Drawing on CommercialEdge data, a new CommercialCafé study analyzes the development of office property renovations in the last two decades and the markets that stood out.
Nationally, between 2000-2019, an all-time high of 366 complete renovation projects were completed in 2014, while the high-water mark for cosmetic works was 2016 with 1,699 renovations.
Here’s what made Denver stand out:
- The only non-coastal office market to make the top 5 for cosmetic renovations was Denver. Here, 26.4% of the office inventory — a total of 444 properties — received cosmetic renovations.
- When looking at large markets, the city came in 16th in terms of office renovations with 4.9% of Denver’s office properties being fully renovated between 2000 and 2019, adding up to more than 14 million square feet of office space.
- On average, these fully renovated properties are 43 years old, while the visually renovated ones are 40 years old.
The study only analyzed office buildings larger than 25,000 total square feet, and also made the distinction between complete renovations — which include upgrades to structural or mechanical systems in a property — and cosmetic renovations, which consist of purely visual upgrades applied to façades, lobbies or common areas. It also split markets into medium-sized — with a total office inventory between 50 million and 100 million square feet — and large markets with an inventory larger than 100 million square feet. The study then ranked them based on the percentage of properties out of the total that were renovated between 2000 and 2019.
Click here to read the full study
