5280 – Savvy buyers will take chances on Denver’s next-big-thing neighborhoods—and cash in, if they choose correctly.
Savvy buyers will take chances on Denver’s next-big-thing neighborhoods—and cash in, if they choose correctly.
Forget Wash Park and Highland. And honestly, Sloan’s Lake, Baker, and Berkeley aren’t really up-and-coming anymore either. (Pssst: They’ve already arrived.) That doesn’t mean, however, that the next “it” Denver ’hood isn’t out there. We polled nearly a dozen real estate experts to find out where they’d consider taking calculated risks—and why.
Neighborhood: West Colfax
Current vibe: Centered on its namesake artery, West Colfax is bustling but dated in a rundown-motel kind of way, with pockets of artistic revitalization.
Transformative factors:
- Community investment in projects like a redesign of the dangerous interchange at West Colfax Avenue and Federal Boulevard
- Spillover development from the amenity boom in adjacent Sloan’s Lake (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Tap & Burger Sloan’s Lake, for example)
Look for: Recently constructed townhomes starting in the $400,000s
Caveat: Thanks to an amendment that restricted slot home designs (see Prediction 4), inventory may dip while developers literally go back to their drawing boards.
Neighborhood: Sun Valley
Current vibe: Industrial lots coexist with mainly public housing, and the area is isolated from most city amenities by waterways and poorly planned thoroughfares.
Transformative factors:
- A $376 million public housing redevelopment plan that will raze 333 subsidized housing units and replace them with 750 new mixed-income units, including moderate-income and market-rate homes, by the end of 2024
- A master plan to overhaul the parking lots surrounding Broncos Stadium at Mile High into a walkable urban entertainment district
- The ambitious, estimated 20-year RiverMile project that would create a bustling waterfront enclave along the South Platte River
Look for: New-build multifamily residences (prices are TBD as Sun Valley is an untested market for new construction)
Caveat: Construction chaos will play out in this historically low-income neighborhood for years, as will passionate debates about the ramifications of resident displacement.
Photo courtesy of Will Strathman.
