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Colorado - Mon. 08/26/24 |
A Free Business Publication from Alpine Bank
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COLORADO HAS 300,000 HOMES AT RISK OF WILDFIRE, PUSHING INSURANCE COSTS UP
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CoreLogic’s 2024 Wildfire Risk Assessment shows Colorado has an estimated 321,294 homes, valued at $141 billion, at risk of being destroyed by wildfires. The CoreLogic report is very influential in the determination of insurance rates. Colorado homeowners have seen their insurance costs escalate faster than the rest of the country because of wildfires and hailstorms. At least one analysis found home insurance rates increased in the state by 19.8 percent between 2021 and 2023. Another study, by Verisk Analytics, evaluates the cost of home reconstruction after a disaster, which is also used by insurance underwriters. That study reported Colorado had the second-highest increase in post-disaster reconstruction costs in the country, behind only New Hampshire. The cost to rebuild a house rose 9.05 percent in Colorado between July 2023 and July 2024. Colorado also had the second-highest jump, 11.57 percent, in rebuilding commercial properties.
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WORKERS HAVE NOT RETURNED, DENVER’S OFFICE VACANCY MAYBE HIGHEST EVER
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Real estate firm JLL reported the overall office vacancy rate in Denver rose to 33.8 percent in the second quarter of 2024, up from 31.8 percent in the first quarter. The total vacancy rate metro-wide was 24.8 percent. Researchers at JLL said the second quarter vacancy rate was the highest on record going back to 1999. Vacancies may have been higher in the mid-1980s during the oil and gas bust in the region. Real estate firm CBRE said the current rates of occupied space are about 15 percent lower than the 2011-2020 period. One of the few areas in Denver not suffering from the low vacancy rates is Cherry Creek, where office vacancy rates are in the single digits.
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COKE JOINS PEPSI IN BUILDING LARGE BOTTLING FACILITIES NEAR DIA
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Swire Coca-Cola, Colorado Coca-Cola manufacturer and distributor, plans to build a bottling facility, covering 570,000 square feet on 97 acres at Tower Road and Peña Boulevard, near Denver International Airport, in DIA’s Second Creek Campus commercial district. Denver City Council approved a $270.7 million, 75-year ground lease agreement with Swire Infrastructure Inc. in April 2023. The agreement allows Swire to “construct and operate a manufacturing, bottling and distribution facility,” near DIA. The agreement with Denver also gives Swire the right of first refusal for 30 additional acres and three eight-year lease extension options. Construction at the Swire Coca-Cola facility near DIA is expected to begin in early 2025. Next year will also see the completion of the PepsiCo Inc. bottling plant, three miles from Coca-Cola's new facility. The PepsiCo plant covers some 1.2 million square feet and will be the company's largest manufacturing facility in North America.
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CPW: $39 MILLION RAISED BY SALE OF KEEP COLORADO WILD PASSES
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As part of the financial summary for its fiscal year, officials of Colorado Parks and Wildlife reported Thursday to the Parks and Wildlife Commission that the first year of sales of Keep Colorado Wild passes, while registering vehicles in the state, raised $39.7 million. Some 1.5 million Colorado residents purchased a Keep Colorado Wild Pass while registering their vehicles. CPW officials had set a goal of raising at least $36 million annually through the program. Of the funds raised, $32.5 million will go toward park maintenance and development, the next $2.5 million toward search-and-rescue teams, and $1 million will go to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Any additional revenue will go to wildlife projects and outdoor educational programs.
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LOCAL GROUP, DENVER SOUTH, ADDRESSING TRAFFIC GROWTH WITH STATE TAX CREDITS
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A group in the south metro Denver area, Denver South, is encouraging and recruiting businesses to take advantage of a little-known program of state tax credits to get workers out of cars and reduce traffic on the I-25 corridor. Denver South covers a region including parts of Arapahoe and Douglas counties, and cities of Centennial, Lone Tree and Greenwood Village. Denver South has 15,000 businesses with about a quarter of a million employees. Their study forecasts traffic to increase from the current 252,000 vehicles at the I-225 exchange to 289,000 by 2050. Denver South is encouraging businesses to apply for state tax credits as a means to reduce single-occupant vehicles, relieve congestion and reduce air pollution. The tax credits offer employers a 50 percent tax credit of up to $125,000 a year for money spent on getting workers out of their cars. Those programs could include ECOpasses for employees, e-bike programs, van pools or carpools.
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DENVER’S NEWEST HOTEL TO OPEN, WITH DEFINITE “ONE TREE” FLAVOR
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Denver’s newest, and one of its most distinctive, hotels, The Populus, announced it will open on Sept. 18. The Populus is located at 240 14th Street in downtown Denver’s Golden Triangle and was designed by global architectural firm Studio Gang to resemble aspen trees with windows shaped like the dark patches in the bark of the aspen. The tree motif continues with the hotel’s state pledge of “One Night, One Tree,” with the National Forest Foundation. The hotel will plant one tree for every night’s stay. It projects planting 20,000 trees this year. The 265-room hotel will have two restaurants, with the downstairs restaurant named Pasque and the hotel’s rooftop bar and restaurant called the Stellar Jay. Room rates, per night, range from $263 to $1,346 for the Mountain Studio Suite.
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IN LONG-AWAITED SPEECH, POWELL SAYS, “TIME HAS COME” TO LOWER RATES
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell Friday, in his much-awaited keynote address at the annual retreat of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank in Jackson Hole, Wyo., said, “The time has come for policy to adjust.” However, while the Fed Chairman clearly indicated that it was time for interest rate cuts, he did not provide the exact timing or the extent of the cuts. Powell indicated, “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.” Powell's comments were enough to immediately push the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.7 percent and the S&P 500 up 0.6 percent.
