The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program — also known as Section 8 — helps low-income families, elderly individuals, veterans and those with disabilities afford housing in the private market. Program participants have their rent partially covered by a subsidy paid directly to the landlord. The family pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program.

The program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered by Colorado’s over 68 public housing agencies, has never been able to meet the needs of all the people in the state who are eligible to receive vouchers. Residents can languish on waiting lists for years. Others throw their names in a lottery year after year, hoping their numbers will be drawn this time.

But this year, many local housing departments say they can’t give out a single new voucher — and haven’t issued any so far in 2025 — mainly due to rising rents and not enough federal dollars.

The Denver Housing Authority, which manages roughly 8,000 current voucher participants, spent more than $167 million on the Housing Choice Voucher program in 2025 — nearly half of DHA’s annual budget. One hundred percent of the program’s funding comes from the federal housing department.

In September, the agency held its annual voucher lottery for the coming year. Every fall, up to 30,000 people enter applications.

Seven months later, however, HUD informed the housing authority that it projected a funding shortfall for DHA. This prompted the federal government to impose a series of cost-cutting measures to bring the numbers back in line, DHA announced for the first time in its summer newsletter.

The Denver Housing Authority, under this plan, agreed to:

• Not give out new vouchers in 2025
• Impose a 60-day limit to use existing vouchers
• Not accept out-of-town vouchers
• Not allow existing voucher-holders to move to more expensive areas of the city
• Not allow existing voucher-holders to move to more expensive units within Denver

DHA also asked landlords to forgo rent increases or keep their increases low this year. About half of housing providers who requested to bump up their rents are cooperating with this request, said Loretta Owens, the Denver Housing Authority’s director of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The other half declined the appeal.

“We’re hoping that all our efforts are successful and we can avert a funding shortfall,” Owens said in an interview.

On top of these new restrictions, recent federal changes mean DHA won’t be able to spend as much to help people with their rent.

The federal government in the fall lowered the Fair Market Rent for metro Denver, the average rent used to figure out how much vouchers can cover. As a result, DHA changed its Voucher Payment Standard — the most the agency can pay toward someone’s rent — to align with the new federal figures. The new limit will match 100% of HUD’s Fair Market Rent — down from 114%.

“This could affect which homes you can afford with your voucher,” DHA said in the newsletter outlining these changes.

For example, a one-bedroom under the 2025 Fair Market Rent is pegged at $1,789 a month, compared to $1,835 last year. A two-bedroom this year goes for $2,140, compared to $2,201 last year. The decrease means DHA may cover less of your rent. If rent stays the same, the agency said, you might have to pay more yourself.

These adjustments do not affect existing lease agreements, DHA said. New voucher holders and those looking to move, however, will need to look for units within the new monetary limits.

Funding shortfalls across Colorado

Denver is hardly the only Colorado city battling funding issues for its affordable housing programs.

Colorado Springs, the state’s second-most-populated city, says its housing authority received directives from HUD in December to pause issuance of new Housing Choice Vouchers.

The Colorado Springs Housing Authority opened its voucher waiting list in July to “maintain consistency and expectations in our community” and ensure the waiting list is current when vouchers can once again be issued, said Paul Spencer, the agency’s deputy director, in an email.

Arvada’s housing authority has a projected budget shortfall of nearly $1 million, the city said in its 2025 annual report, and will not issue new vouchers this year. The agency attributed the shortfall to HUD not including an inflation factor in its 2025 budget, as well as rising rents.

“HUD has made it clear that they have very limited funds to address (Housing Choice Voucher) shortfalls in 2025, and housing authorities should not operate their programs under the assumption that such funds will be available,” the city said in its annual report. “HUD has encouraged housing authorities to decrease the number of households served in anticipation of future funding cuts.”

Arvada, based on federal recommendations, needs to prepare for a reduction of approximately 55 households in the program, housing officials said.

