Lag of luxury: high-end condos have become a tough sell for most developers in metro Denver.

• Author: Lewis, David
• Position: [WHO OWNS COLORADO]

When in November the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton fell into receivership, it came as a blow where it hurts to high-end Colorado real estate and to all that represents goodness, purity and unthinkable levels of luxury.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

After all, we're talking about the Ritz, as in: "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, "F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922; "Puttin' on the Ritz, "Irving Berlin, 1929; "From the Ritz to the Rubble," Arctic Monkeys, 2005.

Cesar Ritz built the first Ritz Hotel in 1898, hiring master chef George August Escoffier, sleeping in each room to test the quality of the mattresses, and turning his family name into a noun, a verb and an adjective.

So much for history. The Big Recession, or whatever posterity ends up naming it, has made luxury into more of a swearword than a byword. Hardly anybody can afford it, it seems. On the other hand, that would seem to make luxury living today something really, really exclusive.

The condo market is "tough, very tough," says Jan Nelsen, broker and owner of Denver-based Kentwood City Properties. "If you want to sell you're really going to have to be desirable in terms of an incredible value. There are not a lot of $1 million sales downtown right now, or anywhere. Even Cherry Creek has experienced the same thing."

"It has been a worldwide phenomenon, that the luxury market had held out and then softened," says Brian Kincade, Realtor with Cherry Creek Professionals Realty. "If sellers aren't willing to lower their price they pretty much have to suck it up until the market makes a turn."

After selling but one penthouse unit prior to foreclosure, the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton is undergoing a $1 million renewal under the supervision of receiver Todd Smith and lender Goldman Sachs.

Ironic, isn't it?

Also in process is a sales and marketing makeover.

"We put together a sales and marketing plan really in an effort to reintroduce the product to the market. Now that things are reshaping and taking form we have created a new program and look and feel," said Orlando, Fla.-based sales and marketing consultant Tina Necrason. "We have everything from a dedicated on-site sales staff that specifically focuses only on this project. We've created our sales process around the Ritz-Carlton experience. We have our database going. We have new collateral," and so on.

The Residences at the Ritz-Carlton receivership might have marked a low point. It also is an object lesson in the importance of a couple of vital...