A rendering of the Cherry Creek West project. The redevelopment project got key approvals from the Denver City Council this year. (Courtesy East West Partners)
It’s been a year.
Around the region, fewer developments broke ground. Interest rates didn’t fall as much as had been expected. Post-pandemic changes began to feel permanent. The stock market climbed steadily all year, surging further after the presidential election.
But amidst the uncertainty, business didn’t stop. And BusinessDen was there to cover it.
In the midst of the daily stream of property sales, restaurant openings and litigation, a few themes emerged in our newsroom in 2024.
Big projects OKed in Cherry Creek, by Ball Arena
Two major projects in the planning stages for years, which will take a decade or more to build out, got key city approvals in 2024.
First was Cherry Creek West, the moniker for a seven-building project that will replace the west end of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.
Developer East West Partners, which first announced the 13-acre project in late 2021, got unanimous approval from the Denver City Council in September for its requested rezoning and correlated development agreement.
Demolition at the site is expected to begin in the spring, East West said at the time, with the first buildings breaking ground in summer 2026.
A month later, it was Ball Arena’s turn. Billionaire Stan Kroenke, who owns the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, plans to build essentially a new neighborhood on the 45 or so acres of parking lots that surround it. Kroenke is also involved with The River Mile, which will do the same thing across the railroad tracks where Elitch Gardens now operates.
The series of City Council votes related to Kroenke’s proposal in October were approved nearly unanimously. Council member Amanda Sawyer did vote against removing a city view plane that covers part of the property.
The building at 101 W. Colfax Ave. opened in 2006. (BusinessDen file)
City buys Post building
The City of Denver picked up some new office space in 2024, buying the building at 101 W. Colfax Ave. that formerly housed The Denver Post.
The deal was first proposed in late 2023. The City Council approved the purchase in January, and a related financing setup in March — both times with a vote of nine to four.
The 11-story, 305,000-square-foot building was sold not by the newspaper but rather by an affiliate of New York-based American Properties, which bought it in 2006 for $93.42 million.
Denver paid $88.5 million, or $290 a square foot, for the building. That was $4.5 million more than its appraised value.
The purchase was made to allow for an expansion of the city and county court system.
Denver, VC firm have messy break up
Two years after Denver hired a venture capital firm to invest a portion of tax dollars from marijuana sales in local companies, the two parties announced in July they would go their separate ways.
The settlement ended a lawsuit that Danielle Shoots’ DEMI Fund filed against Denver earlier in the year.
As part of the agreement, Denver agreed to pay nearly $800,000 that DEMI had said it was owed. Shoots had said her firm fronted this money to contractors when the city stopped transferring tax dollars to DEMI.
The city set aside 1 percent of marijuana tax revenue from 2022 until 2025, which was expected to total roughly $15 million, to support minority and women-owned businesses. Sometimes that took the form of direct investments in companies, meaning Denver received an ownership stake in the firms. Other times, it took the form of grants.
BusinessDen found that DEM invested in at least one firm, Ad Fontes Media, that had no traditional physical presence in Denver, despite DEMI’s contract with the city specifying that companies receiving funds must be “physically located” within city limits.
RiNo property owners Sonia Danielsen, left, and Tai Beldock have led a push to disband the RiNo Business Improvement District. (BusinessDen file)
A new Denver GID, while others are livid about the BID
Denver has various quasi-governmental general improvement districts and business improvement districts — GIDs and BIDs — that generally use tax dollars to market an area or fund things such as security and trash service.
The Ballpark neighborhood voted in November to create a GID.
Across Broadway in RiNo, however, some property owners opposed the renewal of the neighborhood’s BID, saying it had become ineffective and had engaged in questionable spending. That renewal is still pending, although the BID’s board has promised to make changes.
In east Denver, meanwhile, a strip mall owner attempted in December to exit the Colfax Mayfair BID — apparently the first time that had ever been requested in Colorado. The City Council declined to allow it.
Ibotta goes public, as Inspirato and Fluid struggle
A big name in Denver’s startup scene went public in 2024, while two other notable firms faltered.
