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Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

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Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#51

Post by mixmastamyk »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #34
mattcantstop wrote: post #14

I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work. This is one of the main principles of BAD design, where you create an entire area around close to a single use (offices). That creates a very fragile city. This "single use" zoning that the US proliferated makes us re…

I also live in Denver. The biggest problem with downtown isn't zoning (though that may be a part), it's the homeless people. Who's going to want to go hang out on 16th when there's a dude asking you for money on every street corner? I don't know what the solution is, but it seems clear to me that revitalizing downtown starts with removing the "I'm going to have to deal with vagrants" factor.

Solution, 1) abundance of cheap housing. 2) effective mental health treatment with mandatory attendance when necessary.

Of course this utopia would attract folks from other areas, so can’t be solved only locally. Needs national support.

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#52

Post by jmward01 »

estearum wrote: post #26
renewiltord wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What size of home would you be willing to raise your children in? The average 3 br is 1000 sq. ft. in Berlin. US norms are for much larger homes.

Square footage matters less than configuration.

And location. While going to school my family lived in a 2 bedroom that was, I think, just under 600 square feet. The fridge was in the living area. The kitchen was a space so small you could touch every surface/cabinet if you stood in the middle of it. But we were right in the middle of amazing services. A park was a 3 minute walk away. My first class was visible from my bedroom window as was the shared play area of the apartments around me so I could let my 6yo 'go to the park' and play but still watch him if I wanted to. All the shopping was local and actual businesses that did actual things were in walking distance. We had many friends that lived/worked/played/shopped all within walking distance and that tiny apartment didn't feel small at all because the real living room was the city.

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#53

Post by f1shy »

mattcantstop wrote: post #14

I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work. This is one of the main principles of BAD design, where you create an entire area around close to a single use (offices). That creates a very fragile city. This "single use" zoning that the US proliferated makes us re…

Everything has pros and cons. I lived in both setups, and the mixed residential/commertial/recreational can be very noisy. Also big parks, if not well illuminated, become unsafe for the families around.

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#54

Post by usrusr »

vel0city wrote: post #12
mothballed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already enough plumbing in there for a whole office to shit when they get to the office. History favors the bold, and code inspectors blabbering about "written in blood" don't see all the homeless people they kill via reduced access to housing. I've seen plenty of artist collectives that manage it; on paper they are office/industrial but actually everyone lives there. Every once in awhile one burns down but t…

For a lot of the office buildings I've been in, there aren't that many toilets per floor. Its also different when you've got some toilets that are often unused compared to people running laundry, cooking, bathing, etc. Very different demands on the plumbing system. You also then had everything pretty much isolated to two rooms for an entire floor meanwhile now every unit is going to have a separate kitchen, a bathroo…

But do you really have to cram in as many residents as you could with a purpose-built tenement? There must be ways to keep headcount in the range the infrastructure can support and still provide a lot more housing than just leaving them as empty decaying offices owned by the last one holding the bag. Intersperse flats with windowless storage units (you have a depth problem anyways), low density commercial use like workshops with live-by flats and so on. Large units designed to attract high squarefeet/low headcount tenants, not bunk bed families. Add regulation only as a fallback limiter. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#55

Post by samschooler »

burkaman wrote: post #35
samschooler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* now is spending 70 million of public funds to make it a park https://denverite.com/2025/11/05/park-hill-park-bond-funding...

Well it is already open as a park, but yes they are spending a lot of money to make it nicer I guess.

To call it a park is a stretch. It's a dilapidated golf course, and last I checked it can't be open over night because of liability? Like I'm happy it's open, but I would say it's a far cry from being on the same level as Cheeseman or City :/

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#56

Post by wing-_-nuts »

renewiltord wrote: post #19
mattcantstop wrote: post #14

I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work. This is one of the main principles of BAD design, where you create an entire area around close to a single use (offices). That creates a very fragile city. This "single use" zoning that the US proliferated makes us re…

What size of home would you be willing to raise your children in? The average 3 br is 1000 sq. ft. in Berlin. US norms are for much larger homes.

As someone who lives in a 700 sq ft 1bd apartment, I guess maybe you could pack in another two bedrooms in with 300 more sq ft (my bedroom is ~ 120-130 sqft w ~ 25 sqft of closet space). You wouldn't have a whole lot of elbow room. Still makes more sense than the 2500+ sqft monstrosities we regularly build in the states.

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#57

Post by samschooler »

armenarmen wrote: post #41

Downtown Denver also kind of just sucks. A couple good restaurants sure, but 16th street mall (recently rebranded as “16th St. The Denver Way”) is comparable to City Center in SF. Whenever friends move here I say “don’t live downtown” and inevitably they do and they hate it.

16 St. is way better than it was. If you haven't been down there, go walk around at lunch sometime, there are a bunch of normies down there now. Yeah its all chains still, but it's not actively hostile like it was a few years ago.

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#58

Post by xnx »

shagie wrote: post #4
rbanffy wrote: post #2

Looks like there is an opportunity to convert a lot of that into residential space.

Not necessarily. Things like "where do pipes run" so can get tricky along with code requirements for access. There's a NYT article on the challenges about this from a few years ago: So You Want to Turn an Office Building Into a Home? -- Here’s How to Solve a 25-Story Rubik’s Cube https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...

Article from 1 month ago on how conversions have become much more feasible with some clever hacks: https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/nyc-office-reside...

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#59

Post by xnx »

someuser54541 wrote: post #5
rbanffy wrote: post #2

Looks like there is an opportunity to convert a lot of that into residential space.

I read something at some point that it's more expensive to convert these into residential buildings than it is to literally demolish and rebuild. I'm not entirely sure how that math works out, or why, because one would think it couldn't be that complicated. Maybe someone here knows more about this.

They've figured out some ways to do it (December 2025): https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/nyc-office-reside...

Re: Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

#60

Post by xnx »

mattcantstop wrote: post #14

I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work. This is one of the main principles of BAD design, where you create an entire area around close to a single use (offices). That creates a very fragile city. This "single use" zoning that the US proliferated makes us re…

> I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning.

I don't think urban planners will ever admit or apologize for the damage they've done.

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