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Downtown Denver's office vacancy rate grows to 38.2%

coloradosun.com

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

#71

Post by pseudalopex »

usrusr wrote: post #54
vel0city wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

> 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.

Demolishing the office building and building a residential building is more profitable often.

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

#72

Post by burkaman »

renewiltord wrote: post #62
burkaman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a system is what it does, but here you're saying that the purpose of [American socialism] is what [the Denver DSA] does.

Interestingly, many DSA chapters follow the same playbook so the Denver DSA is fairly representative of the DSA, which is the largest socialist organization in the US. So either the DSA is not socialist, not representative of American socialists, or is representative and American socialists are a device to stop affordable housing and create parks. Which proposition or conclusion above do you disagree with and why?

I don't really know anything about the DSA so I can't agree or disagree with any of this. I guess I misread your comment, I interpreted it as "Based on the events described in this thread, American socialism's purpose is ...". It seems like your statement is actually based on a very broad context of the DSA's history and activities, which are not common knowledge, so it would have been nice to include some of that if you wanted to make such a sweeping statement.

You're also making another implicit claim here that DSA chapters have never had any impact other than stopping affordable housing and creating parks, which I think would be difficult to defend. After a minute of Wikipedia research, I see that at least nine members of Congress were active DSA members during their tenure, and obviously had other accomplishments. For example, I see that DSA member Major Owens was in Congress for 24 years and was a significant factor in passing the ADA.

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

#73

Post by palmotea »

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...

IIRC, that article mentioned older buildings tend to be more convertible to residential, because of their layouts, and modern office buildings (with giant open floor spaces for seas of cubicles) are almost impossible to convert.

There should probably building code changes to ban the latter type of office building, and keep the space more flexible and convertible to residential. A big plus is the resulting office space would probably be nicer to workers.

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

#74

Post by wing-_-nuts »

f1shy wrote: post #69
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>mixed residential/commertial/recreational can be very noisy. I'd rather live in a somewhat 'noisy' vibrant neighborhood where I can walk to shops or restaurants than an absolutely dead residential cul-de-sac where I have to literally drive miles to the nearest amenity. If the noise bothers you at night, get a sound machine or install triple pane windows. I understand having industrial separate from everything else,…

I liked very much Japan or Buenos Aires. Sure. Just pointing out there are downsides also. Traffic is a mess, and that shows in times for ambulances and firefighters. I like things of both. I guess people should vote by choosing to live where they want

Traffic is a mess in Tokyo? Ambulance response times are typically under 10m in japan, so not sure the relevance there. Also the entire point of living in a dense neighborhood is that one is able to address many of your day to day needs without driving.

>I guess people should vote by choosing to live where they want

I'd have no problem with this if dense, multi-use zoning were common. As it is, very few places in the US are as livable as much of Europe and the more developed parts of Asia.

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

#75

Post by vel0city »

usrusr wrote: post #54
vel0city wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

I mean, sure, you can just sell it as a unit for each floor. You then need to recoup all the costs of rebuilding against fewer people, so all the main area renovations and what not get more expensive and the monthly cost of building maintenance get spread across fewer and fewer tenants. But you've still got a problem of most of the rooms of your very expensive condo have zero natural light, its all practically ancient built stuff in terms of planned structure life, and you've got a very expensive monthly maintenance bill. Meanwhile your massive and dark unit with odd plumbing and low ceilings is competing in the market against units that were actually built for the purpose of people living in them, so while your unit is big and expensive to maintain they're some of the least desirable spots.

The economics just often work out a lot better to tear down the old structure and rebuild a new one more fit for purpose.

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

#76

Post by fowkswe »

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…

> We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work.

This isn’t Denver-specific at all. It’s how every US city was built.

For ~100 years we planned cities around one assumption: work happens in a centralized office, five days a week. Transit, zoning, downtown land use, parking, even tax bases were optimized for the daily commute. Downtowns became office monocultures; neighborhoods became places you slept.

Remote work broke that model. The result is cities that are now unfortunately organized around a behavior that no longer dominates daily life - and we’re still trying to operate them as if it does.

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

#77

Post by vel0city »

someuser54541 wrote: post #22
vel0city wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ok, but some extra plumbing (and whatever sorts of engineering studies referred to) and electrical work surely can't as expensive as demolishing and rebuilding a whole building. These seem like extremely solve-able problems.

If it was just the plumbing, then maybe. But its not just the plumbing. Its the plumbing, the electrical, the AC/ventilation, fire codes, and so much more.

Not saying it can't ever be done, it really depends on the building. But its not necessarily a good assumption it can be done well in a cost-effective fashion.

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

#78

Post by estearum »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #56
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.

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.

Even 2500sqft is modest by modern American new build standards. It's pretty challenging to find a "nice" home that's <3,000 sqft in most markets, and basically impossible to find a truly high end home that's <4,000.

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

#79

Post by puppycodes »

Imagine if rent and housing costs were reflected the vacancy rate.

I never really understood the economics of leaving spaces empty and not hemorrhaging money.

My guess would be its a game of large numbers where private equity can own large swaths of properties and can afford to keep them vacant by controlling the market through manufactured scarcity? Is it like the diamond market?

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

#80

Post by pseudalopex »

justinhj wrote: post #13
rbanffy wrote: post #2

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

Historically we did this with suddenly unused industrial buildings in cities. Liverpool and London's Dockland warehouses, New Yorks lofts in lower Manhattan. When it is suggested today modern planners and developers say it can't be done. What changed?

What modern planners and developers say is converting modern office buildings isn't cost effective often. Warehouses cost less to convert than high rise buildings. Most old buildings do not have large areas without natural light or ventilation.
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