In luxury apartment-rich Denver, Parq on Speer building shooting for the moon


What do you do in a rental market where seemingly every new apartment building is offering a boatload of amenities and high-end finishes? If you’re Charleston, S.C.-based apartment developer Greystar you double down and build an extra luxury project.

That’s what’s going on at 909 Bannock St. where Greystar and general contractor Milender White are about six months from completion of the Parq on Speer apartment building.

The 16-story building’s 301 units — 38 studios, 124 one-bedroom apartments, 101 two-bedrooms, 16 three-bedrooms, 16 penthouses and four townhomes — range in size from around 540 square feet to more than 3,400. All come with hardwood floors (not laminate, Greystar officials emphasize) gas stoves, tiled backsplashes and so-called “smart home” technological features like lighting that can be controlled through a Bluetooth connection, Nest smartphone connected thermostats and Wifi enabled entry.

Outside of the apartments, Parq on Speer will include 50,000 square feet of amenities including a pool deck and a covered dog park. On days where owners may not want to take their pooches across the street to Sunken Gardens Park to do their business, they can take them to the fifth-floor patch of covered turf, complete with irrigation system.

Valet parking and 24-hour concierge service will be part of the deal.

The pool and hot tub area ...
Joe Amon, The Denver PostThe pool and hot tub area on the sixth floor as seen from a penthouse on the sixteenth floor at the Parq on Speer on Feb. 20, 2019, in Denver.

“I think this project will reset people’s expectations when it comes to amenities just given the scale of what we’re offering,” Bo Champan, Greystar’s senior director of development, said on a tour of the property Wednesday. “We’ve got so many different unit types, it appeals to a lot of different potential renters that appreciate this higher level of finish.”

The first move-ins aren’t expected until summer, but preleasing starts next month. Studio rents start at $1,600 — more than the median cost of a one-bedroom in the city in January, according to online marketplace Zumper. At a time when more than 27,000 apartments are under construction in the metro area and almost as many are planned, Chapman and Greystar aren’t worried. They feel the market for what they’re doing — high-end condo finishes in an apartment building — is untapped.

“The renter pool nationally and especially locally is growing,” Chapman said.

Related Articles

Previous In $21B deal, GE to sell life sciences business to CEO's old firm
Next Plaza 25 at Village Center sells to California group