Downtown's bustin' out all over
Brokers take tour of building projects totaling $3 billion
By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Friday, March 14, 2008
Linda McConnell / Special to the Rocky
Lynette Fabrizio of Keller Williams was one of 45 brokers who toured development taking place in downtown Denver.
- Email this
- Print this
- Comments
- Change text size
- Subscribe to print edition
- iPod friendly
Forty-five real estate brokers took a bus and walking tour of about a dozen neighborhoods in and around downtown Denver on Thursday, to get a sense of at least $3 billion in residential, commercial and public projects either under way, planned or recently completed.
"It's like all of Denver is under development," said Patrick Hale of Metro Brokers, one of the agents on the tour sponsored by the Downtown Denver Partnership.
It was the third tour sponsored by the partnership and was hosted by Ken Schroeppel, an urban planner with Matrix Design Group and author of the Denverinfill.com blog.
Schroeppel used his encyclopedic knowledge of Denver projects, gained from the 5,000 hours he's spent over the past three years working on Denverinfill.com, to point out highlights in neighborhoods such as the Central Platte Valley, Arapahoe Square, Civic Center, the Golden Triangle, Ballpark, Highland and Jefferson Park.
Brian Phetteplace, housing program manager for the partnership, said the $3 billion value is conservative and includes about 8.7 million square feet of buildings.
It does not include the future developments around Denver Union Station, which have an estimated value in the neighborhood of $1 billion in today's dollars.
"The idea is to give you information about the breadth and depth of the market," Schroeppel said. "I'm not looking to sell real estate. I'm not a real estate broker. My goal is to sell downtown Denver."
Lydia Lin, principal of One Realty LLC in Highland, said the Denver real estate market is weathering the national real estate crisis much better than the suburbs.
"I'm so excited about what is going on," she said. "Downtown is finally waking up."
rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207
Post your comment
Registration is required. Click here to create your free user account, or login below.
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.