Real Estate Development

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Last week, Denver voters received their ballots for the November 7 municipal election.  In addition to considering a $937 million bond issuance and a Denver Public Schools Board election that has garnered national attention, Denver voters will decide whether to mandate the construction of “green roofs” on large buildings throughout the city.  The proposed ordinance would apply to all new construction and every “roof replacement” on buildings of 25,000 square feet or more beginning in January 2018.
Continue Reading Denver Voters to Decide Fate of Green Roof Initiative in Upcoming Election

California Investor Buys former StorageTek/ConocoPhillips Campus in Bid for Amazon

In a bid to have Amazon select Boulder County as its much-ballyhooed second headquarters, California’s Bancroft Capital recently went under contract to purchase the 432-acre property (depicted below) in Louisville that is the former home of StorageTek.  The property is currently owned by ConocoPhillips. Bancroft also developed the Peloton project in Boulder.
Continue Reading Updates from Boulder County: A Bid for Amazon, Google Buys Property, and Senior Housing

On Monday night, the Denver City Council approved an ordinance creating Denver’s fifty-third historic district: Packard’s Hill Historic District. Located in the West Highlands neighborhood, the District spans north to south from 35th to 32nd Avenue, and east to west from Lowell Boulevard to Perry Street.  The new district encompasses eight city blocks, and includes thirty-nine Queen Anne-style houses, twenty-nine bungalows, and twenty-six classic cottage houses dating from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Continue Reading Denver City Council Designates Packard’s Hill Historic District in West Highlands

David Brewster, a summer law clerk with Otten Johnson, authored this post. David is a rising third-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Rapid population growth and lagging infrastructure development in the Denver Metro Area are re-energizing a debate between advocates of long term growth strategies and “slow-growth” advocates. Recently, a Lakewood-based grassroots group known as Strategic Growth for Lakewood submitted more than 7,500 signatures supporting a growth management initiative for the upcoming general election. The initiative’s proposed ordinance would limit new residential unit developments to 1% of exiting units in a given year. Additionally, the ordinance would require City Council approval and public hearings for projects of 40 or more residential units.
Continue Reading Revitalizing a Rocky Mountain Debate: “Slow-Growth” Strategies v. Long-Term Planning

As previously reported on this blog a Colorado Court of Appeals decision in 2015 allowed a developer/declarant to retain a right to consent to amendments to a common interest community’s declaration that require arbitration of construction defect claims.

The Colorado Supreme Court has now weighed in on the case involved, which is known as Vallagio at Inverness Residential Condo. Ass’n v. Metro. Homes, Inc., affirming the decision of the Court of Appeals.

Vallagio involved a residential development in which the declaration, created pursuant to the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (“CCIOA”) included certain dispute resolution provisions, including an arbitration requirement.  The dispute resolution provisions also stated that those provisions could “not ever be amended without the written consent of the Declarant,” who was the developer of the project.
Continue Reading Colorado Condominium Construction Defect Issue: Colorado Supreme Court Affirms the Right of Declarants for Condominium and Other Common Interest Communities to Require Binding Arbitration of Disputes