Vent: Why is everyone building luxury apartments when we need office conversions?

I walked through LoDo last week and counted 4 new high-rises going up, all luxury rentals. Meanwhile I have a client sitting on a 1970s office building downtown that's been empty for 18 months. I compared the numbers on converting his building versus demo and rebuild. Conversion was 40% cheaper and would bring 200 units online in 8 months instead of 2 years. Has anyone else had luck getting city permits for office-to-resi conversions here?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_sanchez751mo ago

Honestly I saw a report from the Urban Land Institute saying Denver is one of the worst cities for office conversions because of our floor plate sizes and window spacing. That old building might be a nightmare to retrofit.

lily_singh21mo ago

You totally beat me to it. I was just reading that same report and it perfectly explained why so many of those downtown buildings are just sitting empty. The whole window to floor plate ratio thing is such a killer, I remember looking at converting an old office on 17th once and the architect basically laughed at me.