Housing Catalyst, the housing authority covering Fort Collins and northern Colorado, hasn’t opened its voucher waiting list since 2023, a spokesperson said. People typically spend two to five years on the list before receiving a voucher.

“We continue to issue vouchers as funds are available, but with rising rents and uncertain federal funding, our opportunity to issue new vouchers is limited,” said Rachel Gaisford, an agency spokesperson, in an email.

Foothills Regional Housing, which covers Jefferson County, said it hasn’t pulled from its 5,884-family waiting list since 2022 and won’t be taking anyone new this year. Boulder Housing Partners says it won’t be opening its lottery. Englewood’s housing department also is not issuing new vouchers.

The Colorado Division of Housing, which serves over 8,000 households every year through its voucher program, said it has paused issuing new vouchers since last year as a result of “funding limitations.”

The state continues to issue Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing turnover vouchers and fill vacant Project-Based Voucher units, as these are not affected by the current voucher freeze, said Chynna Cowart, a Division of Housing spokesperson, in an email.

The only city polled by The Denver Post that said it would issue new vouchers this year: Sheridan. The 6,000-person Denver suburb plans to serve between 10 and 15 new families this year, a spokesperson said.

Federal changes loom

Colorado public housing officials are bracing for even further upheaval at the national level.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal government could include massive changes to HUD and its rental assistance programs. One of the biggest proposed moves: a two-year limit for individuals using housing vouchers.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner, at a June congressional hearing, argued that policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs.

“It’s broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,” Turner said. “HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.”

If families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households — largely working families with children — could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies, according to research from New York University.

Turner and three other cabinet members in May called on Congress to enact work requirements across a bevy of welfare programs, including federal housing assistance.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations on July 24 approved its fiscal year 2026 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill, which would provide HUD $73.3 billion next year — over $5.5 billion more than the funding level proposed in the House’s bill. The proposal rejects the substantial spending cuts and drastic policy changes included in the Trump administration’s funding request, including the proposal to redesign rental assistance.

Appropriators will now work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate bills and come to a final funding agreement by Oct. 1.

The budget outlook for public housing agencies in Colorado and around the country is not likely to get better anytime soon, said Deborah Thrope, deputy director of the National Housing Law Project, a nonprofit housing and legal advocacy center.

She’s seeing local housing authorities across the country deal with budget shortfalls and widespread uncertainty, making it difficult to know what’s coming down the pike.

“The challenges facing public housing agencies are unprecedented,” she said.

Ultimately, Thorpe said, it’s the people who receive federal assistance for their housing who will bear the brunt of policy changes such as time limits for vouchers and work requirements. Those two proposals will do nothing but cut people from the program, she said.

“Time limits don’t help people afford housing,” Thorpe said. “These are very harmful proposals.”

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Average rents rose from $1,819 in the first quarter to $1,832 in the second, but remain down 3.7% over the past year and are still lower than they were in the second quarter of 2023. That contrasts with a 3.8% increase nationally over the past year period in rental costs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“This increase is less than half of the typical increase during the second quarter over the past 20 years because vacancy remains elevated,” said Cary Bruteig, a researcher with Apartment Insights and author of the report, which is in its 45th year.

The overall vacancy rate fell from 7% in the first quarter to 6.4% in the second. A year ago, the share of unrented apartments was 5.6%. Vacancies were highest in Arapahoe and Denver counties at 7.1% and 7%, and lowest in Jefferson and Boulder counties, which were at 5.2%.

Some of that reflects the higher demand in the second quarter during the peak leasing season. But it also reflects a slowdown in the number of new apartments arriving. Over the past 12 months, there have been 15,798 new apartments added, but only 2,375 of those came in the second quarter.

As the pace of construction slows, demand, measured as the number of units occupied or absorption, has stayed strong. Over the past 12 months, there have been 11,184 apartments occupied, including 4,573 the second quarter.

“The number of apartments under construction has decreased by approximately a third from its peak in mid-2023,” Bruteig said. “This should lead to fewer new apartments completed in the quarters ahead.”

