Inflation was easing, the economy looked strong, and mortgage rates were drifting downward. By April, there were more available homes to buy than at any time since January 2020, according to the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. The conditions were ripe for buyers to reemerge, checkbooks in hands, and sellers to negotiate.

Then April 2, President Donald Trump rolled out his expansive global trade tariffs, shocking the stock and bond markets and sparking fears of a recession. Mortgage rates jumped again, hitting 6.89% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan May 29, their highest level since early February. The extreme volatility threw cold water on a fragile market. Buyers bailed out.

“There isn’t any urgency to buying right now — if anything it feels more risky to put a down payment into a home when you might not have a job six months from now,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist of Redfin.

Real estate agents across the country report a chilled environment, with sellers unwilling to lower their prices and buyers reluctant to make a big purchase as the economy flounders and the costs for a mortgage, insurance and property taxes rise. Even in markets where prices have fallen and inventory is piling up, like Austin, Texas, homes are sitting on the market for months. In fiercely competitive areas, like the New York City suburbs, where prices are still rising and homes sell fast, properties that would have gotten a dozen offers a year ago now get two or three.

“Yes, there is more inventory, but it’s almost like too little too late,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist for Cotality, a real estate data provider.

In 2024, there were fewer home sales than in any year since 1995. This year is looking worse. In April, the number of sales of existing homes dropped 2% from April 2024, while the median sale price rose 1.8%, marking 22 straight months of year-over-year price growth, according to the National Association of Realtors. The trade group also reported that pending sales are down from a year ago in every region of the country except the Midwest.

The number of canceled sales (one sign of a skittish market) also rose year over year, according to Redfin, which also found that there were nearly 500,000 more people trying to sell homes in April than there were people trying the buy them — the biggest such gap since Redfin began tracking the data in 2013.

La’Keshia White, a real estate agent in Douglasville, Georgia, said that some of her prospective buyers dropped out of the market after losing federal jobs. Others are nervous and scaling back their budgets to leave more cushion should their financial situation change.

“They used to be content, thinking their jobs are going to be there, but it’s not the same anymore,” White said.

In Lewisburg, West Virginia, Leah and Jesse Jones, who were in the market for a three-bedroom home, lost out on two bids: one to a cash buyer who waived contingencies and the other because the seller wouldn’t lower the price enough. After six months, they’ve paused their search, hoping a downturn might bring home prices down, too.

“I feel like buying a home, owning a home, is becoming a privilege that only the truly wealthy can enjoy,” said Leah Jones, 45, a clinical dietitian.

Yet despite a market full of reluctant buyers, sellers are not under pressure to drop their prices. Almost 60% of households have an interest rate below 4%, according to a study published in the Journal of Finance; selling would mean trading that low rate for a much higher one on a new purchase. Not since the 1980s, when borrowing rates soared into the double digits, have so many Americans been locked into their mortgages, said Lu Liu, an assistant professor of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an author of the study, describing the conditions as “unprecedented.”

Added to that, the country hasn’t built enough homes since the foreclosure crisis, creating a chronic lack of new housing supply that drags down the market and keeps prices high. “There is no panacea in sight,” Liu said.

Even Austin is stuck, despite starting construction on 102,000 single-family homes between 2020 and 2024, according to Zonda, a data provider. The median sale price there has fallen by 18% since the peak in April 2022, according to Unlock MLS, the multiple listing service for the Austin Board of Realtors.

But buyers still see an overheated market — the median home price jumped 69% from April 2020 to April 2022 — and an uncertain future. Many sellers, in turn, would rather pull a listing from the market than meaningfully lower the price. “It’s a bit of a frozen market,” said Eric Bramlett, an Austin real estate agent.

In February, John Huffman and Nan Walsh listed their three-bedroom house in East Austin for $950,000, after buying a home in Columbus, Ohio, closer to family. The house hasn’t sold, and though they’ve lowered the price to $925,000, they’re in no hurry to make a deal. “I don’t feel any pressure,” said Huffman, 68.

The couple paid $618,000 for the house in 2017 and have a mortgage with a 2.6% interest rate. If it doesn’t sell, they may rent it out or use it as a winter getaway.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Get more real estate and business news by signing up for our weekly newsletter, On the Block.

Homeowners are embracing xeriscaping and native plant landscaping and moving away from traditional bluegrass lawns in favor of drought-resistant options.

Lauren Floyd, design assistant at C&H Landscaping, said homeowners who switch to low-water landscaping are more likely to want to save money than those motivated by environmental concerns.

“We’re seeing more people moving to xeric landscapes using native plants to increase curb appeal and cut down on their water usage.”

Popular options include xeriscaping using native plants, planting ground cover, incorporating hardscaping, using mulch and gravel, and installing drip irrigation.

Xeriscaping

Xeriscaping uses drought-resistant plants, particularly those native to Colorado, like Karl Foerster grasses and Colorado blue spruce, because they are better adapted to thrive under specific conditions.

This landscaping approach often features succulents, lavender, yucca, and other low-water plants, which help conserve water while maintaining beauty in the garden.

Ross Hulstein, Highlands Landscaping CEO, said most homeowners understand that growing grass takes more water.

“Switching to low water use means less grass and more native plants,” Hulstein said.

He recommends choosing native Colorado plants that thrive in the high desert climate.

“They are used to the rainfall we get and will need less watering.”

In Fort Collins, homeowners’ associations that once required at least 60% blue grass are now modifying their requirements to options that use less water, said Kristin Crawford, the office manager of Waterwise Landscapes.

She said xeriscapes that include Karl Foerster, Maiden Hair, and Pampas grasses are popular and require less water and maintenance.

Aaron Le, owner of Modern Concepts Landscaping, said xeriscapes also appeal to homeowners who want something low-maintenance.

“They want something simple and clean so they have a nice looking yard without having to put too much time and effort into it,” he said.

Ground cover

Planting ground cover instead of using rocks offers environmental and aesthetic benefits.

Plants like creeping phlox and hen-and-chick succulents improve soil health by preventing erosion, enhancing moisture retention, and promoting nutrient cycling.

Ground covers also support beneficial insects and wildlife, fostering biodiversity. They provide vibrant, textured landscapes with seasonal color and help moderate soil temperature while retaining moisture.

Dan Zehr, owner of Living Landscapes, said using plants as ground cover helps create a healthy ecosystem. The plants provide moisture and support birds and pollinators.

“We’re experiencing a renaissance and people are discovering what it truly means to create an ecosystem,” he said.

Landscaping experts must help educate homeowners, especially transplants, to help them understand the environment.

“We need to show them that native short grasses will thrive and that hydrangeas and boxwoods are not appropriate for our climate.”

Hardscaping

Incorporating hardscape elements like patios, boulders, and mulch can effectively reduce grassy areas in landscaping.

Additionally, using rock and gravel instead of traditional grass minimizes maintenance and significantly reduces water usage.

Hulstein warns that installing hardscaping costs more upfront, but takes less work and costs less to maintain.

Drip irrigation

Installing drip lines allows for targeted watering, making it a more efficient alternative to traditional irrigation methods.

This approach ensures water is delivered directly to the plants’ roots, minimizing waste and optimizing water use.

The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.

That is nearly 50% higher than the 9,159 listings available a year ago and 6.5 times the tight 2,075 listings available in May 2021, which marked a record low for that month.

“Right now, the Denver Metro housing market is a master class in patience,” said Amanda Snitker, chairwoman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and a local Realtor, in comments accompanying the monthly report. “Whether you’re a buyer waiting for the right home to hit the market or a seller holding out for the best offer, today’s conditions reward those who can pause, plan and stay engaged.”

There were 7,284 new listings in May, a 4.5% increase from a year earlier. That isn’t a big jump, but the backlog has been gradually building. In the first five months, sellers listed 29,881 homes and condos, up 17.5% from the same period in 2024, according to the report.

Although buyers and their agents have long pleaded for more supply. Now that it has arrived, sales are not keeping pace, a reflection of elevated prices and mortgage rates. The 4,036 homes that sold in the metro area last month represent a 2.6% decline from April and a 9.5% decline from May 2024. As long as new listings continue to outpace closings, the inventory will continue to back up, putting pressure on sellers.

