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Downtown's bustin' out all over

Brokers take tour of building projects totaling $3 billion

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 14, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Lynette Fabrizio of Keller Williams was one of 45 brokers who toured development taking place in downtown Denver.

Photo by Linda McConnell / Special to the Rocky

Lynette Fabrizio of Keller Williams was one of 45 brokers who toured development taking place in downtown Denver.

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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