Bruteig estimates the oversupply situation will last through 2026, assuming absorption rates stay at around 11,000 a year. Slower migration and weaker job growth are two things that could weigh on apartment demand and extend the renter’s market.

New state and local regulations in many locales, especially Denver, which added an inclusionary housing ordinance to boost affordable housing, have combined with higher interest rates and construction costs to lower the number of multifamily starts, said Mark Williams, the association’s executive vice president.

Landlords continue to offer concessions to attract tenants. Those are averaging about 4.9% of gross rents, which is down slightly from earlier in the year. in dollar terms, landlords provided breaks worth about $90 a month on average.

The association’s survey was based on data from 248,812 apartment homes.

All over 14 parking spaces.

In April, the town of Telluride added new paid diagonal parking on a section of its main street, called Colorado Avenue. The 14 spaces are part of an experiment to creatively address an increasing parking crunch, Deputy Town Manager Hayden Brodowsky told The Denver Post by email.

The pilot is expected to run through the fall in hopes of adding capacity during the height of summer tourism and improving safety downtown. The new spots also help offset parking spaces lost due to current construction projects on Telluride’s main thoroughfare.

“With limited public parking options and increasing demand, the town launched this initiative as part of a broader strategy to expand availability, enhance safety, and support local businesses,” Brodowsky said.

The angled spaces, located on West Colorado Avenue between Davis and Aspen streets, replace what was previously a parallel parking zone in front of residential housing. Parking will revert to parallel in the winter to accommodate snow plowing.

But many of the people who own or occupy the homes for part of the year along that stretch of Colorado Avenue have been highly critical of the change, citing safety concerns for drivers and bikers, traffic congestion and negative effects on the town’s aesthetic.

“The diagonal parking creates a negative visual impact as you arrive into town,” said resident Rosie Cusack, who has lived in Telluride for 29 years. Her home abuts the new parking spots and she has seen safety issues both on the road and the sidewalks, which now get crowded with people. “It’s like this terrible vibe,” she said.

Cusack’s primary qualm is that there was an apparent lack of transparency around building the spaces and installing their corresponding meters. She believes that the town is using pilot programs as an excuse to implement new things without community input.

For people who work downtown, however, the spaces have made life easier. Currie Parnell is a guitar tech and sales associate at Telluride Music Company, located less than a block from the new parking spots. He lives outside of downtown Telluride, so he knows just how difficult it can be to find a place to park in the box canyon. The angled spots have been great in bringing customers to the music store, he said, because they are convenient and large enough to fit the kinds of trucks and 4×4 vehicles that typically roll through Telluride in the summer.

“We see a huge influx of business around festivals and July 4th,” Parnell said. “Foot traffic and car traffic picks up this time of year, so it really satisfies that demand.”

In July, an anonymous person or persons posted yellow signs near the spaces admonishing critics and implying that there is a wealth gap between them and those who are in favor of the parking. Homes in downtown Telluride are worth many millions of dollars. Property records show some on the 400 and 500 blocks of West Colorado ranging from $2.1 million to $6.6 million.

“Sorry your generational wealth can’t protect you from angled Toyotas,” read one yard sign. “Diagonal parking isn’t a bad idea, but letting wealth dictate urban planning is,” read another.

Telluride built a parking garage a few years ago to help meet the growing need for parking. Parnell thinks that was a good idea, but also called the angled spots “a quickly implemented solution, which is more straightforward.”

Plus, they generate revenue for the town because the spots are metered, he added.

On Tuesday, critics showed up in force at the town council meeting to express their concerns. One suggested the council members have a “premanufactured positive bias” of the pilot intended to strongarm it into a permanent change. Several said they felt their concerns weren’t being heard.

“Ninety percent of my residential neighborhood – which is two blocks, it’s small – is against this. I don’t know what more we can do to show you guys this,” said resident Erik Dalton during the public comment period.