“As more homes enter the market and fewer are closing, we’re seeing a build-up of active listings rolling into the next month,” Snitker said. “This is where strategy and staying power come into play. Sellers need to be mindful of how their home is positioned — while buyers may finally have more room to breathe.”

Inventory levels are moving closer to historical averages, which for May is 14,510 listings in DMAR records going back to 1985. Listings are taking a median of 13 days to go under contract, which isn’t as fast as the pace seen a few years ago, but isn’t sluggish either.

When inventories were super-tight in 2021 and early 2022, prices soared. Reversing that logic, will prices start falling now that the market appears to be saturated with a surplus?

It isn’t happening yet, but Seattle-based real estate brokerage firm Redfin argues it is a matter of when, not if. The median price of a detached or stand-alone home sold in May in metro Denver was $665,000, up 0.76% from April and 1.5% over the past year, according to DMAR. For condos and townhomes, the median price was $405,000, up 4.5% from April and down 0.25% from May 2024.

Redfin estimates that sellers nationally were sitting on $698 billion in unsold inventory at the end of April, of which $331 billion had been waiting 60 days or more to reach the closing table. That excess supply is due to there being about 500,000 more home sellers than buyers in the current housing market, with sellers outnumbering buyers by a 42% margin in metro Denver.

“A huge pop of listings hit the market at the start of spring, and there weren’t enough buyers to go around,” said Matt Purdy, a Redfin Premier agent in Denver, in a release. “House hunters are only buying if they absolutely have to, and even serious buyers are backing out of contracts more than they used to. Buyers have a window to get a deal; there’s still a surplus of inventory on the market, with sellers facing reality and willing to negotiate prices down.”

Nationally, there were an estimated 1.9 million home sellers in the U.S. housing market and an estimated 1.5 million homebuyers in April, according to Redfin, which works out to a 33.7% advantage to buyers. Metro Denver had 16,357 sellers active in April, compared to 11,526 buyers, giving Denver a 42% ratio in favor of buyers.

Nationally, 32 markets of the 50 examined were in the buyer’s camp. Denver ranked 19th, sandwiched between Los Angeles and Anaheim.

“At no other point in records dating back to 2013 have sellers outnumbered buyers by this large of a number or percentage. A year ago, sellers outnumbered buyers by just 6.5%, and two years ago, buyers outnumbered sellers,” noted Lily Katz and Asad Khan, authors of the report.

Cooper Thayer, a Realtor with The Thayer Group Keller Williams Action Realty in Castle Rock, said May’s numbers will provide more clarity when they come out in early June, but added he would “definitely agree” that metro Denver is now a buyer’s market.

“The ratio of buyers to sellers is skewed, and with more listings on the market, the smaller buyer pool holds even more leverage as sellers compete for attention,” he said in an email.

Sellers face the most pressure in southern Florida. In Miami, sellers outnumber buyers three-to-one, and West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale aren’t too far behind. Austin, Texas, is another glutted market, with sellers outnumbering buyers by 124%. And in Phoenix, there are twice as many sellers as buyers.

One contributor to Florida’s lopsidedness is a heavier preponderance of condos, which have seen a surge in insurance premiums and HOA dues following more severe storms and the collapse of the Surfside condo in July 2021, which killed 98 people, including Colorado resident Cassondra Stratton.

Florida also experienced a surge in population following the pandemic, which temporarily boosted demand and helped push up real estate prices. Some of those newbies, as well as longtime Canadian snowbirds, are wanting out.

Nationally, the condo market is the segment that has swung most solidly in favor of buyers, with 259,137 sellers vs. 141,223 buyers last month — an 83.5% overrepresentation by sellers, Katz and Kahn said in their report. For single-family homes, the seller overrepresentation is 27.8% and for townhomes, it is 33%.

Prices still aren’t falling in most markets that have tilted in favor of buyers, but if current trends hold and mortgage rates don’t fall and reignite buyer demand, then it is likely only a matter of time.

Redfin estimates that the median price of a home sold in metro Denver is down 0.1% over the past year, compared to a 1.6% gain nationally. Although it doesn’t have a forecast for Denver, it predicts home prices nationally will drop 1% this year and is advising sellers in Colorado and elsewhere to get moving before they lose the bargaining power they have left.

“Inventory is piling up as buyers are pulling back due to high costs and ongoing economic uncertainty. Prices are already starting to drop slightly with the median sale price down 0.1% compared to a year ago and likely to fall more by year-end,” predicted Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economic research.

Denver’s home price decline could be a rounding error, but it could also represent a tipping point. Zillow, which had predicted home price gains averaging 0.1% for metro Denver at the start of the year, now predicts they will fall 0.9% by next April.

But Zillow, in a report published Thursday, also shows above-average demand still at play in metro Denver. Listings in March had 6.2 engaged buyers in Denver compared to 5.5 nationally. About 32% of homes sell above the list price in Denver compared to only 27% nationally. Half of listings go under contract within 11 days compared to 17 days required nationally.

And the inventory of homes listed for sale in metro Denver remains below the historical averages going back to 1985, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. But that gap is closing rapidly.

Get more real estate and business news by signing up for our weekly newsletter, On the Block.

Several Colorado cities, like Aurora and Broomfield, set strict regulations restricting the use of high-water grasses and ornamental water features. Other cities, including Denver and Colorado Springs, limit lawn watering hours or days to conserve water.

Although installing artificial turf reduces water use, it raises questions about installation and maintenance costs, long-term benefits, and environmental impact.

The average cost to install artificial turf ranges from $6 to $20 per square foot, depending on turf quality, site preparation, and labor. A typical 500-square-foot project can cost between $3,000 and $10,000.

Although many people think artificial turf is maintenance-free, keeping it clean and fresh requires some care.

Lauren Floyd, a design assistant with C&H Landscaping, said artificial turf still requires maintenance, especially to remove pet waste.

“It uses less water than traditional sod, but you do have to water it to wash out that pet waste,” she said.

Ross Hulstein, CEO of Highlands Landscaping, said installing proper drainage for artificial turf to clean pet waste is vital if you have dogs. He also recommends installing a sprinkler system to keep the turf clean.

“You might need to turn it on for five minutes once a week rather than 10 minutes every day,” he said.

While older artificial turf products, especially those that looked more like outdoor carpets, tended to degrade relatively quickly, newer products are hardier.

“This is my fourth season with the company and I haven’t seen any clients who needed to have their artificial turf replaced or repaired,” Floyd said.

“I’ve had artificial turf at my house for 21/2 years and it looks brand new.”

In addition to reduced water needs, installing artificial turf eliminates the need to weed or mow.

But Dan Zehr, owner of Living Landscapes, cautions about artificial turf’s potential health and environmental impact.

“I do not recommend it for 99% of applications,” Zehr said.

Homeowners should be concerned about microplastics in the artificial turf and potentially toxic products used in any infill.

Artificial turf, like weed fabric and rock, also doesn’t help the environment like natural grass or groundcover plants.

“At least a Kentucky bluegrass lawn is providing a host for insects and ground foraging birds,” he said.

Instead, he recommends using plants as ground cover to help birds and pollinators.

Kristin Crawford, office manager for Waterwise Landscapes, agreed and said most homeowners prefer low-water plant options.

She also notes that the Fort Collins-based company rarely installs artificial turf. Its last artificial turf project installation was a putting green a year ago.

The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.

Senate Bill 20 gives cities and counties explicit authority to pursue civil actions — like fines or lawsuits — to enforce the state’s tenant and safe-housing laws that regulate security deposits, apartment conditions, rental applications and mobile home parks. Those provisions were already enforceable by the attorney general, while individual local governments had their own housing codes.

The law also allows those authorities — as well as the Colorado Attorney General’s Office — to ask a court to temporarily give control of rundown buildings to a third-party caretaker so the property can be restored to suitable condition.

Gov. Jared Polis signed SB-20 into law Wednesday. Most of its provisions go into effect in August. Others — allowing actions related to bed bugs and sexual and domestic misconduct — go into effect Jan. 1. The AG’s office will also be empowered to bring actions related to those issues starting on New Year’s Day.

