Building momentum: downtown rejuvenation highlights Springs' recession rebound.

• Author: Lewis, David
• Position: Q3 Real Estate

From the Broadmoor to the Black Forest, from Fort Carson and Fountain to the Air Force Academy and points north, real estate in Colorado Springs and environs is, if not exactly booming, then at last fully recovered from its 2002-2003 recession. If you go for symbolism, in May the city's jewel, the Broadmoor, completed its south tower renovation, ending a 12-year, $250 million renewal. If you go for optimism, the prospect of a significant expansion of Fort Carson's soldiering population means the Springs could be looking at serious growth not too far down the road.

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Recovering from what? Well, the recession of 2002 and 2003 took a terrible toll on Colorado Springs's economy and its real estate markets. In the period following the 9/11 attacks, corporate scandals, and the collapse of the dot-com bubble, "We lost a little over 10,000 primary jobs in that two-year period, and left a hole in the economy of more than $1 billion," reckons Colorado Springs-based economist David Bamberger, of Bamberger and Associates. That figure adds up to "about 8 percent of the economic base that was lost," Bamberger figures. "We lost one out of every four high-tech jobs here during the two-year period; 8,500 of those 10,000 jobs were high-tech."

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That was then.

Since then, residential real estate has risen to record heights, and then fallen back to normal sales levels, while home construction around the city's periphery continues at a rapid pace. Commercial real estate appears to be continuing to expand, with a number of important projects, many of them in downtown Colorado Springs, on the drawing board or in the works. But perhaps the most significant series of developments for Colorado Springs and its real estate market are focused, appropriately, on the city's downtown center. If plans for central Colorado Springs bear fruit, its downtown could undergo an economic and cultural renaissance similar in results to Denver's 16th Street Mall or Boulder's Pearl Street Mall.

On the residential side, Colorado Springs' apartment vacancies in June dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent in first quarter 2006 and from 12.5 percent in June 2005. Meanwhile, single-family home sales through May (the latest figures available) showed flat-line similarity to the past two years, with 4,791 homes sold compared with 4,764 the year before and 4,343 through May 2004. The telltale stat, however, reveals a burgeoning home inventory, with 5,260 on the market this May, compared with 4,254 in May 2005. Home building starts, routinely up in the 20 percent range last year, fell 13 percent through May from the year before.

Nancy Rusinak, co-owner of Colorado...