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Building Stapleton, One Neighbor at a Time

Diana Kearns, ABR, Managing Broker.
Michael Kearns, GRI, e-PRO, Managing Broker.

RE/MAX City Horizons @ Stapleton • 2373 Central Park Blvd. • Denver, CO 80238 .

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Bursting pop-tops' bubble:
Stapleton lures many feeling squeezed in Denver's established areas

By Christine Tatum, Denver Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 6, 2004

For reasons as simple as wanting a bigger place to store shoes, Stapleton has disrupted longstanding migration patterns in Denver, real estate agents say. (VIEW STAPLETON SALES CHART)

None of the redevelopment's 19 builders underestimate the power of a spacious place to hang clothes. Boulder-based McStain touts closets with windows. Infinity Home Collection trumpets a walk-in for him - and one for her.
Who's snapping up the houses attached? The closet- deprived: According to developer Forest City, more than 90 percent of homebuyers in the redevelopment of Stapleton airport move from more established Denver neighborhoods - particularly Washington Park and Park Hill, where closet space is notoriously hard to come by.
Given that 12,000 homes are expected by about 2016 in what is now the nation's largest urban infill project, the shifts are likely only to intensify - and to make it increasingly tough for owners of some older homes to fetch top dollar for their digs.

Before Stapleton - and nearby Lowry - came along, real estate agents say, the typical story went something like this:

Couple buys $350,000 bungalow. Loves strolls along mature, tree-lined streets. Baby comes. Bungalow feels smaller. New parents want more space upstairs - especially before baby No. 2 arrives. Contractor presents estimates for remodeling. Parents, feeling faint, put beloved bungalow up for sale and head for the suburbs or to a larger house in their neighborhood - if they can afford one.

Wash Park residents often headed to Park Hill, where they could find a greater diversity of homes at a bigger range of prices. Now they're looking elsewhere.

"Until Lowry and Stapleton, people who wanted to live in the city didn't have many options to buy new," said Nancy Brauer, an agent in Park Hill for Re/Max of Cherry Creek. "Now that they can choose a home built just for them, they aren't willing to put up with some of the things they used to."

Some of those things are especially apparent in Washington Park, where "pop- tops" - bungalows typically remodeled in the mid-'80s to early '90s - abound, said Laurie Erb, an agent specializing in that neighborhood.

Desperate for more room, a number of families added second-floor bedrooms and finished-off attics. Complicating the transformation, Erb said, were city rules that once restricted home heights to prevent the blockage of light in neighboring yards. As a result, many of today's pop-tops have awkward floor plans and roof pitches.

"I look back at the stuff that we thought was the cat's meow and say, 'What were we thinking?"' Erb said. "On paper it is a lot of square footage, but those floor plans are goofy and dated today, and people aren't willing to tolerate them."

Hardly anybody is weeping just yet for people who bought in Denver 10 years ago - particularly in Wash Park and Park Hill. Between August 2003 and August 2004, home sellers in those two neighborhoods collected nearly their entire asking price, according to Metrolist, a real estate market research firm.

Erb said the party for some folks won't last. People wanting to sell pop-tops - especially those priced between $500,000 and $700,000 - may need to start adjusting downward as the now 2- year-old Stapleton continues to grow.

She pointed to one client who recently managed to sell a pop-top only after lowering the asking price by about $150,000.

Homebuilders in Stapleton say it has been easy to sell against the older competition - a claim underscored by lottery systems that developer Forest City imposes to decide which builders go where in the 4,700-acre development.

The latest single-family homes for sale - a collection of light and airy houses with expansive great halls built by Greenwood Village-based Infinity Home - range in size from 2,448 square feet to 3,214 square feet and in price from $427,900 to $495,900.

"I've got kitchen islands bigger than some kitchens in Wash Park," said Infinity general manager Dave Steinke.
Stapleton celebrated the sale of its 1,000th home in July to former North Park Hill residents Andrew and Kristie Kelley.

When they needed more room to accommodate their first child and a home office, Kristie Kelley said, they didn't consider older homes in Park Hill or Washington Park.
"I've seen their closets," she said.

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Building Stapleton, One Neighbor at a Time

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Building Stapleton is a service of The Kearns Team and is not affiliated with Forest City Stapleton, Inc. or The Stapleton Development Corporation. Material for this website has been developed by The Kearns Team and obtained from Forest City Stapleton, Stapleton Builders, The Denver Metro Economic Development Corporation, the City and County of Denver, Denver Public Schools, and other sources. Material is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.