00 million over three years, four parts, and a stated goal of supporting 10,000 quality jobs across the city. It launched jointly with the Downtown Denver Partnership, Denver Economic Development & Opportunity (DEDO for short), and the Denver Downtown Development Authority, which everybody shortens to DDDA.
The centerpiece is a program called Open Denver. That is $40 million from the DDDA handed out as incentives to new businesses that sign office leases downtown. And here is the number that explains why they need it. Downtown office vacancy is sitting just under 40 percent right now, according to broker CBRE. Think about that. Nearly four out of every ten downtown offices, empty.
Now, the smart move Johnston made was on the funding source. He said almost zero of this, roughly
million, comes out of Denver's general fund. Most of it is state and federal partners plus that voter-approved DDDA money. So when someone at a barbecue tells you the city is blowing your tax dollars on this, you can gently correct them. The general fund is barely in the room.
Photo: denver7.comWhy the timing stings
Here is the thing about that CNBC ranking. Colorado earned 1,315 out of a possible 2,500 points. Middle of the pack. The biggest gut punch was infrastructure, where the state dropped from 11th all the way to 32nd. Part of that is CNBC bumping up how much that category counts this year, so the methodology shifted under Colorado's feet a little. But 32nd is 32nd. And Ohio, of all places, took the No. 1 spot for the first time.
So the state is telling businesses one story on paper, and Denver is out here trying to write a different one on the ground.
Photo: cbsnews.comThe part that gives me some hope
Snooze was not a random backdrop. Co-founder Adam Schlegel got up and said something that actually landed. His company now runs about 70 restaurants across 10 states with over 3,000 employees. And he said flat out that the business would not exist without early city economic-development support back when John Hickenlooper was mayor. That is the whole pitch in one guy's story. You help a small operator early, and 20 years later it is thousands of jobs and a line out the door on Larimer.
Then there is J.J. Ament, the economic-development CEO over at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. He said the region is currently working with 52 companies considering a move here. That is more than 12,000 potential jobs and
2 billion in capital investment on the table. Now, 52 companies looking is not 52 companies signing. But it is real activity, and it is more than nothing.
Backing the plan you also had DEDO executive director Adeeb Khan and Downtown Denver Partnership economic-development EVP David Welsh. So the institutional muscle is lined up.
The catch
Here is where I put my skeptic hat on, because you deserve the honest read.
Denver's actual unemployment rate last quarter was about 3.6 percent, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is below the national 4.2 percent. So people who want jobs mostly have jobs. The crisis is not really unemployment. The crisis is that downtown, the office core, is hollowed out at nearly 40 percent vacancy, and empty offices mean fewer lunch spots surviving, fewer happy hours, softer commercial real estate values, and a downtown that does not pull people in the way it used to.
And Axios put its finger on the real question. Whether Johnston pulls this off depends entirely on whether all these incentives and the undisclosed 'moonshot' recruitment efforts actually convert into the 10,000 promised jobs. Announcing a goal is easy. Filling a 40 percent vacant office district is a completely different animal.
So that is the honest scorecard. Big number, real money, a genuinely good origin story sitting right there at the Snooze counter, and a state ranking that just made the whole thing harder. Johnston is betting
00 million and three years that he can turn a stagnant core into 10,000 jobs.
I will be watching that vacancy number. If CBRE's 40 percent starts dropping in the next year, this worked. If it does not, we will talk about it again. Either way, buckle up.
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