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14 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / June 2019 Leading and building projects with the best people and ideas gejohnson.com The Coloradan Denver, CO Where Are All of Those Condominiums? C ondos, condos, condos. For several years, the prevailingwisdomwas that after years of for-sale condominium construction at a near standstill, the market was hungry and de- velopers would surely respond with an onslaught of new product. Potential buyers not quite ready for or financial- ly able to afford a single-family home were eager to break into the real estate market, everyone agreed. They would put down deeper roots and eventually trade up to a single-family home. That all seems sound. The problem is that after several years, available new condominiumproduct isn’t showing up, and people ar- en’t buying what is there at the rates predicted. According to recent residential building permit data fromUnited States Census Bureau, the number of mul- tifamily units permitted in metro Denver declined 5% from 2017 to 2018, dropping to 11,487 units. While most of these units are apartments, some estimates suggest that about 3% of these are condos, which means we’re not seeing the predicted flood that we once anticipated. This isn’t to say we’re anywhere near the levels we experienced prior to construction defects reform. There are new condominium projects coming on line – some of which we are involved in – but data shows that sin- gle-family attached unit sales are in decline. While most analysts blame this on a lack of inventory, the de- crease is marked, to the tune of 5.3% from 2017 to 2018, according to Colorado Comps LLC, the Denver Metro As- sociation of Realtors and REcolorado. However, some multifamily projects that could be delivered as condos are leaning toward an apartment model. Intuitively, those of us serving thismarket all an- ticipated many more units would be available by now. Through our own project work and conversations with several local participants in the market, there is a quiet but common question being asked: Where are all the condos? Much has been written about the impact of the con- struction defects legislation. While recent legislative modifications have not squarely addressed the “right- to-cure” defects issue, they have changed the way a homeowners’ association can pursue legislation. The result has been a series of expensive, but slightly im- proved, half-measures that have enabled some condo projects to move forward. To mitigate the state Legislature’s omission of “right- to-cure” measures, each project teamhires a peer review firm with expertise in the building’s exterior enve- lope and other relevant components. That firm inde- pendently reviews construction documents (drawings and specifications) and then tests actual parts and sys- tems during installation. At the end of construction, the developer provides the HOA with detailed building op- Martin Goldstein Principal Architect, Venture Architecture Bridging the Gap