By Mark Samuelson

Even in trendy areas around Coors Field, builders overbuilt the LoDo market with condos and townhouses in 2008-09, and plenty of units would head back to the bank. But now, after a year that saw huge absorption, much of that Ballpark product is gone – meaning that 11 “urban brownstones” that developer Craft DeLay took back from the bank, each re-opening for sales tomorrow on Blake five blocks from the ballpark, with a 2-car attached garage and a rooftop deck – are stepping into a very different market.

Interior of 3-bedroom urban brownstone you can tour. Craft DeLay has eleven homes coming back on the market five blocks from Coors Field, all with 2-car attached garages and rooftop decks, all substantially reduced.

Prices for those 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom brownstones at Blake 27 now begin at $310,000…and top out at $508,000 for a couple of premium end units that have windows on three sides. When Craft DeLay began negotiations to get hold of Blake 27 from the original developer, the very least expensive was $477,800 and the top-priced unit was at $835,000. more »

Inter-Ocean Hotel and People’s Restaurant at 16th and Blake Street could be two hot spots from today’s LoDo scene…or they could be downtown successes from 150 years ago when Lower Downtown was about all there was to Denver.

Realtor Rebekah Brock shows the Victorian home that early Denver restaurant owner and territorial legislator Barney L. Ford built in Denver’s Uptown.

Barney L. Ford, who grew up as a slave on an antebellum plantation and escaped to freedom, made enough on those and other enterprises to build a 4-bedroom Victorian you can tour by appointment. more »

Whoever penned the line that “Boulder is 25 square miles surrounded by reality,” couldn’t have been more right about this year: While luxury properties stagger in Denver, some way off their price mark, you can tour a new condo on Canyon Boulevard today, two blocks from Pearl Street, that’s already contracted over half its 22 new homes since grand-opening last year – all full price, one at $2.475 million.

Developer Stephen Tebo shows off The Arête’s eye-catching profile, just off Pearl Street.

“There’s a short window to buy one of these,” says The Arête’s Rick Rippberger, who closed his first home last August and expects to sell out this year. He’ll show you reasons for that success – starting with The Arête’s location, off the primo block of the mall, and nestled between views of the Chautauqua Park and the Flatirons on one side, and of downtown crested by Mount Sanitas on the other. more »