I am doing a short blog entry this week because I am headed to Denver tomorrow for a visit with family and friends and to spend time enjoying the Denver Metro area and exploring new developments around the region. This should give me lots of new material for future blog entries.
I am very excited about my visit to Metro Denver but wish I had a more optimistic blog topic than the one I am thinking about today: Will the global credit squeeze derail any of the large privately financed development projects underway in Metro Denver?
Today’s Rocky Mountain News reports that German lender HypoVerinsbank has pulled its $175 million construction loan for Spire (http://www.spiredenver.com/) , the 41-story residential condominium tower, in downtown Denver. (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/real_estate/article/0,1299,DRMN_414_5694959,00.html ). This news story made me very nervous.
According to the Spire development team, they believe they will be able to find a new lending partner and the loss of this financing will not impact the tower’s construction which has already begun. I hope they are right on both accounts.
Ultimately this incident raises the question: Is this an isolated occurrence or the first in a series of adverse consequences stemming from global capital market corrections which will impact locally in Colorado? Only time will tell but, as a Denver booster, I am hoping it is the former. Denver is poised to make important strides in improving the quality of its downtown built environment through private capital investments and it would be a huge shame if momentum was lost due to forces beyond local control. A View of the Rockies will be paying close attention to this issue in the coming weeks and months.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Unfortunately, it has affected the spire's construction since activity on the site has ceased for almost 3 weeks now.
Post a Comment