Residents of the Highland neighborhood are gearing up for their annual Highland Street Fair that takes place this Saturday June 14th. If you haven’t been before this is the Northwest Denver community event not to be missed.

The event starts at 10 am on Saturday June 14th and runs until dusk.  Click here for a lineup of the bands.

Taking place in the heart of the Highlands on 32nd Avenue running up and down from the intersection at Lowell the Highland Neighborhood closes down the street for a pedestrian party.  They bring in tons of great food providers, arts and crafts, vendors, bands, entertainers, and children activity providers. It is a true community effort.  Most of the local neighborhood comes out to celebrate and enjoy everything the Highlands Street Fair has to offer.

My quick words of advice are to plan (if you are close enough) a bike ride as your commute to the event or if you are driving try to arrive on the early side.  With the main road of 32nd closed and many of the roads already filled with residential use parking does tend to be a bit tricky.  This event gets more popular every year and a bike is a great way to free you from the headaches of parking.   For those of you who live farther than a local bike ride don’t forget you can also drive and park near any of the local B-Cycle stations and leave your car there to enjoy a bike ride via our city’s great Bike Sharing Service.

You can see a map of the local B-Cycle stations on our B-Cycle Friendly Listing page that allows you to search for real estate based upon bike sharing capabilities.  Pretty cool huh?

Quick Facts

• Free Event–no charge to attend the fair
• Held annually for 30 years and counting
• Attracts over 40,000 visitors
• Live music from local bands play a variety of music throughout the day on 2 stages
• Tasty food from a variety of cuisines
• Beer and other liquid refreshments available
• Over 150 artisan vendors of jewelry, clothing, home accessories, and all other kinds of fun stuff
• Classic Car Show
• Fair runs 10 am-dusk

To learn more about the great Annual Highland Street Fair visit their website or facebook page.

While you are there you might want to check out the amazing Highland neighborhood, which is comprised of the Lower Highlands (LoHi) and West Highland communities.    These are two of Denver’s hottest neighborhoods to live in.  We know because our website at DenverUrban.com tracks the top trending neighborhoods every hour, day, week and month to keep track of what our clients and website fans are most interested in.

To request more information about these great Northwest Denver Neighborhoods or any of the great Denver Neighborhoods we specialize in (see the list here) just drop us a line.

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The post Annual Highland Street Fair this Weekend appeared first on Denver Urban Living.

Riverfront Park’s History:  An Empty Rail Yard to a Master Planned Community

Many people don’t realize that Riverfront Park, which has consistently been number one in our most popular neighborhoods, has a great deal of design and vision based upon the fundamentals of a Colorado Ski Resort.

The Developer, East West Partners, who originally purchased the approximately 20 acres of land that would eventually become Riverfront Park began with roots and experience developing resort real estate communities such as Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch, Arrowhead, Vail, Park City, and Northstar at Tahoe.   If you have ever skied Beaver Creek you know just how special this ski village is.  The village offers great open spaces to enjoy (ice skating rink, fire pits, creekside paths) and the surrounding buildings are designed to make you feel like you have entered a European village.  Don’t forget about the fresh baked cookies that Vail Resorts friendly employees pass out to ski visitors.  It’s pretty amazing.  Two things are very evident when you are at Beaver Creek.  The village is beautiful, clean, and safe.

So how did a Resort Real Estate Developer become the visionary for Riverfront Park.  The vision started before any developers got involved.  If you look waaaaaaay back at the urban planning documents for the area you see they included a lot of the elements of a park, public space, and mixed use.  Under Denver’s mayor Webb a deal was created with then landholder Trillium to provide the area called “The Commons” and would eventually become Common’s Park” to the city in exchange for the city implementing needed infrastructure for development.  For those who remember this area at the time there was little except vacant rail lines and dirt.   Mayor Wellington Webb was quoted as saying “I wanted parks to be my legacy, and I saw parks as a value-driven investment—an investment that would enhance surrounding areas.”

It was an investment to be sure.  Decades of the land being used as a rail yard meant investing remediating the brownfield railroad land that had accumulated coal dust.  Looking at Riverfront Park now it is hard to imagine what this land once looked like.

In 1997, the city government and the County of Denver Planning and Development Office, and Trillium Corporation and Design Workshop, released a comprehensive urban design plan that included the various design elements of the neighborhood (architecture, signage, parking, pedestrian flow, set backs, lighting, etc.) and the major public amenities including the  set aside for the more than 20 acres for the centerpiece park and integration of the Cherry Creek Bike Path.  It was a brilliant plan and design for everything we see today.