“This law will hold negligent landlords accountable when they illegally ignore dangerous living conditions,” Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat, said in a statement. He sponsored the bill with fellow Democrats Rep. Mandy Lindsay and Sens. Mike Weissman and Julie Gonzales. “By giving the attorney general, counties and municipalities more authority to enforce tenant protection laws, Colorado renters will have more advocates in their corner to fight for safe housing.”

The law was directly inspired by CBZ Management and the two brothers who controlled it and a collection of chronically dilapidated buildings in Aurora and Denver. For years, tenants had complained about the properties’ lack of heat and hot water, their chronic roach infestations and faulty appliances.

Officials in both cities repeatedly dinged the company for its persistently unsafe conditions, but little more was done until August, when Aurora ordered the closure of one of the buildings. The properties’ owners, Shmaryahu and Zev Baumgarten, blamed the chronic deficiencies at their Aurora buildings on Venezuelan gangs, which had more recently established themselves in some of the Aurora buildings.

Nine months later, all of CBZ’s Aurora properties have been closed or moved out of the company’s control, either through city action or because the Baumgartens failed to pay their creditors. Another property in Denver was also closed — and moved into receivership — earlier this year because it was deemed unsafe.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman testified in favor of the bill in February and referred to the Baumgartens as “out-of-state slumlords.”

Had SB 20 been in place last year, “we would’ve been able to step in, ask for a receivership to come in and provide these necessary resources to help (CBZ’s tenants) live in a safe and habitable place and grow and prosper,” Joshua King, the Aurora official who oversees code enforcement, added.

All four of the bill’s sponsors hail from Denver and Aurora, where CBZ’s properties were primarily concentrated.

Under the new law, cities, counties and the AG must ask a court to appoint a third-party receiver when a landlord has shown a “pattern of neglect.” The law specifically spells out heating problems, pest infestations and filthy conditions as among the issues that could require a court’s intervention.

While in receivership, the court-appointed caretaker would use rental payments to repair the building’s condition and restore the property. A landlord could ask a court to end the receivership after three months.

The law marks the second straight year that lawmakers have tightened oversight of housing conditions because of specific landlords.

Last year, Gonzales and Lindsay sponsored another bill that required landlords to more quickly fix problems and made it easier for tenants to raise concerns. That bill was inspired by concerns at the Felix building in Denver, as well as by issues with CBZ.

That law also allowed the attorney general to investigate unsafe housing conditions — a power that Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office has since used to begin investigating CBZ and the Baumgartens.

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.

Occasionally, she grew tired of talking to him so often, Pope said, “but she always overlooked it ’cause I’m her son.” Johnson cared for him when he got jumped by a gang at 15 and sustained a debilitating head injury that forced him to relearn how to walk and talk.

Johnson herself was disabled, suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and rheumatoid arthritis, among other health issues. Since 2021, she had lived in the Thomas Bean Towers, a 13-floor, 189-unit apartment complex in the Five Points neighborhood operated by the Denver Housing Authority.

On May 19, 2023, Johnson told the front desk that hot air was blowing through her HVAC system, despite outside temperatures in the 60s that day. Maintenance never came.

Three days later, she again went to the front desk about the heat. A staffer told her maintenance would fix the problem that day.

“I have suffered all weekend, son,” Johnson told Pope that day. “I’m tired.”

The following day, Pope repeatedly tried to reach his mother, but she didn’t respond. At 8:52 p.m., he knocked on his mother’s door. No answer. A maintenance man opened the door for Pope and his wife. They immediately felt a blast of sweltering air.

When they walked to the bedroom, they saw Johnson in just her underwear, lying on the bed. She was dead at 68.

The Denver medical examiner estimated her unit was between 123 degrees and 127 degrees at the time of her death. Her body temperature? 111 degrees.

Johnson’s two children outlined these details in a September lawsuit, alleging the Denver Housing Authority neglected to treat their mother’s request as an emergency, leading to her death. The medical examiner said she died as a result of cardiovascular disease complicated by exposure to heat.

The 2023 incident, however, wasn’t the first time someone died at Thomas Bean Towers from overheating. Another woman died there under similar circumstances in 2019.

City health officials, though, found the Denver Housing Authority did not identify factors that contributed to the first accidental death, nor incorporate changes to their processes to prevent similar harm in the future.

DHA also did not comply with multiple orders issued by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment during its 2024 investigation of the two deaths in Thomas Bean Towers.

Soon after Johnson’s death, the building also experienced an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of a lung infection. DHA, once again, did not remediate these concerns immediately, a public health investigation found.

DHA officials declined an interview request for this story, citing the ongoing litigation. In a statement, a spokesperson said the agency “takes resident well-being seriously and it is always our top priority.”

Pope and his sister, Latrisse Johnson, said their mother’s death could have been avoided. They called on the Denver Housing Authority to change its rules and regulations to prevent other families from experiencing the same heartbreak.

“My mother didn’t have to go this way,” Latrisse Johnson said. “I need accountability for her death.”

Two heat-related deaths

Four years before Johnson died, another resident of Thomas Bean Towers died of hyperthermia.

The apartment complex, built in 1972 at 2350 Cleveland Place, serves low-income older adults and those with disabilities. It’s run by the Denver Housing Authority, a quasi-municipal corporation that operates more than 13,000 units and housing choice vouchers, providing affordable housing to more than 26,000 very low, low and middle-income individuals in the city.

The housing authority is governed by a nine-member board of commissioners appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council.

Diann Cooper Williams’ unit in 2019 was undergoing remediation efforts due to a water leak, Johnson’s lawsuit states. As part of these efforts, the contractor had installed humidifiers that put off heat ranging from 90 degrees to 116 degrees.

Despite the stifling temperature in the apartment, DHA did not offer Williams alternate accommodations, the lawsuit alleges.

On March 11, 2019, Williams died in her home at age 66. The thermostat in the living room read 99 degrees, but “it felt much hotter,” a Denver police report stated.

The medical examiner found Williams died as a result of environmental exposure due to hyperthermia with contributions of cardiovascular disease and a recent flu infection.

Hyperthermia, also known as heat stroke, is a serious, potentially life-threatening form of heat illness. The body’s temperature rises to 105 degrees or higher and can cause neurological changes, such as mental confusion or unconsciousness. The extreme heat begins to affect internal organs, causing breakdown of heart muscle cells and blood vessels, damage to internal organs, and death.

Most causes of heat stroke, Harvard University experts say, can be prevented.

Johnson and Williams were older adults with heart conditions, both significant risk factors for heat-related illnesses, experts say. These individuals maintain a higher heart rate even in normal environments.

But when the air around them heats up, the body has less blood available to send to vital organs, leading to potentially dire consequences, said Dr. Riana Pryor, director of the Hydration, Exercise and Thermoregulation Laboratory at the University at Buffalo.

In April 2024, the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment slammed DHA for not responding adequately to either death or taking action that could have prevented the fatalities. The department found:

• DHA did not comply with multiple orders during the course of the investigation into the two deaths
• DHA did not comply with their internal work order procedures, nor respond effectively to either resident’s complaint
• DHA did not conduct regular preventative maintenance for ventilation units
• DHA did not identify factors that contributed to Williams’ death, “nor incorporate responsive changes to their processes to prevent similar harm in the future”
• DHA installed a 17-year-old refurbished heat pump into Johnson’s unit. These units, though, have a 15-year life cycle, the department found. The pump failed three more times in a nine-month period.

Public health officials offered several recommendations to DHA, including working with an independent consultant to assess and revise their work order response policies related to faulty ventilation and heat-producing equipment; reviewing and updating their work order response policies to develop a system to identify life-safety concerns; retraining staff on complaint and work order response policies at least quarterly.

DHA did not answer questions about whether the department followed up on any of these recommendations.

Thomas Bean Towers has also dealt with several other health and safety issues over the years.

In 2006, The Denver Post reported a bedbug infestation at the public housing complex.

Residents experienced four floods in two years because of issues with the PVC pipes in the building, according to a Denver7 report in 2022. The floods led to mold and water damage in the building.

In July 2023, public health officials learned of two cases of Legionnaires’ disease among building residents.

