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COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— December 2-December 15, 2015
Greater Denver
by John Rebchook
Businesses in Cherry Creek
North generated about $10 mil-
lion in retail sales tax revenue
for the city and county of Den-
ver last year, which is believed
to be a record.
And Cherry Creek North is
only getting started as far as
revving its economic generation
engine.
“Iwould say that CherryCreek
North is undergoing its larg-
est redevelopment in 25 years,”
said Julie Underdahl, president
and CEO of
the Cherry
Creek North
B u s i n e s s
Improvement
District.
“I think it
was in the
early 1980s
that Cherry
Creek North
experienced
this level of redevelopment,”
she said.
The Cherry Creek North
Business Improvement District
recently analyzed a great deal of
data, including tax revenues and
office and retail leasing activity.
“Cherry Creek North is expe-
riencing an unprecedented eco-
nomic upswing and the data
clearly indicates that people
want to live, work, visit and do
business in this thriving neigh-
borhood,” Underdahl said.
Restaurants and hotels, the
largest category of sales tax col-
lections in Cherry Creek North
in 2014, was up 6.4 percent from
2013.
Clothing and accessories, the
second-largest category, saw
revenues jump 9.1 percent.
Also, there was a “9.7 percent
increase in office employment
and almost 400,000 square feet
of new office and retail space
under construction,” Underdahl
said.
The average office worker’s
annual salary in 2014 was a
whopping $142,500.
“I don’t know of any place else
in Denver, and I suspect very
few places in the country, where
the average office worker makes
$142,000,” Underdahl said.
“I think that is something
that really stands out and really
surprises people,” she said.
The retail vacancy rate was
a mere 3.9 percent in 2014. It
peaked at 14 percent during the
Great Recession of 2009.
“The vacancy fell while lease
rates rose,” Underdahl said.
So far this year, 17 new
businesses have opened their
doors in Cherry Creek North
with more announcements
being made monthly.
These businesses include
financial, oil and gas, cloth-
ing, food and beverage, health
and personal care, and services
industries.
Several well-known national
retail businesses chose Cherry
Creek North as the place to open
their first stores in the Denver
area, Underdahl noted.
All told, there is another
250,000 sf of retail and office
coming to Cherry Creek North,
adding to the base of 1.3 million
sf of office space and about 1
million sf of retail space.
While Cherry Creek North
always has been known as a
tony retail destination, one
exciting development is that
the number of hotel rooms will
more than double.
There are 519 hotel rooms
either underway or planned in
three hotel projects. Two of them
are being developed by Matt
Joblon of BMC Investments,
which is based in Cherry Creek.
The other hotel is being devel-
oped by Navin Dimond of
Stonebridge Cos.
Currently, there are 230 hotel
rooms in Cherry Creek North.
“Cherry Creek already is the
No. 1 visitor destination in Colo-
rado and these new hotel rooms
will give us the ability to stay as
the No. 1 destination and create
This pie chart shows a breakdown of economic metrics for Cherry Creek
North.
A snapshot of rising retail lease rates in Cherry Creek North
A snapshot of retail vacancy rates in Cherry Creek North
Julie Underdahl
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