KOELBEL SEARCHES LOHI FOR APT SITES

You may know ULI is hosting its fall conference here at the Colorado Convention Center. During a panel offering insights on Gen Y, Koelbel Urban Homes’ Carl Koelbel told the packed house that his firm just broke ground on an 18-unit townhouse project in the Lower Highland neighborhood (one of America's premiere oxymoron neighborhoods) called LoHi Court. Carl tells us that LoHi is part of a pipeline of similar for-sale urban residential projects he’s planning in well-established Denver neighborhoods. “There’s a huge demand,” he says. In fact, the company already pre-sold nearly a dozen units of the new project. Other areas Koelbel is considering includes Sloan’s Lake and Congress Park, Carl says.
Carlson & Carlson Co’s Craig Carlson says his firm has some 1,500 multifamily units in the pipeline in the Denver metro area. Despite some 19,000 apartments units either planned or under way in Denver, Craig says he isn't concerned about overbuilding. “Denver’s a good market. We didn’t have near the [housing] overhang of other cities,” he says. “And the single-family comeback has been remarkable.” Above, we snapped him with his wife, First American Title’s Beverly Carlson, during the First American Title party at Peaks Lounge in the Hyatt yesterday evening.
First American Title Insurance Co’s Brian McDonald (here with First American Title's Sonya Bailey) isn’t as confident about no multifamily overbuilding, particularly on the high-end spectrum. Of that 19,000-unit stat, Brian and others say more than 3,000 are high-rent units (think $2/SF). And Brian “doesn’t see enough demand” to support this influx, he says. When asked if we’re in an apartment bubble here, he says not at the moment, but “we may be on our way to one.”

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