The view of downtown Denver from the roof of Assembly Student Living at 3900 Elati St. in August 2023. (Thomas Gounley/BusinessDen)
It’s been a year.
For the first full calendar year since 2019, you probably didn’t think about COVID much. But post-pandemic Denver was left with a lot of questions. Are people returning to the office? When will interest rates come down? Can the new mayor change the dynamic on a problem facing most major cities?
But amidst the uncertainty, business didn’t stop. And BusinessDen was there to cover it.
In the midst of the daily stream of property sales, restaurant openings and litigation, a few themes emerged in our newsroom in 2023.
Distressed office’s coming-out party
Ever since the pandemic began, it’s been clear office landlords would face challenges.
But those challenges didn’t really burst into public view until 2023, when a steady stream of foreclosure filings and receivership requests revealed buildings that have defaulted on their loans.
We began the year by breaking the news that two of Denver’s marquee office towers, Republic Plaza and the Wells Fargo Center, had defaulted. Real estate giant Brookfield, which owns both, would later reach a deal with the lender on Republic Plaza. But Wells Fargo Center remains in default and is now overseen by a court-appointed receiver.
There was a steady stream of distress after that. A local firm lost the Greenwood Village office complex it bought in February 2020. A lender filed to foreclose on the downtown tower vacated by one of the city’s dominant law firms. Even a RiNo building completed within the past decade found itself in default.
Xcel, Bet365 top deals amidst sluggish office leasing
There would probably be less distress if there were lots of huge companies leasing office space. But that wasn’t the case in 2023.
Two deals stand out as the most significant within city limits in the past 12 months. Xcel Energy said it would move its regional headquarters to RiNo — a deal that lends credibility to the nascent submarket while posing another problem for downtown.
What really benefits Denver, however, is when a firm that doesn’t already have a presence in the market signs a huge lease. British gambling company Bet365 was the big deal in that regard, taking two floors of a new building along Platte Street.
BusinessDen reported both deals before they were signed.
As the deals suggest, interest tends to be concentrated in new buildings. Block 162, the city’s newest skyscraper, continued to pick up tenants throughout the year, most recently the law firm Snell & Wilmer.
WeOut
The most recognizable name in coworking ceased its aggressive expansion in Denver years ago, and trimmed its footprint significantly in 2021. But things got worse in 2023.
Over the summer, WeWork closed a location along Platte Street, then promptly got sued by its landlord there. It reached deals to trim its presence at the Tabor Center and Wells Fargo Center, both downtown. Then it got sued by a landlord in RiNo.
To cap things off, in November, the company filed for bankruptcy.
WeWork has five locations still operating in the Mile High City, which total about 300,000 square feet, according to a BusinessDen analysis in August. The company also has one location in Boulder.
Johnston is the new Hancock
The mayoral race was already underway in late 2022, but things didn’t really heat up until January.
The field was massive. There were 16 candidates on the April ballot, essentially ensuring no one would get a majority and a two-person runoff in June would be necessary.
That runoff ended up being between former Colorado state senator Mike Johnston and former Denver Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Kelly Brough, who also raised the most cash while campaigning. Johnston, who was the top candidate in April, easily topped Brough in June, getting 55 percent of the vote. He assumed office in July.
Denver checks in to the hotel scene
Johnston made homelessness his signature issue on the campaign trail and during his first six months in office. He pledged to get 1,000 people off the streets by the end of the year.
A big part of that? Denver is buying and leasing hotels and turning them into homeless shelters.
It started in August, when Denver finally closed on a hotel it’d been working to buy since spring 2021, when then-mayor Michael Hancock was still two years from leaving office.
Numerous deals, some finalized, have come together since then. One hotel in Central Park was bought by the Denver Housing Authority and leased to the city. The same thing happened with a second hotel nearby, just with a different intermediary. Just last week, the city agreed to lease another hotel in Globeville and went under contract to buy a hotel in southeast Denver.