One attendee accused council member Geneva Shaunette of ethical misconduct for submitting her own – notably positive – feedback of how she thinks the experiment is going so far. Shaunette, who lives on one of the blocks where the new parking spots reside, stated via the town’s feedback form, “I love the diagonal parking because I have only had to park on a side street once this entire summer. Otherwise, I’m able to park within 5 spaces of my front door. As a G permit holder, I have really felt the increase in space.”

The town attorney said Shaunette had not committed any ethical breach, but nonetheless the parking discussion ended with a heated exchange between the council and attendees.

“I identified myself, I made a comment, I don’t think that it’s less valid. I’m not financially benefiting from this in any way,” Shaunette said in the meeting. “We’re obviously having different experiences of the parking, and that’s part of making policy is everyone having different experiences coming together and sharing their opinions.”

Brodowsky, the deputy town manager, said he will continue to collect data throughout the summer regarding usage of the spots, the parking meters and any incidents reported. So far, the Telluride Marshal’s Office hasn’t observed any significant safety issues.

“Additionally, [the marshal’s office] has not received any formal complaints regarding close calls between vehicles and bicycles. The only observed traffic impacts have been brief pauses as drivers reverse out of angled spaces — none of which have led to congestion or documented safety issues,” he said.

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The project, known as Alexan RiNo, is planned to be developed into a 7-story and a 4-story mixed-use residential building, with one side of the complex taller than the other, containing approximately 300 units with an average size of 956 square feet, according to city records.

Early plans for the vacant site included over 200 housing units and a 30,000-square-foot grocery store, led by EXDO Properties, Elevation Development Group and Kentro Group. However, the grocery store proposal has recently been dropped because of delays in rezoning and other factors.

The residential units will offer a range of layouts, including studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom options, with some featuring possible balcony space.

Additionally, 10% of the units will be designated for households earning 60% of the area median income.

Aside from residential use, the development will feature 390 parking spaces and two loading spaces within an interior garage, about 4,500 square feet of ground-level retail space, as well as a leasing lobby, lounge, roof deck, pool, coworking space and two courtyard amenity spaces.

The project is bordered by East 36th Avenue, East 37th Avenue, North Downing Street and North Marion Street, located at the intersection of North Downing Street, Larimer Street and East 36th Avenue.

The approximately 2.3-acre site is currently used for surface parking. Planning documents show the project will include the demolition of existing retaining walls and utility poles on the property. Street lighting along sections of the project’s frontage will also be upgraded.

Property records show the parcel of land is owned by DOMA LLC, which is tied to EXDO Properties, a subsidiary of the EXDO Group family. EXDO Properties oversees the management of commercial and residential property throughout the Denver area, according to its website.

The lot is now under contract to be sold to Dallas-based Trammell Crow Residential, a real estate investment and development firm named in the project’s concept plan.

Representatives from Kimley-Horn and EXDO properties did not respond to requests for comment.

Updated 11:35 a.m. July 24 to clarify language about what kind of housing project is being proposed.

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As structured, nearly half of the proposed bond would pay for transportation, mobility and road safety projects, while about 25% would go toward improvements for city buildings and cultural facilities. Parks and recreation projects account for nearly 20% of the total. Further changes are still possible.

A couple of the proposed big-ticket items — for repairs, improvements and other work on the aging Sixth and Eighth avenue viaducts over Burnham Yard — would direct nearly $140 million in spending near one potential site for a new Denver Broncos stadium. That was among points that generated discussion during Tuesday’s committee meeting.

The 13-member council will take a first look at the Vibrant Denver bond package on Monday. It’s designed to provide a six-year funding stream for parks, transportation projects, health and human services programs, city facilities — new and existing — and housing and shelter efforts.

A final decision on whether to give voters a say on the measure is slated for Aug. 4.

“I think it is ready,” Councilman Darrell Watson said. “And we do not have time to delay this anymore.”

Watson, who represents District 9 in northern Denver, cautioned his colleagues against increasing the funding request from voters any further. Earlier this year, the prevailing estimate on the package’s size was $800 million.