And that may be why East West Partners leapt at the chance to buy the land with partner Crescent Real Estate for  a reported $25 per square foot. and develop here.   Which is exactly what happened next.

Building a Heart of Riverfront Park

The first area of development focus was the Plaza in Riverfront Park in what I like to think was a great example of building the heart of a community.   A beautiful Architectural design became a reality as the Millennium Bridge and open Plaza Public Space took shape.  Around this plaza, three initial buildings were built (2002) as Riverfront Park welcomed The Promenade Lofts, the Park Place Lofts, and Riverfront Tower.  These three buildings remain some of the most popular addresses to call home in Denver, and a balcony facing the plaza or Commons Park is a coveted amenity.

At roughly the same time these initial buildings were coming to market land was being sold to Apartment Developers to build what is currently the Station and the Manhattan and commercial tenants were sought to fill those first floor spaces in the Plaza.  When you visit a ski village it’s nice to have great places to eat, drink, and shop outside your front door.  This lesson was not lost on the Riverfront Park project as we slowly saw INK Coffee, Zengo Restaurant, McLoughlins Pub and other enjoyable tenants were recruited to continue making Riverfront Park an amazing place to live.

The Master HOA Provides Beauty and Security

One of the great amenities within Riverfront Park has nothing to do with architecture.  It is all about place making, perhaps taken from the principles of Beauty, Cleanliness, and Security that are fundamentals of a Ski Village.  Riverfront Park implemented a Master HOA, meaning that every resident of the entire neighborhood is a member.  This Master HOA is funded by payments from residents, meaning in addition to your building HOA fees you have a smaller fee that gets added on.

This fee does something pretty amazing.  It is used to employ a team that works throughout the neighborhood keeping everything beautiful.  They plant, maintain and seasonally change out the various landscaping features and planters in the neighborhood.  They put up holiday lights and other aesthetic elements.

And perhaps of the most value, these funds employ off duty police officers to provide security and assistance in the neighborhood.  When people talk about reasons they love living in Denver’s Riverfront Park the story almost always includes the peace of mind they have on their morning run, walking their dog in the park, venturing out with tickets for a Rockies, Broncos, Nuggets or Avalanche game (all walking distance) or returning from a night of dining in LoHi or LoDo.  It is pretty amazing.

Off duty police officers offer a very unique advantage.  They can enforce the laws.  If someone is misbehaving, or causing a disturbance, Denver’s finest can quickly resolve the situation and their presence in the neighborhood has a value unique anywhere in our city.

Let’s face it, you can’t get a whole bunch of buildings, let alone the residents within, to agree on the same thing very easily.  Duplicating this benefit anywhere other than in a master planned community such as Riverfront Park would be tough.

There are so many reasons why Riverfront Park is an amazing place to call home.  It has, without question, the benefit of one of the most amazing locations in Denver adjacent to the new Union Station with awesome transportation access.  Riverfront Park enjoys being our Central Park neighborhood with acres of green space and trails to enjoy.  And of course residents constantly share their love of the accessibility to great restaurants in LoHi, LoDo, West Highlands and more.

To learn more about living in this amazing neighborhood contact us today.

Helpful Links in your Search

• Riverfront Park Listings
• Union Station Listings
• Highland / LoHi Listings
• West Highland Listings
• Riverfront Park Buildings
  • Creekside Flats
  • Creekside Lofts
  • Creekside Townhomes
  • Glass House
  • Monarch Mills
  • ONE Riverfront
  • Park at ONE Rivefront
  • Park Place Lofts
  • Promenade Lofts
  • Riverfront Tower
  • The Art House
  • The Art House Townhomes
  • The Brownstones
  • The Delgany

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The post How Riverfront Park’s Master Planned Approach Creates an Urban Advantage appeared first on Denver Urban Living.

Oh Denver, we love you so.

It is easy to forget just how wonderful our city is. That is, unless you sit down next to someone who can’t stop raving about it. On a recent excursion to Jax downtown, one of Denver’s ultimate Oyster hangouts, I met some great transplants who had recently moved from Boston.

