Development Boom in Colorado

8/16/2018 (Permalink)

Denver

Many projects currently underway are multifamily, meaning apartment or condo buildings, with nearly 10,000 new residential units in the downtown area, the report also says.

Some people say developers are overbuilding, creating too many apartments that contribute to worse traffic and overcrowding in the city.

Schippits said one way developers decide whether to build is by looking at the number of apartments compared to jobs available. CBRE is a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate services and investment firm.

Denver's job-per-apartment unit ratio is 5.9, meaning for every 5.9 jobs, there's one apartment unit.

"As a metro area... we're underperforming when it compares to our competitive set like Seattle or Austin," Schippits said. "If you peel the onion away any more...downtown is even further behind."

Downtown's ratio is at 6.6, above the national average of 6.1.

"What we're forecasting is with all the new apartments coming online, plus the jobs that are created downtown as predicted by Moody's [Analytics], our ratio will drop to 5.2," he said.

"So we're not overbuilding," Schippits said, adding that building more apartments is key to controlling for expense. "If we have more supply, there's less pressure on cost."