The Highlands Premium Is Betting on Buildings That Aren't Finished Yet

Walk the blocks around Boulder Street and Speer Boulevard in Lower Highland right now and you will pass at least three active construction sites within a short stroll of each other. Cranes over Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street. A shovel-ready lot fenced off for framing a few blocks over. Hard hat tours running out of a boutique condo building on Boulder Street that still smells like fresh paint. This is not the usual churn of infill lots getting a new duplex. It is three institutional developers, backed by national and international capital, placing a coordinated bet on the same compact stretch of LoHi at the same time.

That bet is the real explanation for why LoHi's asking prices run well ahead of the rest of the Highlands, and it matters more to your decision than the restaurants or the walk score ever will.

Three Projects, One Neighborhood, Same Two Years

Here is what is actually under construction or recently broken ground in LoHi as of this year:

• A 420-unit luxury multifamily project from San Antonio-based Kairoi Residential, financed with PGIM and Germany's Helaba Bank, located off Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street. Kairoi broke ground on the project in 2026, and the plans include a sky pool deck among other amenities aimed squarely at renters who could otherwise be buying.
• The Stevie, a 116-unit apartment project from Century Communities' multifamily division, Century Living, on a shovel-ready site the company bought from Elevation Development Group. Leasing is expected to begin in 2028.
• Kensing LoHi, a 35-unit boutique condo building at 1643 Boulder Street from Urban Green Development, with pricing that ran from roughly $460,000 to over $2 million and about 20 units still available as of this spring. The project held its grand opening in June and is targeting LEED and WELL certification.

That is more than 550 new units landing in a single walkable pocket of Denver inside a two-year window, on top of the 302-unit Centric LoHi that Tennessee-based Southern Land Co. delivered on the former Mile High United Way site earlier in the decade. None of this is speculative filler on a developer's pitch deck. These are permitted, financed, and in the ground.

Why This Wave Is Different From the Last One

LoHi has absorbed new construction before. What is different this time is who is writing the checks. A regional apartment operator financing a mid-rise is a normal Denver story. A San Antonio operator partnering with a Prudential-affiliated investment arm and a German commercial bank on a single Denver mid-rise is a signal that institutional capital views this specific four to six block radius as a long-term, underwritten bet, not an opportunistic flip.

Century Communities said as much directly. In announcing The Stevie, a company spokesperson told Homes.com News that LoHi's apartment market had been historically undersupplied because of a lack of available land and other constraints on new construction. Read that against the fact that three separate developers are now solving that exact problem in the same two-year window, and you get the actual mechanism behind the price gap: everyone building right now is betting that demand keeps outpacing a supply shortage that is currently being erased.

That is not a bet that has resolved yet. It is a bet still in progress, funded by parties with strong track records who are, by definition, exposed to being wrong.

What Happens to Your Comp Set When 500 New Units Deliver at Once

If you already own a condo or townhome in LoHi, or you are about to buy one, this is the part that should change how you think about the next 18 to 24 months.

Appraisals lean on recent, nearby, similar sales. Right now, the comp set for an existing LoHi unit is other existing LoHi units, most of them ten to fifteen years old with dated amenity packages. Once Kensing LoHi's remaining units close, and once The Stevie and the Kairoi project deliver leasing data, the comp set changes. Appraisers and buyers will have brand-new product, with rooftop decks, structured parking, and modern systems, sitting a few blocks from older inventory that cannot physically add those features.

That can cut two ways. New product with premium finishes can pull older comps up if demand holds and buyers are willing to pay a proximity premium regardless of build year. Or it can flatten older comps if renters and buyers simply migrate to the newer stock, leaving existing owners competing on price rather than product. Which way it breaks depends on absorption, not on the neighborhood's reputation.

This is why the current price listed for LoHi new construction, roughly $936,000 to $938,000 as a median depending on the month, sits well above the broader Highlands median of about $785,000 reported earlier this year. That gap is not simply the value of a walkable block. It is the market pricing in an assumption about how these new buildings will lease and sell once they open. If that assumption holds, the premium is earned. If it does not, current buyers of new construction are the ones holding the difference.

What This Means Depending on Where You Sit

If you are buying new construction in LoHi right now, ask two things before you sign: what is the projected absorption timeline for the other projects nearby, and what happens to your unit's comp set if 400-plus rental units open within walking distance offering similar finishes at a lower monthly cost than ownership. A rooftop deck is worth less as a differentiator when three other buildings within a five-minute walk have one too.

If you already own in LoHi and are watching this unfold, the practical move is to get ahead of your own comp set rather than reacting to it after an appraisal comes back lower than expected. Pull current rent comps for your building type now, before The Stevie and the Kairoi project start leasing, so you have a baseline for how your unit performs against the existing supply. LoHi rents have been running above Denver's metro average, which was near $1,895 a month earlier this year, so there is real room for new supply to test that gap before it tests your equity.

If you are comparing LoHi to the quieter, lower-rise blocks around Highland Square and Tennyson Street, understand that none of this construction wave touches that part of the neighborhood the same way. The bet being placed right now is specifically on LoHi's density and walkability, not on the Highlands as a whole.

A Short FAQ Before You Decide

Will this much new supply push LoHi prices down? Not necessarily, and not immediately. Denver's broader condo market is already the softer segment of the metro, and adding hundreds of units in one submarket raises the odds of a slower absorption period, but institutional developers underwrite for a multi-year hold. The near-term effect is more likely to show up in rent growth and time on market than in a sudden price drop.

Should I wait until these buildings deliver before buying? That depends on what you are buying and why. If you are buying to live in for the long term, the timing matters less than the unit itself. If you are buying with resale in the next three to five years in mind, understanding the absorption timeline for these projects before you buy is worth the extra homework.

Does this affect West Highland or Berkeley the same way? No. This construction wave is concentrated in the LoHi corridor near Speer Boulevard, Zuni Street, and Boulder Street. The Victorian and bungalow stock further from downtown is not seeing anything close to this density of new supply.

If you are trying to figure out what a specific LoHi building or block is actually worth against what is coming, that is exactly the kind of read that benefits from someone who tracks these permits as they file, not after they break ground. Christine Nicholson works this market block by block. Let's Connect before you make a decision that depends on buildings that have not opened yet.