On-course development goes off-course
Denver voters threw a wrench into a local developer’s plans to build on the former Park Hill Golf Course in 2023.
Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners bought the course in 2019 and spent years working on its redevelopment vision. By this spring, it was pledging to preserve 100 of the property’s 155 acres as parks and open space, and saying that 25 percent of the thousands of residential units would be income-restricted, commonly known as affordable housing.
The property, however, is covered by a conservation easement that restricts it to being used as a public golf course. In April, city residents were asked to vote on whether to lift the easement and allow redevelopment to take place.
Sixty percent said no — sending Westside back to the drawing board.
Convention Center done. Mall construction not
There were two big taxpayer-funded projects downtown in 2023. One wrapped up and the completion date was pushed back for the other.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in December to open the expansion to the Colorado Convention Center.
Infrastructure work along the 16th Street Mall, however, which has posed major challenges to restaurants and retailers, will now extend into 2025. It was previously expected to wrap up by the end of 2024.
A preservation battle in City Park West
Developer Mike Mathieson bought the home at 1741 Gaylord St. in Denver’s City Park West neighborhood planning to tear it down and build apartments on the lot. But neighbors got involved, and in April, the Denver City Council designated the existing structure a city landmark, halting demolition.
It was just the second individual structure to be named a city landmark against the wishes of the property owner. Mathieson later sued the city. In late October, the lawsuit was paused to see if an “out of court resolution” could be reached.
Disbarred attorney gets prison time
Steve Bachar — a former White House staffer, disbarred Denver lawyer and accused pandemic fraudster — was sentenced in November to three years in prison for stealing $125,000.
In March, the judge in the case had rejected a previous plea deal negotiated with prosecutors that would have given Bachar probation if he paid restitution. The judge called that deal “contrary to justice.”
Island tripping
An unusual development restriction limits one pocket of Denver. We explored Fox Island in a two-part series in August: Part 1, Part 2.
The view of downtown Denver from the roof of Assembly Student Living at 3900 Elati St. in August 2023. (Thomas Gounley/BusinessDen)
It’s been a year.
For the first full calendar year since 2019, you probably didn’t think about COVID much. But post-pandemic Denver was left with a lot of questions. Are people returning to the office? When will interest rates come down? Can the new mayor change the dynamic on a problem facing most major cities?
But amidst the uncertainty, business didn’t stop. And BusinessDen was there to cover it.
In the midst of the daily stream of property sales, restaurant openings and litigation, a few themes emerged in our newsroom in 2023.
Distressed office’s coming-out party
Ever since the pandemic began, it’s been clear office landlords would face challenges.
But those challenges didn’t really burst into public view until 2023, when a steady stream of foreclosure filings and receivership requests revealed buildings that have defaulted on their loans.
We began the year by breaking the news that two of Denver’s marquee office towers, Republic Plaza and the Wells Fargo Center, had defaulted. Real estate giant Brookfield, which owns both, would later reach a deal with the lender on Republic Plaza. But Wells Fargo Center remains in default and is now overseen by a court-appointed receiver.
There was a steady stream of distress after that. A local firm lost the Greenwood Village office complex it bought in February 2020. A lender filed to foreclose on the downtown tower vacated by one of the city’s dominant law firms. Even a RiNo building completed within the past decade found itself in default.
Xcel, Bet365 top deals amidst sluggish office leasing
There would probably be less distress if there were lots of huge companies leasing office space. But that wasn’t the case in 2023.
Two deals stand out as the most significant within city limits in the past 12 months. Xcel Energy said it would move its regional headquarters to RiNo — a deal that lends credibility to the nascent submarket while posing another problem for downtown.
What really benefits Denver, however, is when a firm that doesn’t already have a presence in the market signs a huge lease. British gambling company Bet365 was the big deal in that regard, taking two floors of a new building along Platte Street.