The disease is a serious type of pneumonia caused by bacteria. Most people who catch Legionnaires breathe in the bacteria from water or soil. Older adults, people with weakened immune systems and people who smoke have a higher risk of getting the disease.

Building water systems that are not properly operated and maintained can provide an ideal environment for spreading Legionella, the bacteria that cause Legionnaires’ disease, Denver public health officials said in an August 2023 letter to DHA.

That month, the Department of Public Health and Environment sent DHA an “order to comply,” noting housing officials had not sent all the information and documentation requested by the public health department. The order showed DHA was overdue on sharing remediation plans and providing the city with a list of maintenance repairs conducted on HVAC units.

‘They need to pay’

On May 23, the second anniversary of Johnson’s death, her family gathered at a Denver park to celebrate her life.

Pope and Latrisse Johnson, along with her daughter and granddaughter, released balloons into the air. They expressed how much they missed her.

“Rest easy, mom,” Latrisse Johnson said. “Look over us.”

After Johnson’s death, the family continued cooking a Southern meal every Sunday — an ode to Shirlyne’s love for whipping up good food for her loved ones. Mac and cheese. Collard greens. Sweet potatoes. Meatloaf. Catfish.

Pope remembers his mother through a tattoo on his neck. Latrisse talks to her plants every morning, a picture of Shirlyne watching over them carefully.

“They took my mom; it hurts me every day,” Pope said. “They need to pay.”

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.

“We can wait 10 or 15 years and the market will correct. It historically always has,” said Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership. “But what will we lose in the meantime?”

Tens of millions in tax revenues are no longer collected each year. Large office towers that cost billions to build and maintain sit mostly empty, a wasted resource decaying over time. Denver’s reputation as a vibrant city is dimming, making it harder to attract businesses, tourists and residents from other places.

READ THE FULL PROJECT: At a crossroads: Downtown Denver is waiting for its rebound

Downtown covers just 1.8% of Denver’s land area, but is home to three in 10 of its jobs, 4.6% of its population and a fifth of its taxable property value, according to the Partnership. Before the pandemic, it accounted for 13% of the city’s property and sales tax revenues. Today, that share is closer to 8%, representing $45 million a year in lost revenue.

What happens to downtown matters for the city, state and region.

Density fell out of favor during the pandemic, as people sought less crowded living arrangements. Employers shifted to remote work, reducing the need for office space. Social unrest and rising crime boosted perceptions that central business districts should be avoided.

No downtown has found a fail-proof answer to the larger trends the pandemic unleashed, Garrett said.

Time alone hasn’t healed the deep pandemic wounding, the federal government won’t ride to the rescue as it has before, and no magic wand can be waved to return workers to their cubicles, circa 2019.

A renewed sense of urgency has emerged under the administration of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, among city planners, and civic and business groups such as the Partnership and Visit Denver.

“We’ve been through this before. We need to get the old Denver way back, which is having a chip on our shoulder,” Bill Mosher, Denver’s Chief Projects Officer, told a crowd gathered for the Partnership’s “State of Downtown” breakfast in April.

Denver last decade was “like a little darling child” that the rest of the country allowed to ride a “gravy train” coming out of the Great Recession, he said. Everyone thought Denver was cool, but the free ride that popularity provided is over. Denver needs to stop being so precious and call on the scrappy brawler that allowed it to survive past crises, he continued.

“Guess what? We’re still cool. And guess what — we can do better, but nobody’s going to help us. We have to help ourselves. So I need all of you to get engaged,” Mosher urged the crowd in a bootstrap call to action.

Mosher spearheaded the revival of the Union Station neighborhood, now an oasis of strength within a larger distress zone. Johnston recruited him late last year to oversee urban development projects for the city and to supervise the Downtown Development Authority, a widened version of the taxing district that helped finance Union Station’s restoration.

Voters in November overwhelmingly approved expanding the authority’s territory to cover most of downtown and funnel an estimated $570 million towards renewal efforts, from funding attractions and activities, improving infrastructure and green spaces, and converting tired buildings to new uses.

Public funds could be leveraged three to four times against private investments, Garrett said, bringing billions of dollars to bear.

A roadmap for that spending and other priorities will be contained in a revamped Downtown Area Plan, which is focused on improving transit, refreshing public spaces like Civic Center and Skyline parks, and attracting new businesses.

There is a plan, there is a pot of money, and Mosher said courage and creativity need to replace paralysis and negativity so downtown can get back on its feet and move forward.

Defining the distress

Downtown streets have tended to carry about a fifth less foot traffic than they did prior to the pandemic, although that gap improved to 15% less traffic last month, according to statistics gathered by the Partnership.

Placer.ai, which tracks cell phone traffic, estimates that Downtown Denver office-related visits in March remain 42% below where they were in March 2019. Things are improving, but Denver’s increase over the past year was among the weakest of the larger cities studied.

When the architectural firm Gensler surveyed downtown visitors last fall, 55% described having a “great” experience, compared to 2021 and 2023, when 70% used that term. People’s perceptions are worsening, not improving, reflecting both safety concerns and the disruptive renovation of 16th Street.
Originally slated to run two years, remodeling the 13 original blocks of 16th Street will take more than three years, and the heavy construction has crushed a long list of retailers along the corridor.

Completion of 16th Street, set for late fall, is considered key to attracting new retailers and more visitors, especially when coupled with improvements in public safety. Unless people feel safe, other efforts to improve downtown will be stifled.

Above the quieter streets, another big problem is hidden — lots of empty office space. Denver had the fifth biggest percentage increase in its downtown office vacancy rate since the end of 2019 out of 78 cities that Moody’s examined in November 2024. Only San Francisco, San Antonio, Austin, and Raleigh fared worse.

CBRE puts the total vacancy rate for downtown offices in the first quarter at 35.3%, up from 34.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 34.2% in the third quarter. Add in space marketed by current tenants looking to sublease, and closer to 40% of Downtown Denver’s office space is available, estimates the London-based real estate firm Savills.

Vacancy rates are starting to retreat in places like Manhattan, Houston and San Jose, but they continue to rise in Denver, reaching levels not seen since the oil and gas bust of the mid-1980s.

The 1980s downturn was an economic disruption so severe that the region set new records for bankruptcies and foreclosures. Colorado even lost population one year, recalled former Denver Mayor Federico Peña.

His recovery strategy focused on everything — revitalizing downtown and the city’s neighborhoods, preserving historic buildings, cleaning up parks, reducing air pollution, curbing crime and bringing in Major League baseball. The odds stacked against it, Denver even pursued a new airport.

“When you have a community whose back is against the wall, everybody comes together,” he said.

This time, a bad economy and large-scale layoffs aren’t driving downtown’s struggles. To the degree the larger community doesn’t perceive a wider problem, it is harder to rally support and easier to wait for the recovery to take hold on its own.

Downtown’s office vacancy rate is nearly four times above the low of just over 9% reached in 2017, per CBRE’s numbers. And it rose sharply despite downtown employment counts that are 30% higher than last decade.

“Denver presents a stark market paradox: office-using employment remains robust — with more than 35,000 white-collar positions added since early 2020 and employment levels holding just below the mid-2022 peak — yet the physical office market continues to deteriorate,” said TJ Jaroszewski, director of Mountain Region Research with the real estate brokerage JLL in a research note.

On the plus side, restaurant and retail sales are above pre-pandemic levels. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts continues to draw big crowds. The seasons and playoff runs of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche, while cut short of a championship, boosted downtown visits. Hotel occupancy is around 69%, within reach of the 79% rate seen in 2019, and average room rates are higher.

Convention visits averaged 891,000 a year last decade, before the pandemic took them down to 226,126. Last year, 740,000 attendees made it downtown, said Richard Scharf, president and CEO of Visit Denver, the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“This will be one of our best convention years ever,” Scharf said of 2025. “People are coming in and they’re spending money in our economy, and then they leave. I mean, what a great way. Come in, spend your money, and then it ripples into the economy.”

Downtown Denver should regain its momentum, eventually. But it is underperforming during an otherwise good economic stretch, supported by billions of dollars in federal stimulus and low interest rates coming out of the pandemic.

