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It’s no secret that downtown Denver is booming. The central part of the city now boasts one of America’s largest populations of young and well educated people. The sidewalks are bustling with activity, rent is on the rise, and new people move into the city every day. The city is in flux, and so are the industries that rent office space downtown.
According to commercial real estate company CBRE, the number and size of tech tenants in downtown Denver has soared this last year. At the same time, the footprint of the energy sector has shrunk rapidly.
In 2014, the energy industry accounted for 30 percent of all leased downtown office space — which is a ton of space. The industry was, by far, downtown’s dominant commercial tenant. It leased more than twice as much office space as the next largest industry, the financial services industry.
Fast forward to this year, and downtown Denver is a different place. The energy sector now accounts for just 17 percent of downtown’s leased office space. It went from being the dominant player, to playing second fiddle to the business services industry. In total, the energy industry has shrunk by over 500 thousand square feet.
A sizable chunk of that newly vacated space has been taken over by the tech industry. The share of tech offices downtown has grown almost 44 percent since last year, and now accounts for almost 9 percent of all of downtown’s commercial space. This is especially impressive growth when you consider that tech offices tend to be efficient affairs, with tons of employees packed into a room.
In terms of the office space leased in the city, technology is now as large as major legacy industries like financial services, legal services and healthcare.
The CBRE report sees a bright future for downtown, with continued organic growth from people who already have offices downtown, and interest from outside companies looking to open a Denver office.
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