“Nine-hundred-thirty-five million dollars is, I think, an extraordinary amount,” he said.

The Finance and Business Committee’s vote tally on Tuesday was 6-1, with Councilman Chris Hinds casting the lone no vote.

Some council unease about list

The meeting revealed fundamental unease — and some disagreement — among council members about which projects and which communities the city should prioritize for funding.

Hinds, who represents a central swath of the city, asked why improvements to East 13th and 14th avenues — between Broadway and Quebec Street — weren’t on the project list, given the number of accidents that happen on the one-way thoroughfares.

“I’m going to vote no because I don’t think this is ready,” he said.

Council President Amanda Sandoval spoke about the need to direct money to the West 38th Avenue corridor, where on Monday night a cyclist was killed by a hit-and-run driver near Tejon Street. The bond list includes about $55 million for multimodal and pedestrian safety improvements on 38th, from Sheridan Boulevard east to Fox Street.

But she worried that competition for Vibrant Denver funding could spur unwanted disputes between historically underserved neighborhoods.

“I do not want to pit Black communities against Brown communities,” Sandoval said.

Councilwoman Sarah Parady asked Patrick Riley, the bond program manager with Denver’s Department of Finance, whether improvements to the Sixth and Eighth avenue viaducts were getting big billing in the bond package because of the potential plans of the Broncos’ ownership nearby.

“It is impossible to ignore the Broncos as a thing in Denver,” Riley acknowledged. “So telling you that there’s no weight there, or that there’s no consideration there, would be insulting to everybody at this table.”

But he also said the condition of the viaducts has long been the subject of discussion and that work on them is an “independent need.”

The most expensive project listed is $89 million for the Eighth Avenue viaduct, including replacement of some of it with an at-grade road. Another $50 million would go to repairs and improvements on the Sixth Avenue viaduct.

What’s on the list?

Johnston announced the Vibrant Denver initiative in February. But getting council members and the mayor to see eye to eye on what should be funded, and at what level, has been a bumpy road in recent weeks.

In all, there are 59 projects listed for funding. Other high-cost items include $75 million for a newly consolidated first responder training center. Another $75 million would go toward making road improvements and building a railroad underpass at the National Western Center.

The buildout of a park on the former Park Hill golf course property would be allocated $70 million. Support for affordable housing projects by the city’s private partners would receive $50 million.

And Red Rocks Amphitheatre is identified to receive $39 million for backstage expansion and accessibility improvements. Riley pointed out that the iconic concert venue in Jefferson County essentially subsidizes Denver’s arts scene.

“Our arts and cultural health exists because Red Rocks allows it to,” he said.

Other notable projects include improvements at Boettcher Concert Hall, replacement of a Denver Health family clinic in west Denver, replacement of the Sixth Avenue and Lincoln Street bridges over Cherry Creek at Speer Boulevard, and renovations of the Denver Animal Shelter, the Montbello Branch Library and the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library.

Changes to the list in recent weeks — in response to council concerns — included more than a dozen projects added. At the same time, a project at the Denver Zoo was reduced from $50 million to $3 million, and a project for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science also took a hit, going from $10 million to $3 million.

Denver’s most recent bond programs were Elevate Denver, a 10-year, $937 million general obligation bond package approved by voters in 2017, and RISE Denver, a five-year, $260 million program approved in 2021 — both of which still have projects underway or in the queue.

The city says the bonds issued under Vibrant Denver wouldn’t result in a property tax increase because they’d replace earlier debt as it was paid off.

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“That is our dream for this precocious Queen City of the Plains, where we don’t believe in ‘can’t.’ We don’t believe in ‘impossible,’ ” the mayor said. “A place where we turn to each other, and not on each other. A place where we believe in working to build something bigger than us, that includes all of us and lasts longer than any of us.”

He cast his hopeful phrase as the opposite dynamic of “learned helplessness,” or the fear that no matter what someone does, it won’t make a difference.