The first compliment I picked upwas that they were from Boston and loving their meal at Jax. East Coasters know their seafood. Some of my dear friends are from the East Coast and I can assure you they can be very particular (and rightly so) about defining what qualifies as good seafood. I was absolutely thrilled when they shared their wonder and delight in finding that one of the most land locked cities in the country had such great seafood. I asked if they were Sushi lovers, they were, and thus I shared my own love for Sushi Sasa.

Needless to say they were thrilled and put the Sasa experience on their next to do list.

Mr. and Mrs. Boston were in their early 30’s and had their own independent business, one that they could do from anywhere in the country. Their reason for relocation was simple.

Denver had more opportunity and price attractive real estate than any other city in the nation. With a sparkle in their eyes they shared the great love affair they had with Denver. We all know how expensive the big cities can be. They shared how they were living like sardines in their previous city for far far FAR more cost per month. For what they were paying in Boston they could have (and do have) a huge spacious downtown Denver loft.

Even more important, at least for their transition to Denver, Commercial real estate spaces in the downtown are so much more attractive. For small business owners, entrepreneurs, and growing companies the Denver market offers more than a great place to live, it offers a great place to kick start a company. And the positive energy of our city again helps in providing affordable rents for these companies to recruit new talented employees.

Coming from a bigger city they also shared something we already knew… our secret is out. They said that Denver is the talk of the nation, at least in terms of relocation. Everyone knows about our 300 plus days of sunshine, the great new transportation developments making our city car optional, and the completely amazing energy of all the new restaurants, bistros, pubs and more that are opening in and around Denver.

The also believe the change over the next 5 years is going to significant. All those people who know how great living and working in Downtown Denver is will be driving demand. How much will the Denver Urban world change in terms of pricing and availability over the next few years. Riverfront Park and Union Station Neighborhood are within a year of having the new King Sooper grocery store open AND the new rumor is that a second grocery store is planning to come in as a rival. That rumor is circling around the words “Whole Foods”. If that rumor is true then we say WOW! If that rumor isn’t true there is still a huge WOW factor as the downtown gets a huge new grocery later this year.

Don’t forget that Denver’s historic Union Station train terminal will open on July 12, 2014. This new project will include eight new restaurants, a branch of Denver’s Tattered Cover Bookstore, a Little Man ventured ice cream shop, a cocktail lounge and beer garden, retail stores and an independent hotel. And that is just the Union Station building. What will be on the other city blocks waiting to be built?

The words of these new arrivals to Denver rings true. Denver does get better every day, day after day.

Driving through LoHi and Northwest last night it was simply amazing to see the energy everywhere. Old Major, Linger, LoHi Steak Bar were packed with happy Denverites enjoying meals and laughter with friends. I had just departed Ernies (44th and Federal) with our pizza to go for a relaxing movie night in and was thinking how full fun and festive Ernies had been. I paused and glanced in every spot I passed on my way back and it was the same fun and vibrant environment everywhere I looked.

I think if we just pause to look around we can see what other cities see…. the best place to live (and start a business) in the nation. For those searching for a new downtown Denver home or condo timing can be so important. Today’s market is challenging, it is part of the reason the Denver Urban team specializes in being the BEST at the Downtown Denver market. When everyone realizes how wonderful a market is the homes in that market, especially the great ones, tend to move fast.

Prices continue to be on the move and knowing how to make the BEST offer while making it a SMART offer is the key to getting your dream home under contract. That is what the Denver Urban team does for our clients. Whether you are seeking the high rise lifestyle of a condo in the Glass House in Riverfront Park or a historic Denver Square Bungalow in LoHi our team is available to find the property to match your goals and budget. For those looking to relocate to Denver contact us for a relocation information package.

Just browsing for the time being?  Here are some very helpful links in your search.  You will notice one (of many) thing that makes Denver Urban so unique.  We organize our neighborhoods based on how locals know them.  It’s not just Northwest Denver, it’s Highland / LoHi, West Highland, Riverfront Park, Jefferson Park, Sloan’s Lake, Stadium District and more.  See the complete list of our Denver Urban Neighborhoods here.

• Top Trending Denver Neighborhoods (Denver’s Hottest Neighborhoods REAL TIME)
• List of all Denver Neighborhoods
• Top Trending Denver Buildings and Hi Rises
• All Denver Urban Buildings
• Top Trending Listings (Most Viewed Denver Homes)
• The Average Per Square Foot Report for All Denver Neighborhoods (VERY COOL)

Welcome to our new Boston Transplants again!  We are here to help.  Contact us to learn more about relocating to Denver or finding a Denver Urban dream home today.

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