Asher Luzzatto is coming back for seconds.
The developer requested $29 million from the Denver Downtown Development Authority in late March to help convert one of the Denver Energy Center’s two office towers into apartments.
“This is a really critical location to add residents,” Luzzatto said. “I think the low-cost nature of these units is going to be really helpful for maintaining reasonable rents.”
Luzzatto submitted the application a week after being awarded DDDA funding for a separate downtown residential conversion.
Denver Energy Center is a 28- and 29-story, two-tower office complex at 1625 and 1675 N. Broadway totaling 785,000 square feet at the entrance of the 16th Street Mall. Luzzatto bought the property for $5.3 million, or $6.80 per square foot, in December 2025.
His plan is to convert the vacant 1625 Broadway tower into 386 apartments, while 1675 Broadway remains office space. He said he wants to put a market inside the complex, along with a gym and coworking space. But Luzzatto noted that he does have some more ambitious ideas.
“We are talking with even larger potential grocery partners,” he said. “We do really want to get a grocer in downtown. For us, it’s a key component.”
The total price tag on the project is $145 million, according to the application. The requested DDDA funds would be used for the residential tower only, Luzzatto said, adding that at a cost of $75,000 per unit, it would be the lowest of any DDDA-backed residential conversion.
“This is their low-cost option at their high-priority location,” he said.
The office tower, meanwhile, is seeing a flurry of leasing activity. Luzzatto said he’s in negotiations with multiple tenants representing a combined 100,000 square feet.
Currently, 1675 Broadway’s office space is about 20% occupied.
“It’s becoming clear to me that the discrepancy between Cherry Creek and downtown occupancy will not continue if the downtown rents are reset to a basis where tenants again see the value in being there,” Luzzatto said.
He added that gross rents have pushed below $30 per square foot for some spaces within the building. CBRE reported that the average Upper Downtown net asking rent was $37 in the first quarter of 2026.
Luzzatto emphasized that his projects are also cultural as much as they are residential or office. To make his slice of downtown attractive again, a perception change is needed.
“Art culture needs to be a part of the urban revival, or else otherwise it’s just another development,” he said.
Luzzatto launched his own in-house design firm, Atelier 111, to help accomplish that feat. He is also relocating to Denver from Taos, New Mexico, to be closer to the action.
The developer is already in the midst of another office-to-residential conversion down the street, at 621 and 633 California St.
That project, which received a $63 million DDDA loan in March, has already done some of the cultural programming Luzzatto described, putting on live music performances inside the building’s vacant spaces.
“We’re still on track to submit for permits in July,” he said of the 621/633 development. “We’re still on schedule and a lot of this will just come down to where the debt markets end up being over the next couple of months and where construction costs end up landing.”
