Denver saw $600 million less in commercial construction activity in 2024 compared to the prior, according to city data.
BusinessDen analyzed all commercial construction permits issued by Denver between 2017 and 2024. Last year, that work was valued at approximately $1.6 billion, a 28 percent drop from 2023’s valuation of nearly $2.2 billion.
It’s the second straight year of declining commercial construction valuations. In 2022, that figure topped $2.7 billion.
And while there was a development boom coming out of the pandemic, as builders took advantage of low interest rates, the recent high water mark for development continues to be 2019, the final year before Covid swept in. Commercial construction valuation was $2.9 billion that year.
Here’s how those valuations are calculated.
On the surface, Denver’s apartment construction seems robust. New buildings have popped up along I-25 and in hot neighborhoods like RiNo and LoHi, with more on the way.
But last year’s total multifamily valuation of nearly $530 million is a far cry from its recent 2022 high, when the total cost of new construction surpassed $1.2 billion.
Even more pronounced is the lack of new office buildings permitted since the pandemic. Just a few years ago in 2018, apartment building valuations were only about $150 million more than its office counterpart.
That difference is now higher than all of 2024’s office building valuations alone.
Methodology:
All data was provided by the City and County of Denver. Afterwards, all commercial construction permits were put into a new dataset and then organized by a code that identifies the building being permitted.
One commercial construction permit from 2021 that had no code and valuation was dropped, along with one $4,500 permit from 2018 for electrical work that was filed as commercial construction. That same year, 10 permits totalling $1.54 million were filed for “one family attached (Townhome 3 + units).” No other year had any permits in that category, so it was dropped from the analysis.
There were three different rows for alterations, additions and conversions (although one was just alterations and additions) so they were combined into one row. A single $8,312 addition/alteration/conversion permit in 2023 was dropped when comparing 2023 to 2024.
