The Denver official tasked with valuing the city’s real estate said Tuesday that office building valuations will likely bifurcate this cycle, with top-tier properties holding steady while less-desirable properties see significant declines.

“I think we’ll see a spreading of value unlike I’ve ever seen in Denver, going all the way from downtown to the Tech Center — Cherry Creek seems to be immune to anything, so that might not happen here — but that’s kind of what we’re looking at, is really a two- if not three-tier market,” Assessor Keith Erffmeyer said.

Erffmeyer made the comment at BusinessDen’s “The Future of Office” event, where he and five real estate executives discussed the office sector’s status and outlook. The event was held at the Clayton Hotel & Members Club in Cherry Creek.

County assessors in Colorado value real estate every two years, and the figure directly translates to what an owner pays in property taxes. New valuations go out in May of odd years, and are based on the two-year period ending the previous June. The next notices of valuation will go out in May 2025.

This is the third valuation cycle since the pandemic hit in 2020. But Erffmeyer noted the previous two cycles had few data points to go off when valuing office properties.

“In 2021, our data value was June of 2020, so we were barely three months into the pandemic at that time,” he said. “And frankly, we didn’t know what the world was going to look like, what offices were going to look like, what schools were going to look like, what anything was going to look like. We did our best, quite frankly, to take the sales that preceded Covid and adjust them down for the uncertainty, the risk.”

The 24-story Denver Club building at 17th and Glenarm sold in late 2022 for $52.80 a square foot. (BusinessDen file)

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The next cycle didn’t offer much more, as continued uncertainty around the sector resulted in few building transactions.

That’s changed somewhat in the last couple years. Buildings such as downtown’s Denver Club and The 410 have sold for cheap, while structures at 1401 Lawrence and Platte Street’s Riverview have fetched more respectable sums. The Denver Tech Center is also seeing transactions.

Erffmeyer joined the Denver assessor’s office as an intern in 1994 and assumed the top job in 2014. He noted he’s worked to value properties through the Great Recession and the dot-com bust.

“And this revaluation might be the toughest of all of them, just because there’s so many almost conflicting and just dissonance in terms of what we see in terms of sale prices — just in downtown, much less throughout, in my case, Denver, and, speaking for the other assessors, throughout the metro area,” he said.

“Prime” buildings — which tend to be newer and have top-tier locations — will “probably be just fine in terms of value, maybe even see some increases in terms of value,” Erffmeyer said. But as buildings age, “there comes a tipping point somewhere in there where it’s not a prime building anymore.”

“And that’s when we start seeing this kind of bifurcation,” he said. “I’ve heard falling off a cliff, things like that in terms of value. And we read about sales transactions at less than $100 a foot, which just blows my mind when we have warehouses selling for more than $100 a foot.”

A street artist was cited for violating Denver municipal code after police say he illegally posted signs with phrases like “Migrant hookers” and “Caution Undocumented Democrats” around the city in March.

The Denver Police Department is still investigating similar signs posted around the city on Aug. 29, which targeted Vice President Kamala Harris, included phrases like “Blacks must sit at the back of the bus. Kamala’s migrants sit in the front” and drew condemnation from state and local officials.

No one has been cited or arrested in that case, department officials said Tuesday.

Denver police cited 56-year-old Christopher Balli, also known as “Sabo,” on Thursday on suspicion of violating city code related to posting signs on public or private property. People cited under the statute are “liable for the cost of removal,” according to Denver city code.

The signs posted March 22 were found near West 12th Avenue and North Acoma Streets; West Colfax Avenue and North Broadway; and the 1400 block of Grant Street.

Denver Police Department’s Bias-Motivated Crime Unit also investigated the case, but the Denver District Attorney’s Office determined the case did not meet the criteria for a bias-motivated crime and the case was referred to the Denver City Attorney’s Office, according to the department.

Balli posted a copy of the citation on his Instagram on Thursday and previously shared photos of the street signs posted in March and August.

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Originally Published: September 10, 2024 at 4:28 p.m.

Eleventh Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley will be disbarred for ethical violations on the job, a Colorado disciplinary board ruled Tuesday.

State disciplinary authorities found Stanley made inappropriate comments to the media during the high-profile prosecution of Barry Morphew, did not adequately supervise the prosecution of the case, caused numerous discovery violations, initiated a baseless investigation into the judge on the case and made inappropriate comments to the media in an unrelated case.

“Taken in totality, a majority of the Hearing Board concludes that these ethical violations warrant respondent’s disbarment,” the 83-page disciplinary order, published Tuesday, says.

The decision comes three months after Stanley faced allegations of professional misconduct during a two-week disciplinary hearing in June.

State regulators accused Stanley of making inappropriate comments to members of the media and on a YouTube true-crime show when she prosecuted Morphew for the murder of his wife in 2020, among other misconduct.

Stanley argued her conduct was within the bounds of ethical rules and that the allegations against her were baseless.

The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which handles attorney discipline for professional misconduct, brought the allegations against Stanley in October, and the case proceeded all the way to a public disciplinary hearing, which is highly unusual for a sitting district attorney.

Much of the disciplinary hearing centered on Stanley’s handling of the case against Barry Morphew, who she charged with murder in 2021, a year after his wife, Suzanne Morphew, 49, disappeared from the family’s Chaffee County home on May 10, 2020.

Stanley dropped all charges against Morphew in 2022. He has maintained his innocence and is not facing any charges in connection with his wife’s death. State attorneys argued during the disciplinary hearing that the prosecution was a “debacle” because of Stanley’s poor leadership.

Investigators in September discovered Suzanne Morphew’s body in a shallow grave near Moffat, and a coroner later determined her death to be a homicide, finding she died with a cocktail of animal tranquilizers in her body. The investigation into Suzanne’s killing is now being handled by 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly, since her body was found in that jurisdiction.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Originally Published: September 10, 2024 at 2:26 p.m.