that the market is filling in dramatically with both single-family homes and Class A multifamily,” Ifshin said.

He said it feels like the “action in economic development and growth” has shifted to the south part of the metro real estate market. Ifshin believes the location of Cornerstar has benefitted from the shift to hybrid work schedules with people working part of the time from home.

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