Getting your player ready...
With the great things happening in LoDo – the Union Station makeover, and Light Rail service headed to DIA (a trick they can’t do at either New York LaGuardia or D.C.’s Dulles International), how soon will developers start planning new luxury condo projects downtown?
Just a little sooner than when hell freezes over, is the best answer top agents who specialize in the downtown market will venture.“There is no inventory,” said Ann Atkinson, broker associate with Fuller Sotheby’s and a downtown expert. Just before the holidays she shopped the center city for a luxury condo for clients. “There aren’t any,” she added; noting that her buyers, for whom she found a unit on Little Raven, didn’t want to move yet – but changed their minds figuring that with inventory so scarce, they could rent the place. “All high-rises in downtown are doing well,” says Julie Gelfond with Coldwell Banker Devonshire – not just Spire (with five more reported sales since New Year’s Day), but at the three other, large scale center-city towers, as well. “You couldn’t reproduce what’s down there at the price point,” Gelfond adds about downtown condo availabilities, noting that One Lincoln Park at 20th and Lincoln is now selling well; even on the resale side. Across the new footbridge from Union Station into Riverfront, the situation is scarcity, according to Chris Frampton, partner with Slifer Smith Frampton Denver: Out of 900 condos and townhomes built, only 18 are on the market this new year. Listing prices on recent transactions, he add, average around $435/square foot. With downtown becoming an even more livable environment as new infrastructure arrives, why aren’t developers announcing new projects yet? The issue is money, agents and developers say. Projects in downtown proper, they note, require a minimum build-size of 40 to 60 units; well beyond where lenders are willing to go in the years after the ‘Big One.’ Meanwhile, downtown’s inventory numbers are startling, according to Kentwood City Properties’ Kevin Garrett: Only 34 condos available in the $300,000-$500,000 range, following 77 that sold over the last six months. Just 54 are now available from $500,000 to $1 million.
At higher prices above $1 million, Coldwell Banker’s Gelfond adds, some sellers may be waiting for things to get even better before bringing resales onto the market. “With everything going on at Union Station, sales will increase even more so,” she adds. “What people have paid for there is a great value.”
