Cherry Creek has a lot going for it, including one of the country’s strongest office markets, robust indoor and outdoor retail districts, and a live-work-play balance that has attracted nationwide attention and drawn billions of dollars in investment.
But with eight large construction projects underway, another eight coming, not to mention a Bus Rapid Transit corridor planned for Colorado Boulevard, the neighborhood faces a gauntlet of disruptions on its way to transformation.
Parking, long a challenge, has tightened as multiple blocks get redeveloped. Cars face a good chance of getting covered in construction dust, and some stores require navigating a maze of barriers to reach.
Getting in and out, or just around, the district, has become tougher, including for workers.
“Employees in hospitality, retail and other supporting industries by and large do not live in or near Cherry Creek,” said Nick LeMasters, CEO and president of the Cherry Creek Alliance. “For many, housing is unattainable in nearby neighborhoods. Compounding the problem is limited transit service.”
The Colorado Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit project, which is currently planned to stretch along a 7-mile corridor from 40th Avenue down to either Yale or Hampden avenues, should eventually make it easier to reach the area via transit.
But if the BRT along Colfax Avenue offers a guide, adding additional transit stations and rebuilding Colorado Boulevard could prove highly disruptive and snarl traffic for years.
Wishing to avoid that headache, the this month in favor of a “no build option” through its city limits.
Yet, all of those can be viewed as growing pains toward maturity.
Unlike Downtown and the Denver Tech Center, Cherry Creek isn’t worrying about what to do with nearly empty office buildings or how to fill large stretches of vacant storefronts.
The Cherry Creek submarket has an office vacancy rate of 10.5%, but in Cherry Creek North, where the heaviest construction is underway, the rate is closer to 1.9%, according to the , which the Alliance released on Friday.
Downtown Denver is struggling with vacancy rates closer to 40%, while the metro area is just under 30%, according to CBRE. Some of Downtown’s most prominent office towers are selling at discounts of 90% or more. Some may eventually need to be torn down.
By contrast, Cherry Creek has become a model of how to balance residential, retail and work, with 12,600 residents, 16,829 employees and 16.8 million visitors last year, according to the report.
Cherry Creek generated $119 million in tax revenues for Denver last year, up 3.9% from 2024. It now accounts for about $1 in every $20 of retail spending in the city.
That success has drawn attention and investment. Cherry Creek has welcomed about a dozen major developments in the first half of this decade, and has another eight under construction through 2028.
They represent a mix of office, retail and apartments, with a sprinkling of luxury condos from a new Waldorf Astoria Residences, Colorado’s first, at 185 Steele St.
The largest project now going up is Cherry Lane at 2375 E. 1st Ave., with 380 apartments, 132,655 square feet of retail, and nearly 50,000 square feet of office space.
UMB Financial, which has been a downtown fixture on the southeast corner of Broadway and 17th Avenue for more than three decades, plans to relocate there.
“Cherry Creek offers a strong mix of walkability, dining, retail and amenities that support work-life integration and make the area attractive to both current and prospective associates and clients,” said UMB Financial’s Chairman and CEO, Mariner Kemper.
Although UMB is and will remain based in Kansas City, Mo., Kemper chose to live in Denver and build a flagship office here in the early 1990s.
Although the area lacks downtown’s transit options, Cherry Lane will have dedicated parking, and the neighborhood provides “unique and meaningful benefits,” Kemper added.
As large as Cherry Lane is, even larger projects are planned later this decade.
Demolition began in March on the west side of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in the area that used to host Elway’s and the Container Store.
Cherry Creek West could add 830 apartments, 600,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet of retail in two phases.
Taller buildings are going up, and things are looking up. And yet Cherry Creek is also vulnerable as it grows. A sense of worry about what might come next was a theme on Friday morning as the Alliance hosted a breakfast to discuss its report.
Taxed into leaving
Willy Walker, chairman and CEO of Walker & Dunlop, one of the nation’s top commercial real estate mortgage servicers, moved to Denver during the pandemic.
Like Kemper, he chose to make Denver his home, even though his company is based in Bethesda, Md. He spends most of his days traveling, squeezing in The Walker Webcast when he can each week.