The U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter. Trade wars are weighing on the global economy. Business and consumer confidence are tumbling. Colorado’s job growth is already among the weakest in the country. The conversation in the months ahead could become less about remote work and more about no work.

What if downtown has missed its bus, lost the train, and is about to be left waiting at the station, stuck at the crossroads?

Cracks in the foundation

Downtown is sometimes viewed as one big monolith, but it consists of several districts. Of those, Upper Downtown and Skyline Park are facing the greatest distress, followed by the Ball Park and Arapahoe Square area.

Unlike the Golden Triangle, LoDo and Union Station, which have a better balance of different uses, Upper Downtown is primarily office and increasingly a kind of office that is out of favor with tenants. The biggest structural problem downtown has to overcome is one of overconcentration.

Half of the space contained in downtown’s largest office buildings, defined as those with 100,000 square feet or more, was built in a narrow 10-year window from 1977 to 1986 during the oil and gas boom. A quarter came together in the prior nine decades and another quarter in the past 25 years, according to a Denver Post analysis.

“I think a lot of tenants are realizing that to get employees back to the office or incentivize that office culture, they want to be in an improved building. And there’s also an improved location mindset too,” Sarajane Goodfellow, First Vice President at CBRE Denver.

Lincoln Street represents downtown’s eastern boundary, but Goodfellow said Arapahoe Street represents the current dividing lines for what tenants and brokers perceive as desirable office space. Newer buildings to the west are more stable and marketable, while unimproved buildings to the east are struggling and emptying.

“That was really where this, like invisible delineation line, was made,” she said of Arapahoe Street.

About three-quarters of the office space in Upper Downtown and Skyline Park is still categorized as “Class A” or top tier, but the market doesn’t view it that way.

“You have an aging product that needs a ton of investment. You have capital providers who aren’t willing to put money into space without the tenants. Tenants might get cheaper rent in these buildings, but they will have to put out a lot of capital to make space usable,” said Michael Kaplan, a partner in the real estate group at the Denver office of the law firm WilmerHale.

Tenants tell her if they could afford it, they would prefer to be in brand new buildings in Union Station, in LoDo, or in an ’80s vintage with improvements, Goodfellow said. Consolidation remains a dominant theme in 2025, according to CBRE. Tenants are trading up to higher-quality spaces and reducing the square footage they lease.

Even though downtown has a lot of surplus space, advertised rents in the first quarter averaged $41.57 a square foot, nearly 40% higher than the $29.62 a square foot averaged in the suburbs, according to CBRE. Downtown rents are essentially unchanged since 2021, despite extreme oversupply.

Downtown’s real estate market hasn’t found the equivalent of the half-off rack for expiring baked goods that grocery stores roll out. That has allowed the inventory in Upper Downtown to get so stale that entire buildings eventually find themselves in a metaphorical trash bin.

Upper Downtown’s predicament traces back to an era when abundant petroleum dollars hooked up with loose lending practices at savings and loans and decided to start a family. At one point, more than 30 towers were rising at the same time, recalled Doug Tisdale, a member of the DDA board and former RTD chairman, during a public meeting hosted by the authority.

The misbegotten union gave birth to the titan towers of Upper Downtown. Welcomed at first as a replacement for scraped blocks and parking lots, the attitude over time shifted to tolerance. Now, the fear is that their decline could devour downtown’s future if not handled properly.

When Exxon decided to abandon the Colony Oil Shale Project in northwestern Colorado on May 2, 1982, the reverberations of “Black Sunday” reached deep into downtown. But it wasn’t until 1986, when a global oil glut pushed prices from $27 a barrel to under $10, that the boom ended and downtown suffered a knockout punch. After 1290 Broadway opened in 1986, downtown wouldn’t see another big office tower rise for 14 years.

Energy companies folded or left for Dallas and Houston, shedding thousands of jobs and leaving behind “see-through” towers. Trying to create an illusion of occupancy, owners often left them brightly lit at night, which only further exposed floor upon floor with no people, no desks, and a dark future. Downtown building values plummeted, as they are doing now.

Denver’s undiversified economy, too heavily dependent on natural resources, reeled. To speed up a recovery, the city invested heavily in public projects, while economic developers preached a message of diversification and cooperation. The federal government cleaned up the bad S&L loans and sold troubled real estate to new owners through the Resolution Trust Corp.

The RTC’s Denver regional office set up base in the Park Central complex, where the Downtown Denver Partnership resides. Troubled back then, and troubled now, the half-empty collection of three buildings sold in March for an undisclosed price.

Denver and Colorado found a way to a more diversified economy, joining in a tech and telecom boom that brought renewed prosperity in the late 1990s. Fortunately for downtown, the petroleum towers were still young and attractive enough to draw tenants.

Memories of the turbulent era eventually faded. The towers remained, standing guard over a boom and bust commemorative plaque on a sidewalk at 17th and California streets.

Tenants are on the move

For decades, downtown’s biggest rival in the battle for tenants was the Denver Tech Center. But more leases are draining, like the runoff, toward the South Platte River, with a few finding their way down to Cherry Creek, which has become one of the country’s most vibrant office and residential districts this decade.

Antero Resources in 2014 showed a keen sense for where Denver’s commercial real estate market was headed when it moved into new office space next to Union Station. A decade later, its bet is on Cherry Creek and a new building called The Henry at 201 Fillmore St.

The River North Art District is also luring tenants from downtown. Denver-based law firm Davis Graham & Stubbs camped out in Republic Plaza, built in 1982, for years. The tower at 370 17th St. carried the prestige of being Denver’s tallest skyscraper. At the turn of the century, the law firm moved west into the Millennium Financial Center at 1550 17th St., aptly named given the year it opened.

But even Y2K feels like ancient history. In December, the firm became the anchor tenant in the newly constructed Paradigm River North at 3400 Walnut St., an eight-story office building in RiNo. Xcel Energy plans to leave 1800 Larimer, built in 2009, this June for T3 RiNo, a new six-story mass timber building, also in RiNo.

Even the tenants staying downtown find themselves pulled westward when leases renew. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, an L.A.-based law firm active in Denver for more than four decades, left its longtime offices at 1801 California St., built in 1982, for 1900 Lawrence St., which opened up with 700,000 square feet in 31 stories in September.

Building Denver’s largest skyscraper in four decades seemed like the height of folly when Chicago developer Riverside Investment & Development Co. broke ground in April 2022 on the site of a former parking lot.

But the company’s CEO defended the investment, saying that even if businesses needed less office space, they would require higher-quality space with the kind of amenities alluring enough to convince home-bound employees to commute in.

1900 Lawrence has a golf simulator, rooftop lounge, fitness center, and a spa area where frazzled employees can book massage therapists. The tower has taken office amenities to an unprecedented level in Denver, making it harder for older buildings to keep pace, said Greg Bante, an executive managing director at Savills Denver.

Old for new is a constant theme in tenant moves. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation’s largest bank, left the Chase Tower at 1125 17th St. in 2022 for the new Market Station on the former site of RTD’s Market Street Station. It traded space in a 1980 building for one built in 2021.

“Downtown Denver is a vibrant and dynamic community that continues to be a key hub for innovation and growth. We’re here for the long run, and we’re dedicated to investing in the local economy and supporting the talented workforce that calls Denver home,” said Britt Urband, managing director for J.P. Morgan Private Bank, and Kevin Lander, region manager for Commercial Banking, in a joint statement.

Fast-growing tech company Ibotta, which went public last year, has committed to a long-term presence in Denver by signing a multi-year lease for 85,000 square feet of office space in the eight-story 16 Market Square building — built in 2001 at 1400 16th St.

Ibotta plans to leave 1801 California St., built in 1980, by the end of this year. The redesigned space should accommodate more than 500 employees who commute downtown to work three days per week, per Ibotta’s “Denver-first” hybrid work policy.

“We’re proud to have signed a 10-year lease in a moment where the city really needs us, where only a third of the occupancy is there,” said Ibotta’s founder and CEO Bryan Leach. “I never considered leaving downtown. It is important to have the downtown area of your community be a thriving place where people live and work.”