BusinessDen reported both deals before they were signed.
As the deals suggest, interest tends to be concentrated in new buildings. Block 162, the city’s newest skyscraper, continued to pick up tenants throughout the year, most recently the law firm Snell & Wilmer.
WeOut
The most recognizable name in coworking ceased its aggressive expansion in Denver years ago, and trimmed its footprint significantly in 2021. But things got worse in 2023.
Over the summer, WeWork closed a location along Platte Street, then promptly got sued by its landlord there. It reached deals to trim its presence at the Tabor Center and Wells Fargo Center, both downtown. Then it got sued by a landlord in RiNo.
To cap things off, in November, the company filed for bankruptcy.
WeWork has five locations still operating in the Mile High City, which total about 300,000 square feet, according to a BusinessDen analysis in August. The company also has one location in Boulder.
Johnston is the new Hancock
The mayoral race was already underway in late 2022, but things didn’t really heat up until January.
The field was massive. There were 16 candidates on the April ballot, essentially ensuring no one would get a majority and a two-person runoff in June would be necessary.
That runoff ended up being between former Colorado state senator Mike Johnston and former Denver Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Kelly Brough, who also raised the most cash while campaigning. Johnston, who was the top candidate in April, easily topped Brough in June, getting 55 percent of the vote. He assumed office in July.
Denver checks in to the hotel scene
Johnston made homelessness his signature issue on the campaign trail and during his first six months in office. He pledged to get 1,000 people off the streets by the end of the year.
A big part of that? Denver is buying and leasing hotels and turning them into homeless shelters.
It started in August, when Denver finally closed on a hotel it’d been working to buy since spring 2021, when then-mayor Michael Hancock was still two years from leaving office.
Numerous deals, some finalized, have come together since then. One hotel in Central Park was bought by the Denver Housing Authority and leased to the city. The same thing happened with a second hotel nearby, just with a different intermediary. Just last week, the city agreed to lease another hotel in Globeville and went under contract to buy a hotel in southeast Denver.
On-course development goes off-course
Denver voters threw a wrench into a local developer’s plans to build on the former Park Hill Golf Course in 2023.
Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners bought the course in 2019 and spent years working on its redevelopment vision. By this spring, it was pledging to preserve 100 of the property’s 155 acres as parks and open space, and saying that 25 percent of the thousands of residential units would be income-restricted, commonly known as affordable housing.
The property, however, is covered by a conservation easement that restricts it to being used as a public golf course. In April, city residents were asked to vote on whether to lift the easement and allow redevelopment to take place.
Sixty percent said no — sending Westside back to the drawing board.
Convention Center done. Mall construction not
There were two big taxpayer-funded projects downtown in 2023. One wrapped up and the completion date was pushed back for the other.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in December to open the expansion to the Colorado Convention Center.
Infrastructure work along the 16th Street Mall, however, which has posed major challenges to restaurants and retailers, will now extend into 2025. It was previously expected to wrap up by the end of 2024.
A preservation battle in City Park West
Developer Mike Mathieson bought the home at 1741 Gaylord St. in Denver’s City Park West neighborhood planning to tear it down and build apartments on the lot. But neighbors got involved, and in April, the Denver City Council designated the existing structure a city landmark, halting demolition.
It was just the second individual structure to be named a city landmark against the wishes of the property owner. Mathieson later sued the city. In late October, the lawsuit was paused to see if an “out of court resolution” could be reached.
Disbarred attorney gets prison time
Steve Bachar — a former White House staffer, disbarred Denver lawyer and accused pandemic fraudster — was sentenced in November to three years in prison for stealing $125,000.
In March, the judge in the case had rejected a previous plea deal negotiated with prosecutors that would have given Bachar probation if he paid restitution. The judge called that deal “contrary to justice.”
Island tripping
An unusual development restriction limits one pocket of Denver. We explored Fox Island in a two-part series in August: Part 1, Part 2.