Johnston, who last Thursday marked two years since being sworn into office, touched on homelessness, immigration, the revival of downtown Denver — with its 7 million square feet of vacant office space — and the city’s role in tackling climate change. Also, to knowing nods in the audience: the future of the Broncos in Denver.

“Yes, we will get a long-term deal to keep the Denver Broncos here in Denver,” the 50-year-old mayor said to several hundred people gathered for the 40-minute speech in the Seawell Ballroom at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Unlike in past years, the usual daytime speech was delivered at an evening event.

Johnston has scored successes in his first two years. Street homelessness has decreased in visibility under his tenure, the result of a massive sheltering effort. On Monday, the mayor said that data point has dropped by 45% since 2023 in Denver — “the largest multiyear decrease in unsheltered homelessness of any city in American history.” (Overall homelessness has risen, however.)

“We’ve closed every large encampment in the city, and reopened sidewalks to pedestrians and businesses,” Johnston said. “We have moved 7,000 people off the streets and moved 5,000 people into permanent housing.”

But there are layoffs of city workers in the offing — the first in 15 years — amid an anticipated $250 million budget shortfall. Johnston spoke about several other areas of challenge for the city during his speech, saying that efforts so far have not been “good enough.”

“We still have business owners on Broadway who don’t feel safe having staff members close up the shop and walk to their cars after work, and that’s not good enough,” Johnston said. “We still have teachers leaving our schools and nurses leaving our hospitals to move back home to the Midwest, because they can’t afford to live in this city anymore, and that’s not good enough.”

The mayor said the city is on the right track when it comes to public safety, noting that Denver’s homicide rate this year has dropped by 46%.

“Adjusting for population, our homicide rate this year is the lowest in the last decade,” he said. “Auto theft is down by over 50%, and catalytic converter theft has dropped by over 90%.”

He credited some of that improvement to better interaction between police and residents.

“We have officers out walking beats, building relationships with our neighbors on trust patrols,” Johnston said. “And in the midst of turbulent political times, our officers have stood up for freedom of speech and kept the peace at more than 200 demonstrations — both large and small over these last two years.”

Part and parcel of reviving downtown Denver, which was beaten down during the COVID-19 pandemic and then had to endure a multiyear 16th Street mall reconstruction project, is revamping the city’s permitting system, Johnston said.

Developers have complained for years that the city’s cumbersome construction permitting process takes far too long, adding costs to projects. In April, Johnston signed his first executive order, creating the Denver Permitting Office.

“We took a process that used to take three years and made a promise: Your permit will be done in 180 days or we’ll refund up to $10,000 in fees,” he said to applause.

But relations between Johnston and the City Council have not always been smooth of late, with some council members expressing frustration with the mayor for not paying enough attention to their concerns. One of those sticking points has been a mammoth bond issue that is being pitched to voters in the November election.

Through the measure, the city would pay for projects like road and park improvements by issuing debt if voters approve the “Vibrant Denver” bond package this fall.

Earlier this year, city officials estimated the proposal would reach about $800 million, but the most recent version — which isn’t yet final — totals $935 million, including contingency and administration costs as well as some added projects requested by council members.

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“Everything we said we were going to do we endeavored to do,” he said.

But the CEO of EXDO Group Cos. said it became clear six to nine months ago that he and his fellow Denver-based partners, Elevation Development Group and Kentro Group, would be unable to build a grocery store topped by apartments on a block they own in RiNo.

“That’s when Trader Joe’s didn’t work,” he said.

Last week, Dallas-based developer Trammell Crow Residential submitted plans to Denver for a 300-unit apartment complex on the 3600 block of Downing Street. Feinstein confirmed he’s under contract to sell the 2.3-acre site. TCR’s development proposal shows just 4,500 square feet of retail space in the building, meaning there won’t be a large grocery tenant.

“They’re going to do a great job,” Feinstein said of TCR, which declined to comment. But he acknowledged he’s “profoundly disappointed.”