“For the last two years, the narrative in every single meeting is ‘What’s going on in Denver?'” said Walker, whose public company oversees a $144 billion mortgage servicing portfolio spread across 7,000 properties.
Once a popular destination for workers and businesses relocating, the region is now experiencing domestic outmigration. That has resulted in a temporary oversupply of apartments.
Metro Denver had the second biggest decline in apartment rents last year after Austin, which has made it harder for multifamily investors to earn a return, said Walker, who was the keynote interview on Friday when the Alliance released its report.
But unlike Austin, which got ahead of itself, Denver appears to have veered off the race course.
Investments in the state have increasingly become the problem children in portfolios, Walker said. And it doesn’t help that Denver and Colorado are viewed as having a heavier regulatory hand and less friendly business climate.
Under Mayor Michael Johnston, Denver has done better at providing shelter to people living on the street, has made a serious dent in crime, and is speeding up approval times for developments, Walker said.
Walker said he has told a positive narrative as much as he can. But that has become harder as the state looks for ways to fill budget shortfalls.
One ballot measure referred by the state legislature would weaken the refunds taxpayers receive under the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights. But more worrisome for Cherry Creek and wealthier areas is from The Bell Policy Center.
“Protect Colorado’s Future” would take Colorado’s flat 4.4% state income tax rate and replace it with a five-bracket system. Most residents will pay less in state taxes, but those earning $500,000 a year or more could face a higher tax rate of between 7.4% to 8.4% if the measure passes in November.
Matt Joblon, CEO of BMC Investments, a leading developer in Cherry Creek, said Colorado could follow down the path of Washington state.
After that state passed a 7% tax on long-term capital gains above $250,000, its wealthiest resident, Jeff Bezos, relocated to Miami, said Joblon, who shared the stage with Walker.
Bezos regularly sells shares from his large stock holdings, and his wealth is large enough to move the needle. His relocation to Florida cost Washington and Seattle $1.8 billion in lost revenues in 2024 and 2025, Joblon said.
Rather than backing off, Washington’s state legislature this year passed a 9.9% income tax on earnings above $1 million, and has debated putting a 1% wealth tax on portfolios above $250 million.
Those initiatives have contributed to an outflow of wealthy residents to states with more favorable tax policies. Rather than bridging shortfalls, both Seattle and Washington now face more difficult fiscal predicaments, Joblon said.
Likewise, Colorado risks driving away its wealthiest residents with higher income tax rates, said Walker. With his children out of the house, he said he isn’t being held back.
And if there is a Denver neighborhood vulnerable to a flight of wealthy residents, it would be Cherry Creek North, where the median listing price on a home is $3.15 million.
Joblon said he and Walker spent 90 minutes talking to Chris deGruy Kennedy, president and CEO of The Bell Policy Center, about their concerns.
“If you get rid of TABOR and if you see income taxes grow, you will kill Colorado,” Joblon warned. “People will move, people will leave here, you will lose your tax base.”
But Kennedy, reached Friday afternoon, said Initiative 195 is an attempt to address serious budget shortfalls that will harm the state’s most vulnerable residents if not addressed.
As of 2023, there were just over 15,000 taxpayers, single and joint, who made more than $1 million per year. That group had $3.29 million on average in taxable income.
Their state taxes would go from an average of $144,700 to $252,285 at the proposed tax rate of 7.67%, he calculates.
Those earning between $500,000 to $1 million per year would see their state income taxes rise from an average of $27,764 to $31,369.
“I was disappointed that they were exclusively focused on the impact of tax rates on the very wealthy and that they paid lip service at best to the challenges with the state’s Medicaid budget and what the cuts mean for rural health care and the families of severely disabled kids,” Kennedy said.
Walker’s alternative is to obtain the revenues needed from higher taxes on assets, which can’t pick up and leave, rather than from people, who can.
But Kennedy counters that proposals to increase sales and property taxes would “put a huge burden on the bulk of hard-working Coloradans in a way that would exacerbate the cost-of-living struggles.”
With hundreds of high-end apartments and condos planned in the years ahead, November’s election could prove a pivotal one for Cherry Creek’s future direction, as well as those who would benefit from higher state tax revenues.