Rebate app Ibotta began trading on the the New York Stock Exchange in April, and saw its stock price jump on day one. That didn’t quite continue — shares were down more than one-third as of late December.
The company founded in 2012 also decided to move its headquarters within downtown Denver. BusinessDen broke the news in October that the company was eyeing 16 Market Square, at 1400 16th St. Ibotta announced a month later it had signed a lease there.
Things didn’t work out the same for vehicle rental app Fluid Truck, which was founded in 2016 as Fluid Market. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was sold for $10 million in December. Fluid had raised at least $80 million from investors.
Vacation rental club Inspirato, meanwhile, was founded in 2011, and went public through a SPAC deal in 2021. But the company’s stock has declined 98 percent since then, and there have been multiple rounds of layoffs. The latest round of cuts came in August, when Inspirato announced it had a new investor, who was also being named CEO.
One of the new CEO’s first moves? Going after a lavish perk that had been granted to Inspirato’s co-founders.
Hyde Park Jewelers’ flagship store inside the Cherry Creek Shopping Center is seen on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (BusinessDen file)
Natural Grocers closure highlights crime frustration
Although it by no means started in 2024, retailers continued to struggle with crime this year.
Natural Grocers closed a location along Colfax in Cap Hill in October, despite having years left on its lease. The Lakewood-based chain cited theft and unspecified “safety issues,” and otherwise declined to comment further, but records obtained by BusinessDen showed that Denver police received 113 calls for service to the 1433 Washington St. property in the first nine months of the year.
Another local grocer, Pete Marczyk of Marczyk’s Fine Foods, told BusinessDen in November that he was fed up with Denver’s “culture of permissiveness.”
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much reason for people to not shoplift. I mean, we just have to depend on the kindness of strangers to not do it,” Marczyk said.
And don’t think it’s just Colfax. In July, a jeweler within the Cherry Creek Shopping Center was burgled. Denver police have said little to nothing about the incident, which closed Hyde Park Jewelers for days, but in November an FBI spokeswoman told BusinessDen the agency was investigating similarities between the Cherry Creek incident and an incident in Aspen that month.
A rendering of the Cherry Creek West project. The redevelopment project got key approvals from the Denver City Council this year. (Courtesy East West Partners)
It’s been a year.
Around the region, fewer developments broke ground. Interest rates didn’t fall as much as had been expected. Post-pandemic changes began to feel permanent. The stock market climbed steadily all year, surging further after the presidential election.
But amidst the uncertainty, business didn’t stop. And BusinessDen was there to cover it.
In the midst of the daily stream of property sales, restaurant openings and litigation, a few themes emerged in our newsroom in 2024.
Big projects OKed in Cherry Creek, by Ball Arena
Two major projects in the planning stages for years, which will take a decade or more to build out, got key city approvals in 2024.
First was Cherry Creek West, the moniker for a seven-building project that will replace the west end of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.
Developer East West Partners, which first announced the 13-acre project in late 2021, got unanimous approval from the Denver City Council in September for its requested rezoning and correlated development agreement.
Demolition at the site is expected to begin in the spring, East West said at the time, with the first buildings breaking ground in summer 2026.
A month later, it was Ball Arena’s turn. Billionaire Stan Kroenke, who owns the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, plans to build essentially a new neighborhood on the 45 or so acres of parking lots that surround it. Kroenke is also involved with The River Mile, which will do the same thing across the railroad tracks where Elitch Gardens now operates.
The series of City Council votes related to Kroenke’s proposal in October were approved nearly unanimously. Council member Amanda Sawyer did vote against removing a city view plane that covers part of the property.
The building at 101 W. Colfax Ave. opened in 2006. (BusinessDen file)
City buys Post building
The City of Denver picked up some new office space in 2024, buying the building at 101 W. Colfax Ave. that formerly housed The Denver Post.
The deal was first proposed in late 2023. The City Council approved the purchase in January, and a related financing setup in March — both times with a vote of nine to four.
The 11-story, 305,000-square-foot building was sold not by the newspaper but rather by an affiliate of New York-based American Properties, which bought it in 2006 for $93.42 million.
