XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.homosexuality, alt.politics.trump   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: shitholes.say.thanks@barackobama.com   
      
   On 03 Jan 2024, "Trump - Inmate Number P01135809"   
    posted some news:un4ura$3cpb0$1@dont-email.me:   
      
   > Trump owns me lock stock and barrel.  If he told me to follow his dog   
   > and eat his crap, I would.   
      
   It’s pretty apparent that most office workers enjoy the perks of working   
   from home and are loath to go back to a daily commute, leaving a lot of   
   downtown Denver’s skyscrapers half-empty on any given weekday.   
      
   What’s less clear is exactly what that means for the future of those   
   office buildings. There’s a lot of real estate that isn’t being used, but   
   not a lot of solid plans for what to do with it. Intuitively, converting   
   some of it into apartments makes sense, but that’s easier said than done.   
      
   The one thing that is all but certain is that many office buildings are   
   worth significantly less money now than they were before the COVID   
   pandemic. Republic Plaza — the largest office tower in Colorado and an   
   icon of the Denver skyline since it was built in the 1980s — is worth less   
   than half of what it was valued at in 2012, according to loan documents   
   for the property. That loss equates to hundreds of millions of dollars.   
      
   Appraisals aren’t an exact science, and the building could eventually   
   recover some of that value. But even so, it’s definitely not worth what it   
   was just a few years ago, according to Vivek Sah, director of DU’s Burns   
   School of Real Estate and Construction Management. The same holds true for   
   much of the office real estate downtown, he said.   
      
   “The value's not gonna go back to what it used to be,” Sah said. “We are   
   seeing [that] across all the markets in the country. It's not ever gonna   
   be the same .… If you add what’s happening in our downtown in terms of   
   homelessness and crime and other concerns, the downtown market is going to   
   shift.”   
      
   Indeed, it’s hard to see a turning point for the office market in downtown   
   Denver anytime soon. Nearly a quarter of the office space downtown is   
   vacant, meaning the landlord doesn’t have a paying tenant, real estate   
   services firm CBRE said in a recent report. On top of that, companies that   
   are paying rent are trying to offload a record amount of space because   
   they aren’t actually using it.   
      
   “Availability has shown few signs of plateauing,” CBRE analysts wrote in   
   the report.   
      
   Similar to home prices, commercial real estate prices tend to be cyclical,   
   moving in tandem with economic conditions. To that end, the slowdown in   
   the technology sector is taking a toll on Denver’s office real estate   
   market. At the same time, commercial landlords are heavily reliant on   
   borrowed money, making the sector especially vulnerable to rising interest   
   rates.   
      
   But the current downturn – spurred by a fundamental shift in how offices   
   are used – runs deeper than those kinds of cyclical issues.  It could have   
   far-reaching consequences for the future of cities that have long relied   
   on a busy hive of office workers to bring energy and commerce downtown.   
      
   Another big thing office buildings bring to cities is tax revenues.   
   Denver’s bottom line will eventually take a hit if millions of dollars in   
   property value evaporates.   
      
   “The city has to budget for that because it’s gonna happen .… The city has   
   to not rely on whatever that contribution was towards their revenues and   
   go from there,” DU’s Sah said. “For anybody relying on those values to go   
   back up to the … levels a few years back … it’s not realistic.”   
      
   Property taxes are a critical component for city budgets, helping fill the   
   coffers for everything from schools and police pensions to libraries and   
   affordable housing initiatives. Office buildings accounted for roughly 20   
   percent of the $1.8 billion in property tax revenues collected by Denver   
   County in 2022, second only to single-family residential properties,   
   government data show.   
      
   Just like Colorado homeowners, the state’s commercial landlords recently   
   received an updated assessment of their property values. Unlike the   
   state’s homeowners, many office landlords aren’t facing steep tax hikes.   
   The value of downtown office buildings didn’t really budge since the last   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)