The efforts by the three firms to bring groceries and residences to the site date to before the pandemic. Feinstein’s firm had bought much of the land in the mid-2000s, before RiNo was a thing and before a commuter rail stop landed nearby.

Redevelopment over the past 15 years has brought thousands of residents to the neighborhood. But the only grocery store that followed was a Natural Grocers on Brighton Boulevard, where options are limited.

“The two things that come up the most are we need a grocery store and we need more affordable housing,” Feinstein told Denver City Council members in 2019.

EXDO and Elevation, led by the Farber brothers, previously worked together on The Hub office building. Kentro, led by the Balafas brothers, is a grocery store specialist currently building a new King Soopers just off Colorado Boulevard.

For a while, the expected grocer was Sprouts, Feinstein said. He thought he’d secured the necessary city approvals. But then, he said, Denver told him he needed to rezone a small portion of the redevelopment site — a short stretch of Lawrence Street he’d bought from the Colorado Department of Transportation.

That delayed things about nine months.

“We lost Sprouts on the other side of the rezoning. … If we didn’t go through that process, there would be a Sprouts there that you’d be shopping at,” he said.

Feinstein and his partners tried to secure a replacement, which wasn’t simple. Every chain has unique requirements and wants a different-sized space.

“Trader’s is small, Sprouts is medium, Amazon (Fresh) is large, Target is larger,” he said.

There were other factors. Parking for a project like that is a challenge, he said. And across the country, high interest rates and construction costs have slowed development in recent years. Feinstein said Denver’s recent Expanding Housing Affordability regulations, which require residential projects to incorporate income-restricted units or pay a large fee — thus increasing costs, from a developer’s perspective — hasn’t helped.

Trammell Crow Residential, the firm under contract to buy the site, has developed a host of apartment buildings along the Front Range. Its buildings generally have “Alexan” in their name.

Feinstein and his partners weren’t the only ones trying to bring a grocer to RiNo.

About a mile to the southeast, retail landlord Edens has for years talked of bringing a grocer to the city block across from the Denver Central Market food hall.

Plans there have changed as well. The grocery store was originally going to be part of a large-scale redevelopment, which would have demolished structures in the 2600 block of Larimer Street and replaced them with apartments and new retail units.

Earlier this year, however, the company pumped the brakes on that and indicated it is now looking at repurposing the existing structures. A July 16 memo from Tracy Huggins, executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, states that from 2022 through mid-2024, Edens “attempted to secure a partner to construct the residential project but was not successful.”

While the residential units are no longer included in updated plans Edens has submitted to Denver, a planned grocery store still is.

Documents show it would go in a new 12,500-square-foot building to be constructed at 27th and Lawrence streets, but don’t identify a particular grocer. A local Edens executive didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

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Montana-based BlueLine Development sent plans to Denver last month calling for a 58-unit income-restricted apartment complex that would replace a sizable chunk of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church at Ninth Avenue and Emerson Street.

BlueLine did not respond to a request for comment. The church, which has built housing in the past, declined to comment. Local firm Shopworks Architecture drew up the plans.

Our Savior’s Lutheran has been around since 1881, and at 915 E. Ninth Ave. for about a century. It built an addition in the early 1960s that runs along an alley on the east side of the lot, which spans about two-thirds of an acre.

The proposal calls for a 40,000-square-foot building designated as senior housing to replace the addition, wrapping around the existing church building from the alleyway and onto Emerson Street in an L-shape. It would stand four stories tall.

Public records show the project is in the running for public financing. BlueLine is asking for $2.8 million in state and local tax credits along with $13.5 million in tax-exempt bonds from the quasi-governmental Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. It’s one of 16 developments in Denver and 35 statewide in the running for the limited pool of tax credits that CHFA distributes twice annually.

Our Savior’s Lutheran has built housing before. Next door to its property sits Emerson Gardens, a three-story, 30-unit income-restricted apartment building for seniors. It was built on church-owned property in the late 1980s.

