Development Boom!

A developer could be starting a boutique hotel at the St. Anthony Hospital redevelopment, among other projects we learned about at our Denver New Construction & Development Summit last week at the Grand Hyatt.

Doug Elenowitz tells us that Denver-based Larimar Associates is "evaluating" the potential for a 400-unit boutique hotel and restaurant at the Kuhlman Building along Raleigh Street: "The market response has been tremendous. It's not often you come across waterfront real estate in Denver."

With nearly the entire former hospital razed, Doug says the company should begin laying down infrastructure along the seven-block redevelopment by Q1 '14. And as it starts to take shape, he says there's a surge of interest among developers, especially for multifamily and retail. "We are even hearing and beginning to receive interest from condominium developers." (This rendering doubles as a coloring book.)

John Madden Co's David Windfeldt says his company has two more office buildings planned for Greenwood Village, including Palazzo Verdi II, which can span up to 400k SF and Park Place for 300k SF. "We're focused really more on the Palazzo Verdi II project," he says, adding that the firm is trying to get leasing to "critical mass" before kicking off its development. "I think we're close," he says.

David says the project has been getting a lot of interest among energy sector companies, which have traditionally made the CBD their home but are starting to move out. It's also been talking to some of the larger accounting consultancy firms. Recently, John Madden inked a 100k SF deal with Fidelity Investments at Fiddler's Green Center II, and it just renewed and expanded Charter Communications to more than 100k SF at Fiddler's Green Center I.

Hines Interests' Gordy Stofer highlighted the firm's latest project: 1601 Wewatta, a 300k SF office building off 16th directly adjacent to Union Station. Hines is going spec on the project at a time when Gordy says the shift to the CBD in Denver and the redevelopment of Union Station is "remarkable... no other major city in the country can say that it is still constructing its CBD." You'd need to get into a time machine set for New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco to experience what Denver is doing right now. (Though if you have a time machine and all you do is travel to Boston...we need to talk.)

A rendering of 1601. Gordy says for the past five years, more than 2M SF of office has relocated to the LoDo submarket, including 800k SF from outside the CBD, leaving no blocks of space greater than 30k SF past Larimer Street toward Union Station. "New Class-A office space is 3.7% vacant. Fifteen years ago, this wasn't even a submarket," he says. And as for development activity in LoDo, "essentially every one of these blocks is in play. This is even going to be more astonishing in 2020."