Leach said he didn’t want to see Denver repeat a problem he witnessed in Atlanta. Businesses fled the city’s downtown for more affluent business districts on the periphery. As the core hollowed out, it left behind low-income, high-crime areas.

“You don’t want that. So, I don’t want to be part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution,” Leach said.

Boardrooms to bedrooms

Downtown Denver and other urban cores risk entering a difficult-to-reverse “doom loop” once their largest buildings empty out, and preventing that spiral has added to the sense of urgency.

As rent revenues fall, loan defaults become more likely, causing distressed sales to rise and pushing down property values for nearby buildings. Falling property values make it harder for building owners to justify making the improvements needed to stay competitive.

Tax revenues decline, leaving cities with less money to maintain expensive infrastructure, secure public safety and provide needed services. Businesses and visitors stay away and residents move out. The doom loop picks up momentum.

The shift to remote work exposed how over-reliant downtowns had become on office space. Downtown real estate in the U.S. is 70% office-based or “work” focused, about 16% residential or “live” and 14% recreational or “play,” according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield last year called “Reimagining Cities: Disrupting the Urban Doom Loop.”

Achieving a more balanced mix is the chief way to disrupt the doom loop within “Walkable Urban Areas.” A good target is 31% living space, 42% office space and 26% play space, according to the analysis.

Downtowns, Denver’s included, are especially prone to being all work and no play. They need to find a way to live a little more, with a focus on for-sale versus for-rent living spaces.

“We continue to lead with this vision of a complete neighborhood, diversified use, the neighborhood-scale feel, high levels of amenity services,” Garrett said. “You can walk out of your condo, take your child to day care, walk to work, stop by the dry cleaner, pick up your child on the way home, maybe pick up a bag of groceries.”

Compared to older cities, Downtown Denver is home to a smaller share of the city’s overall population, Garrett said. About 33,000 people live downtown, and they are slightly younger, more educated, higher earning and less racially diverse than the city overall. But they must put up with wide gaps in services taken for granted in other neighborhoods.

Union Station, Lower Downtown and the Central Platte Valley have been more intentional about creating more balance. The Golden Triangle area is seeing an influx of residential development and the Auraria Campus is adding more residential and mixed-use retail.

But how do Upper Downtown and Skyline Park, with their bigger buildings, integrate more “live” and “play” into the mix?

Fire sales, which are accelerating, are a necessary step for any transformation, brokers argue. A low purchase price combined with public support can incentivize investors to deploy the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to give buildings a new lease on life.

But it isn’t clear yet what kind of repurposing will pay off financially. Discussions of vertical greenhouses raising fresh produce for nearby restaurants and residents haven’t gained traction. Returning light manufacturing to central Denver is probably a non-starter.

Schools would make downtown a more complete neighborhood — wouldn’t it be cool to ride the elevator one floor up to the next grade? But Denver Public Schools is closing schools, not opening them.

As cloud-based software and artificial intelligence take on more tasks, computer servers are starting to occupy more office floors once filled with people. CoreSite, which operates data centers, recently purchased the DE1 data center at the Denver Gas and Electric Building and operates another one at 639 E. 18th Ave.

Computers don’t care about outdated paint and worn carpeting or the friendliness of the barista in the lobby. Just make sure the HVAC systems keep the temperatures right and electricity flows smoothly day and night.

Some owners are investing heavily to keep older towers competitive. But doubling down on “work” uses doesn’t resolve the overconcentration that Cushman & Wakefield argues urban cores need to move away from. If more residents are needed, older office buildings should be converted to apartments and condos.

But there is a heated debate on whether residential conversions are financially feasible, especially for the larger office towers from the late ’70s and ’80s. Extending water and sewer lines from the central core to the outer edges of buildings is costly. Large floor plates result in large areas of difficult-to-rent windowless space.

Up for Growth, a housing advocacy group, estimated a couple of years ago that only five out of 206 multi-story buildings, or 2.5% of the total in central Denver, could transition to residential at a reasonable cost.

Gensler, the architectural firm, and the city of Denver in 2023 came up with a list of 16 downtown buildings where a conversion should work, with another 13 that might work. Those towers could add 5,000 new apartments or condos to the downtown area and repurpose 4.3 million square feet of underused office space.

Residential conversions seem to be a better solution for downtown’s oldest buildings, not its most abundant ones — places like the Petroleum Building, built in 1956, and the University Building, built in 1910. Bonus points for anything with a rectangular design, lots of natural interior light and distinctive architectural features.

Market appetite is another consideration. Downtown has around 8% of all the apartments in metro Denver, about 21,521 units, and has claimed a disproportionate share of new multi-family construction in recent years, according to the Apartment Association of Metro Denver.

Landlords are now struggling to get those new units filled, as shown by an 8% vacancy rate downtown. Rent decreases are accelerating, which could make investors and lenders fearful that conversions won’t generate the returns required, at least in the near term.

Downtown needs more for-sale condos, but construction defects litigation and high insurance premiums in Colorado have kept developers away.

Amacon, a Canadian developer, is defying the odds and building two tall condo towers with 461 units at 1917 Broadway and 525 18th St., testing the appetite for home ownership in Upper Downtown with units starting at $365,000.

“A large portion of people who are buying are already living downtown, either renting or living in older buildings or looking for more amenities,” said Stephanie Babineau, a vice president of marketing and sales for Amacon, in an email. “Maintenance fees for older buildings are continuing to go up, so buyers are looking for new construction where maintenance fees are lower.”

Upton Residences represents the kind of large-scale residential that can meld with the large-scale office towers, bringing a Vancouver model to Denver. Amacon plans to add two more 39-story condo towers nearby, one at 1800 Welton St. and another at 1925 N. Broadway, contributing another 600 for-sale condos. The second project will include a hotel, ground-floor retail and parking.

Depending on the reception Amacon receives, building residential towers from scratch could prove more economical than conversions. But Denver officials, fearful of repeating past mistakes from the urban renewal era, are loath to tear down the titans.

Johnston said he would consider demolition in extreme cases, but only as a “last resort” because of the high expense, disruptions to the surrounding area and climate impacts. Taking down skyscrapers would also alter the city’s skyline. But Denver may be left with no good alternatives if buildings become blighted and can’t be repurposed.

Kaplan said a significant number of commercial real estate loans in Denver are coming due next year. Republic Plaza’s owners defaulted and reworked their loan in March 2023. That loan is coming due again in July, but borrowing costs are more expensive now and the vacancy rate is a difficult 36.7%.

Investors who stepped up early in the pandemic, trying to leverage low interest rates to pick up properties at a discount and ride out a “temporary” dip in demand, are among those under the greatest financial stress, Kaplan said.

Looking further ahead, redevelopment around Ball Arena and of Elitch Gardens could push future downtown investments southward down the Platte River, leaving Upper Downtown without a compelling story, Kaplan said.

Downtown truly is at a crossroads, and things could go either way.

“I am optimistic that Denver as a whole will continue to grow and bring new opportunities to its residents. What I don’t know is whether there is a path forward for the older part of downtown to re-energize,” Kaplan said. “I am optimistic that with some creative thinking, the area can re-energize. Where I get less optimistic — I haven’t seen a ton of creative thinking yet.”

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

Surveys of why people avoid downtown center on a lack of a sense of safety, and city officials and the Downtown Denver Partnership have made restoring it a priority.

READ THE FULL PROJECT: At a crossroads: Downtown Denver is waiting for its rebound

“No matter how cheap rent is or how green a building is, it alone won’t drive activity or interest,” said Greg Bante, an executive managing director in Denver for Savills, a London-based commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Whether a client wants a small or large amount of space, the first word out of their mouths is “safety,” said Bante, who has focused much of his career on downtown since 1995, helping large employers like Encana and Chipotle secure leases.

A lack of safety turns downtown’s strengths into weaknesses and will derail any recovery. Downtown is the metro region’s transit hub, with transportation connections that should provide a huge competitive advantage. But that advantage is lost if people feel they will be harassed getting to or after arriving at Union Station, which transit workers described in 2021 as a “lawless hellhole.”