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Mile High Development and BMC Investments, both Denver-based firms, submitted plans to the city last month for a new nine-story, 196-unit apartment building on a third of the 4-acre parking lot for RTD’s Colorado Station light rail stop at 4301 E. Evans Ave.

The submission comes eight months after Denver-based Delwest submitted plans to build apartments on the same spot. The site is directly south of the Colorado Center office campus, which consists of a pair of 12-story office towers and an additional 13-story one.

A representative for Mile High Development did not respond to a request for comment. A Delwest spokeswoman said the company is still pursuing development of the lot.

The competing submittals, however, is something that RTD had anticipated. The transit agency follows a specific process when it receives unsolicited proposals, which involves seeing if other developers are interested in the same site.

“In the case of Colorado Station, multiple developers have expressed interest in the site in recent years,” RTD spokeswoman Tara Broghammer told BusinessDen via email.

Both projects would be income-restricted housing. Otherwise, however, the two submissions differ greatly.

Delwest’s plans call for development of the entire parking lot. Two 20-story towers would have 315 units apiece. There would also be a six-story, 55-unit apartment building with a few townhomes in front of it. The buildings would have a total of 15,000 square feet of retail space and 23,000 square feet of amenity space, along with 700 parking spaces, some reserved for RTD users.

Mile High Development and BMC, meanwhile, are proposing to put a building on just the southwestern corner of the parking lot. It would come with fewer parking spaces, no retail space and a smaller amenity offering.

Mile High and BMC have worked together before. In September, they broke ground on a 210-unit project near the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora. It will be reserved for those making 30 to 70% of the area median income.

Other RTD lots around town have attracted developer attention.

In Five Points, local developer Jeff Shanahan is building 62 income-restricted condos at 2907-2915 Welton St. after the agency solicited proposals. At the Central Park Station, RTD is negotiating with one developer, and a second developer has expressed interest in building on a separate part of the station’s parking lots.

And earlier this month, the transportation agency submitted initial plans to rezone its 41st and Fox Station parking lot into something with higher density, in anticipation of future interest there. The site is just south of the 41-acre Fox Park development going up where Interstates 70 and 25 meet.

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The school failed to take action to protect students from Nicholas Jordan, the 26-year-old man who killed his roommate Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Montgomery, 26, who was visiting Knopp on campus on Feb. 16, 2024, Montgomery’s mother, Melody Montgomery, alleged in the lawsuit.

Jordan was convicted of the killings and sentenced to life in prison in April.

The 27-page lawsuit lays out a timeline of problems Jordan had on campus that started in early December 2023 and continued up until the February double homicide, including complaints that he sexually harassed multiple women on campus, used significant amounts of marijuana, did not clean and threatened his roommates.

Jordan asked to move out of his campus housing because he had a “bad roommate problem” on Dec. 7, 2023, the lawsuit alleges. He made several additional requests to move out in the coming weeks, but was caught up in school bureaucracy — his request to move was repeatedly stalled because he did the paperwork incorrectly, the lawsuit alleges.

Knopp also reached out to school officials to ask that Jordan move out. The roommates had several disputes between December and February, and campus police responded to complaints about Jordan on several occasions, including one instance in January in which Jordan threatened to kill Knopp because he was “snitching” to school police.

The school’s Campus Assessment Response and Evaluation Team, which exists to handle concerns about student behavior, was aware of Jordan’s conduct and discussed it on multiple occasions, but took no other action, the lawsuit alleges. The team is authorized to coordinate welfare checks, investigate student behavior, refer students to mental health services and take a variety of other steps to ensure campus safety, the lawsuit alleges.

“Defendants knew or should have known of the potential harm that could result from a mentally distressed person abusing drugs who threatens to kill his roommate by virtue of UCCS’ own polices and procedures,” the lawsuit states.

Melody Montgomery, who is now caring for her daughter’s two children, who are 9 and 7, is seeking monetary compensation, the lawsuit states.

Christopher Valentine, a spokesman for CU Colorado Springs, did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.

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