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IN ABRUPT TURNAROUND, BOEING’S STARLINER WON’T BRING HOME ASTRONAUTS
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On Saturday, NASA officials announced that Boeing will return its Starliner capsule from the International Space Station without the NASA astronauts that it delivered to orbit in early June. With the abrupt change in plans, it means NASA will now have astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return via SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which is expected to launch its ninth regular mission to the ISS for the agency on Sept. 24. As a result, Wilmore and Williams will stay at the ISS for about six more months before flying home in February on SpaceX’s Crew-9 vehicle. The test flight was originally intended to last about nine days.
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HAVE THOSE DOG TREATS HANDY? TODAY IS NATIONAL DOG DAY
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More than 65 million U.S. households have a dog, making dogs our most popular pets. In 2004, renowned pet and shelter advocate Colleen Paige founded National Dog Day on Aug. 26. She selected that day in recognition of the day Colleen's family adopted her first dog "Sheltie" from the local animal shelter, when Colleen was 10 years old. Colleen is also the founder of many other holidays such as National Puppy Day, National Mutt Day, National Cat Day, and National Wildlife Day. For more information on National Dog Day and Colleen, go to nationaldogday.com.
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COLORADO’S CLEAN THE SLATE ACT WILL SEAL MORE THAN 100,000 COURT RECORDS
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For years, the state of Colorado has allowed people to petition to seal their arrest and convictions. The process involved securing legal guidance and then possibly a hearing before a judge. Now the state is operating under Senate Bill 22-099, the Clean Slate Act, which this year, as of July 1, requires the Colorado Judicial Dept. to automatically seal records of those eligible. For this first implementation, the state’s Judicial Dept. identified about 141,000 cases that were eligible. About 30 percent of the state’s population have an arrest or conviction on their record. Here is how the Clean Slate law works:
- The Colorado Judicial Dept. produces a list four times a year of all records eligible to be automatically sealed
- To be eligible: all nonviolent crimes, including some felonies, but many exceptions
- Crimes cannot involve domestic violence, child abuse, sexual violence or sexual exploitation
- Misdemeanors and petty offenses must be at least seven years old
- Felonies must be 10 years old
- Felonies rated Class 1, 2 or 3 are not eligible
- Other exemptions include traffic offenses, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, bodily injury, animal cruelty, identity theft, selling drugs, assault, menacing, indecent exposure, robbery and some burglaries
After lists are produced, district attorneys in Colorado’s 22 judicial districts have 45 days to object to records in their regions. In this first round, the list of eligible crimes dropped from 148,000 to about 141,000 after objections from district attorneys and the removal of domestic violence cases. Once sealed, records can still be seen by prosecutors and government officials, but they no longer appear in background checks that are required by landlords, businesses and schools.
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CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM DECLINES, BUT STILL IS HIGH
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Chronic absenteeism is defined as students who missed more than 10 percent of the school days in the school year. Last week, the Colorado Dept. of Education released information on the 2023-24 school year, which showed:
- 27.7 percent of students were chronically absent
- That is 3.4 percent lower than the 2022-23 school year
- In numbers, that means 241,119 Colorado students were chronically absent
- Although dropping, the rate of chronic absenteeism is still higher than the pre-pandemic school year of 2019-20, when 22.6 percent of students were chronically absent
- Around the state, some of the larger decreases in chronic absenteeism were Colorado Springs District 11, District 49, Roaring Fork and Englewood, as well as Durango and Alamosa
- 30 percent of the districts in the state had a higher rate, including Sheridan, Adams 14, Elizabeth, and Eagle school districts
- In Denver, the state’s largest school district, chronic absenteeism was 37.1 percent in 2023-24, down from 41.1 percent the prior year
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IT IS COMING ON TO BIG GAME HUNTING SEASON, CHECK THE NEW CPW WEBSITE
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With Labor Day at hand and the arrival of September, it is time for big game hunting in Colorado. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has launched a new, redesigned website, cpw.state.co.us, for all information regarding hunting and wildlife, as well as information on hunting licenses. The key dates for big game hunting:
- Deer, Elk, Bear Archery Season: Sept. 2-30
- Deer, Elk, Bear Muzzleloader Season: Sept. 14-22
- Moose Archery Season: Sept. 7-30
- Moose Muzzleloader Season: Sept. 14-22
- Sept. Rifle Season – Bear: Sept. 2-30
- 1st Rifle Season – Elk & Bear: Oct. 12-16
- 2nd Rifle Season – Deer, Elk, Bear: Oct. 26-Nov. 3
- 3rd Rifle Season – Deer, Elk, Bear: Nov. 9-15
- 4th Rifle Season – Deer, Elk, Bear: Nov. 20-24
- Plains Rifle Season – Deer: Oct. 26-Nov. 5
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MARKET UPDATE - 08/23/2024 Close
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(Courtesy of Alpine Bank Wealth Management*)
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Canadian dollar (per U.S. dollar)
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Mexican peso (per U.S. dollar)
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30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac 08/22/2024)
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*Not FDIC insured. May lose value. Not guaranteed by the bank.
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Alpine Bank is an independent, employee-owned organization with headquarters in Glenwood Springs and banking offices across Colorado's Western Slope, mountains and Front Range. Alpine Bank serves customers with retail, business, wealth management*, mortgage and electronic banking services. Learn more at alpinebank.com.
*Alpine Bank Wealth Management services are not FDIC insured, may lose value and are not guaranteed by the bank.
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