Denver paid $88.5 million, or $290 a square foot, for the building. That was $4.5 million more than its appraised value.
The purchase was made to allow for an expansion of the city and county court system.
Denver, VC firm have messy break up
Two years after Denver hired a venture capital firm to invest a portion of tax dollars from marijuana sales in local companies, the two parties announced in July they would go their separate ways.
The settlement ended a lawsuit that Danielle Shoots’ DEMI Fund filed against Denver earlier in the year.
As part of the agreement, Denver agreed to pay nearly $800,000 that DEMI had said it was owed. Shoots had said her firm fronted this money to contractors when the city stopped transferring tax dollars to DEMI.
The city set aside 1 percent of marijuana tax revenue from 2022 until 2025, which was expected to total roughly $15 million, to support minority and women-owned businesses. Sometimes that took the form of direct investments in companies, meaning Denver received an ownership stake in the firms. Other times, it took the form of grants.
BusinessDen found that DEM invested in at least one firm, Ad Fontes Media, that had no traditional physical presence in Denver, despite DEMI’s contract with the city specifying that companies receiving funds must be “physically located” within city limits.
RiNo property owners Sonia Danielsen, left, and Tai Beldock have led a push to disband the RiNo Business Improvement District. (BusinessDen file)
A new Denver GID, while others are livid about the BID
Denver has various quasi-governmental general improvement districts and business improvement districts — GIDs and BIDs — that generally use tax dollars to market an area or fund things such as security and trash service.
The Ballpark neighborhood voted in November to create a GID.
Across Broadway in RiNo, however, some property owners opposed the renewal of the neighborhood’s BID, saying it had become ineffective and had engaged in questionable spending. That renewal is still pending, although the BID’s board has promised to make changes.
In east Denver, meanwhile, a strip mall owner attempted in December to exit the Colfax Mayfair BID — apparently the first time that had ever been requested in Colorado. The City Council declined to allow it.
Ibotta goes public, as Inspirato and Fluid struggle
A big name in Denver’s startup scene went public in 2024, while two other notable firms faltered.
Rebate app Ibotta began trading on the the New York Stock Exchange in April, and saw its stock price jump on day one. That didn’t quite continue — shares were down more than one-third as of late December.
The company founded in 2012 also decided to move its headquarters within downtown Denver. BusinessDen broke the news in October that the company was eyeing 16 Market Square, at 1400 16th St. Ibotta announced a month later it had signed a lease there.
Things didn’t work out the same for vehicle rental app Fluid Truck, which was founded in 2016 as Fluid Market. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was sold for $10 million in December. Fluid had raised at least $80 million from investors.
Vacation rental club Inspirato, meanwhile, was founded in 2011, and went public through a SPAC deal in 2021. But the company’s stock has declined 98 percent since then, and there have been multiple rounds of layoffs. The latest round of cuts came in August, when Inspirato announced it had a new investor, who was also being named CEO.
One of the new CEO’s first moves? Going after a lavish perk that had been granted to Inspirato’s co-founders.
Hyde Park Jewelers’ flagship store inside the Cherry Creek Shopping Center is seen on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (BusinessDen file)
Natural Grocers closure highlights crime frustration
Although it by no means started in 2024, retailers continued to struggle with crime this year.
Natural Grocers closed a location along Colfax in Cap Hill in October, despite having years left on its lease. The Lakewood-based chain cited theft and unspecified “safety issues,” and otherwise declined to comment further, but records obtained by BusinessDen showed that Denver police received 113 calls for service to the 1433 Washington St. property in the first nine months of the year.
Another local grocer, Pete Marczyk of Marczyk’s Fine Foods, told BusinessDen in November that he was fed up with Denver’s “culture of permissiveness.”
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much reason for people to not shoplift. I mean, we just have to depend on the kindness of strangers to not do it,” Marczyk said.
And don’t think it’s just Colfax. In July, a jeweler within the Cherry Creek Shopping Center was burgled. Denver police have said little to nothing about the incident, which closed Hyde Park Jewelers for days, but in November an FBI spokeswoman told BusinessDen the agency was investigating similarities between the Cherry Creek incident and an incident in Aspen that month.