Likewise, the bars and restaurants won’t be as big a draw if people feel they need to rush to get home while there is still safety in numbers. And an abundance of office space, even if it is discounted, won’t compensate for workers who would prefer the quiet of their home office to having random strangers shout at them, aggressively panhandle for money or try to sell them drugs.

“The city has a real opportunity right now to get this right,” Bante said, adding that he is encouraged by the steps that Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration is taking, chief among them finding housing for 2,000 people living without shelter. That has nearly eliminated encampments in central Denver. And RTD has made big strides in securing Union Station.

“I think the next important stuff for us is public safety, as there was still a perception that downtown was not safe, and that was critically important. We’ve made some really good progress so far,” Johnston said.

Drug crimes are down 55%, the murder rate is down 17%, and shootings are down 23%, he said. Although the statistics are moving in the right direction, one high-profile incident can set perceptions back, and that is what happened in January.

Elijah Caudill, 24, was charged with first-degree murder in a series of random knife attacks on 16th Street that killed two people and wounded two over a two-day period. Among the dead — Celinda Levno, a 71-year-old flight attendant with American Airlines and Phoenix resident visiting the mall during a layover and Nicholas Burkett, a 34-year-old who had struggled with drug addiction and a lack of housing.

In April, Johnston announced the deployment of a dedicated 10-officer unit to patrol 16th Street on foot, bicycles and motorcycles. A new DPD Downtown Kiosk at 16th and Arapahoe streets will allow for a quicker response. And a tourist favorite is coming back — the city’s horse-mounted patrol unit.

Additionally, the Downtown Denver Business Improvement District is adding three additional shifts of Park Ranger patrols and the Downtown Development Authority is paying for an additional 10 police officers to patrol during the day. New Denver District Attorney John Walsh has pledged to prioritize safety downtown and apply data-driven crime reduction strategies. The city is upgrading infrastructure, improving cleanliness and adding more trees and greenery throughout to create a more welcoming environment.

“For me, downtown is the emotional heart, the economic heart, and the cultural heart of a city. It’s what tells the story of who you are,” Johnston said.

Beyond public safety, Johnston moved to lower two obstacles and make real estate investors feel safer taking a risk on revitalization efforts.

The city has slowed down the implementation of Energize Denver, a plan passed in 2021 to reduce carbon emissions from larger buildings of 50,000 square feet or more. Downtown has the highest concentration of such large buildings in the state. Compliance deadlines have been pushed back from 2025 to 2028 and from 2030 to 2032. Fines for non-compliance have been cut in half. Building owners facing financial hardships, as many now do, can request extensions and obtain more time to replace systems.

“Energize Denver is right-minded, but with bad timing,” said Jeffrey Friedman, a partner in the Denver office of Hall Estill specializing in real estate law.

Upgrades will benefit the environment, improve the interior air quality and boost the long-term value of buildings, Friedman said. But for an owner who isn’t collecting enough rent to make the mortgage, requiring a new HVAC system is a big ask.

What is more likely to happen is that the cost of Energize Denver and other city initiatives will get worked into discounts on the final sales price of buildings as they switch ownership.

Johnston, like mayors before him, wants faster approval times for building permits and site plans, which can take two years or more to clear. Delays add to costs. He is offering a 180-day maximum approval timeline when permits and site plans are submitted together, backed up with fee refunds of up to $10,000 if the deadline isn’t met.

Projects will be assigned “champions” to help navigate the city process and improve the odds of an approval. Faster approvals, while not limited to downtown, should improve the economics of fixing up older buildings or constructing newer ones. The more active downtown buildings become, the more people there will be circulating on the streets.

Denver’s Yellow Brick Road

If downtown is the heart of Denver, then 16th Street is the spine of downtown, the corridor on which it either stands tall or slouches over. Since April 2022, that spine has undergone surgery, leaving downtown retailers reeling and visitors hesitant to drop by.

Completing the $175.4 million renovation can’t come soon enough for those who make a living along the corridor or who simply want to enjoy their time downtown. For downtown to get its flow back, the backhoes and construction equipment need to go, which should happen around Labor Day weekend.

Architects I.M. Pei, Henry Cobb and Laurie Olin designed the conversion of what had been a car-congested street into one of the country’s longest pedestrian corridors, linking two new transit hubs, the Broadway Station and the Market Street Station.

The corridor was branded as the 16th Street Mall and designed to compete with suburban development, a place to shop, dine, lounge around or walk to work. It became a place to hang out for locals and a destination for tourists.

The pavers contained a pattern modeled after the back of a rattlesnake and over time, they came to bite pedestrians. Some of the pavers shifted and turned into tripping hazards. When it rained or snowed, slick surfaces turned them into slipping hazards, especially for anyone wearing dress shoes.

By 2016, heavy wear and tear had taken its toll, and the pandemic, which cut foot traffic by 90%, left the corridor deserted.

In the spring of 2022, the city, in partnership with RTD, the Downtown Denver Partnership and the Downtown Denver Business Improvement District, began reconstructing the mall to improve safety and mobility, address deteriorating infrastructure and create more opportunities for residents, workers and visitors.

The renovation, set to wrap up by late fall, is a year behind schedule and $25 million over budget. Unexpected finds, including a brick tunnel, while digging 20 feet down for utility installations on the western blocks near Market Street caused delays, said Ryan Schmidt, vice president and district manager for PCL Construction’s Denver office.

Trying to preserve access for retailers along the mall also delayed progress. But a long list of businesses ended up closing their doors anyway. They include Colorado’s only Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, Panera, Mellow Mushroom, Hard Rock Cafe, Banana Republic, Sephora, McDonald’s, TJ Maxx, Ana’s Norwegian Bakeri, Jason’s Deli, Sofia’s Roman Pizza and more.

Last year, retail vacancies along the corridor were at 27%, five times the metro-wide average. But after the earlier sections of 16th Street reopening, the rate has fallen to 21% and several more leases are in the works, which should help refill empty storefronts, said Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

The fresh look for 16th Street includes smaller and more slip-resistant pavers — about a million of them. A lack of root space made it hard for trees to survive on the mall, but Schmidt said that problem has been addressed in the new design, which should result in a more vibrant canopy with taller trees. The original ones were too unhealthy to transplant, but they ended up in some of the furniture.

A new name accompanies the new look. The moniker Mall was more about marketing than reality, which confused out-of-state visitors expecting a shopping mecca. Downtown hung onto mall longer after the suburbs stopped using the term. On May 20, Denver caught up, returning the corridor to its original name,16th Street, with a new tagline — The Denver Way.

Several events are planned on 16th Street throughout the summer, starting with a concert by DJ Fisher that drew 5,000 fans on Memorial Day. That is being followed by the 16th Street Summer Kickoff on May 31 and June 1, with the IFSC World Speed Climbing World Cup; the 16th Street Grand Bazaar, featuring local crafts, clothing and food; the Skyline Beer Garden; and bands, buskers and art installations up and down the corridor.

Long a source of complaints, officials are counting on 16th Street becoming a source of compliments, an attraction rather than a distraction.

In a sign of how important he considers 16th Street to Denver’s future, Johnston has a large block-by-block map of it pinned on the wall in his circular office. He uses it to track reconstruction progress and chart updates on leasing activity at vacant storefronts.

“We want 16th Street to feel like a place where you’ll come and get lost. You can go there and end up at a great restaurant, in a great bar, in a great store or hanging out with friends,” Johnston said.

He envisions 16th Street as a basecamp for those heading to other parts of the state and a showcase of the best things Colorado has to offer. And he sees it as the pathway to downtown’s revival.

Should efforts be made to fill or repurpose buildings that abruptly emptied out when COVID-19 hit and remain underused due to changes in work routines?

READ THE FULL PROJECT: At a crossroads: Downtown Denver is waiting for its rebound

Business and civic leaders say “Yes” to all of the above.

• “Downtowns are a living room for your city. That’s where you’re supposed to have people when they come in,” said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.”

• “I believe that downtowns, especially Denver’s downtown, are the heart and soul of metro communities,” said Federico Peña, who preceded Webb as mayor.

• “As a former economic development person, I can tell you that having a vibrant and central core to a metro region is important in the long run if you’re going to build an economy that can serve multiple industries and be resilient through ups and downs,” said J.J. Ament, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

• “We’re 1.8% of the city’s overall land mass and pre-pandemic downtown represented about 13% of the city and county of Denver’s property and sales tax revenue. Today, we now generally represent only 8%. That equates to a decrease in the city’s revenue of $45 million annually,” said Kourtney Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership. Deciding whether having a robust downtown is still important, “in whatever form downtown takes moving forward, I’d say it’s pretty important,” Garrett said.

As in Denver, cities across the country are wrestling with how to restore the pre-pandemic hustle and bustle to recharge what has historically been a crucial economic engine. Approaches range from renovating or repurposing older, semi-vacant office buildings; boosting residential construction; and aiding small businesses.

While Denver leaders don’t think revitalizing downtown is a mission impossible, they say hurdles exist: fears about safety; tough-to-meet building codes; zoning restrictions; a bogged-down permitting process; and hybrid work schedules that keep office buildings semi-vacant.

“It does seem like we sometimes have one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake at the same time,” Ament said.

In the vast majority of downtowns in major metro areas, “I would would think that basically no one is at their pre-pandemic level of foot traffic,” said Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow at the Brookings Institution whose areas of expertise include commercial real estate. She called the post-pandemic recoveries of downtowns a mixed bag.

One factor could be a trend that was evident before work and commerce were largely halted by COVID in March 2020. Loh said downtown areas were experiencing a decrease in the use of office space because of “telework Fridays” and companies cutting expenses by shrinking their footprint.

Downtown’s overall office vacancy rate is roughly 35%, believed to be the highest rate on record for the city.

As to how urgent the problem is, Loh said Denver’s office vacancy rate is high “even relative to other downtowns that are not doing well.”

Before the pandemic, downtown Denver had “a much bigger share” of the region’s overall job footprint — 13.1% — than in many places, Loh said. In the city, the downtown accounts for 30% of the jobs, according to a new report by the Downtown Denver Partnership.

A concentration of jobs that supports businesses and produces high tax revenue relative to the real estate they occupy makes downtowns “extremely important to their regional economies,” according to a 2023 research piece cowritten by Loh. 

But rejuvenating the city’s core post-pandemic doesn’t mean business as usual. Loh co-wrote an earlier piece stressing the need for downtowns to evolve by modernizing offices, diversifying the mix of land uses and focusing on livability through public spaces, arts and safety.

Are downtowns still important?

For Rodney Milton, the question isn’t whether downtowns are still important. The conversation is more about the future of downtowns and the wisdom of building the core of a city around a central business district.

“It’s really the idea that you could have a single-use zone. Was that ever a good idea and if it isn’t, then how do cities that have chosen that path transform themselves?” asked Milton, executive director of the Urban Land Institute in Colorado and a city planner by trade.

ULI Colorado, one of the research and education organization’s largest district councils, is focused on the revitalization of Denver’s downtown and is working with business and other civic leaders. It’s a matter of taking what is the city’s most dense, compact and walkable area and reimagining it as a diverse neighborhood with a mix of uses rather than mainly a central business district, Milton said.

“What is the best way to go about doing that? You want to increase residents, so there’s your housing conversation,” Milton said. “You have to have the capacity to deliver a diverse type of housing.”

Cities where the downtowns were more focused on residents and varied uses rather than primarily centered on offices are the ones that are thriving, or at least haven’t been hit as hard economically, Milton said.

And while vibrant, multi-use areas that have developed in other parts of Denver and the metro area are important, Milton said, “… they’re not even remotely comparable to the economic engine that is downtown.”

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce is “politically and geographically agnostic,” Ament said. ‘We’re just as delighted to help something come to downtown Denver as we would be to Aurora or Lakewood or Lone Tree or any of the communities we serve.”

But no matter where companies might locate, they care about downtown Denver, Ament said. The state of what is a center for higher education, sports, entertainment and leisure matters to them because employers want to recruit and retain talented workers and employees “want to have the amenities that come with a vibrant urban core.”

Glenn Furton, an assistant economics professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, believes it’s important to have a robust city center with high density to allow for a lot of mobility in the labor market.

“Not just labor mobility in terms of being able to pick up and move, but being able to choose a new job or dip into a new labor pool if you’re a business without having to move. That’s the benefit of a city,” Furton said.

Gotta get the swag back

Peña, who was mayor of Denver from 1983-91, is a fan of reviving the horse patrol downtown. He believes officers on horseback will provide an extra sense of safety following problems that came up after the pandemic emptied out large portions of the area.

“And it brings fun and entertainment to visitors. They love the horse patrol,” said Peña, a senior adviser to the Colorado Impact Fund. 

A horse patrol is also a big nod to the city’s heritage, said Webb, who was mayor from 1991-2003.

“We have to appreciate our Western heritage and our new Western culture. We have to have a blend and a mix of both,” said Webb, founder and president of Webb Group International.

Peña and Webb ran the city during good and tough times. Peña took office as the economy in the middle part of the country started to sour. A bust in the oil and gas industry shook Denver and much of the Rocky Mountain region hard in the early 1980s.

“The first year in office I had to cut the budget,” Peña said. “I took 10 days of leave without pay and my fellow workers took five days leave without pay.”

Hours were cut at city recreation centers. There were a record number of foreclosures and bankruptcies.

“In Denver, after a year or two, our office vacancy rate was 30%. We were tied with Houston,” Peña said. “There was one year when the architects disappeared from Denver. They moved to Los Angeles. There was no business here. Downtown was hit hard.”

The city’s recovery strategy included building a new convention center downtown and making other investments through the Denver Urban Renewable Authority.

“We moved Elitch’s from north Denver into the current location. That spurred development,” Peña said. “We worked with the chamber (of commerce), with the Downtown Denver Partnership. We did a whole new downtown area plan. And slowly we made progress.”

City and business leaders are close to finishing a new downtown area plan. In a public meeting on May 21 to discuss the plan, project leaders identified seven major areas for development and investment, which include Denver’s Civic Center, Skyline Park, Upper Downtown, Upper Broadway/Arapahoe Square, the Cherry Creek/Speer Corridor, Central Platte Valley and the Ballpark/Sakura Square. Improvements could include expanding green spaces, creating pedestrian corridors, developing housing on underdeveloped sites, redesigning streets and activating the ground-levels of publicly-owned buildings.

That plan, along with the Denver Downtown Development Authority, approved by voters in November to issue $570 million in bonds, are intended to help rejuvenate the city’s core.

As Kroenke Sports and Entertainment builds its multi-use development around Ball Arena across Speer Boulevard from LoDo, it will be crucial to connect the site to the rest of downtown, Peña said.

“That development can enhance downtown. Downtown will be enriched,” Peña said.

But if the new development isn’t connected to LoDo,”that will become the new downtown,” he said.

KSE, owner of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, has filed a concept plan with the city that shows a two-branched pedestrian and bicycle bridge over Speer that would connect the development to LoDo.

Peña and Webb oversaw projects that helped catapult the city out of the economic doldrums: construction of Denver International Airport; landing Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams; and the construction downtown of the Coors Field baseball stadium and Ball Arena, home of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

The Denver Performing Arts Complex, down the street from the convention center, is the country’s second-largest arts center at 2.4 million square feet on 12 acres. Touring Broadway shows, the Colorado Symphony, Colorado Ballet and Opera Colorado are all featured at the complex, which has 10 performance spaces.

“People are coming from all over the region to come to the (arts complex),” Peña said.

The total attendance at the arts complex was 941,203 in 2019. During the pandemic, the numbers plummeted but rebounded quickly, reaching 890,150 in 2024.

More people working from the office every day would give downtown a charge, Webb and Peña each said. But they don’t expect the numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels. The return-to-office rate for downtown averaged roughly 60% in 2023 and 2024, according to the Denver Downtown Partnership.

Webb wants to see Denver build on the city’s major assets, such as the arts and sports attractions, to help spark a resurgence.

And there’s the power of swagger.

“The way I tried to sell it, in the ’90s early on, was, ‘Denver is the biggest, baddest thing going,'” Webb said. “We need to get back to walking with swag when we go to other places.”

Denver Post reporter Jessica Alvarado Gamez contributed to this report.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.