> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://the-bare-economy.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Denver Just Bet $100M on a Downtown Nobody's Walking Through - URL: https://the-bare-economy.ghost.io/denver-just-bet-100m-on-a-downtown/ - Published: 2026-07-13T15:32:45.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-04T15:39:39.000Z - Description: I drove through Denver's renewal corridors so you don't have to - Author: Brook Vance - Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1785857905698, #Import 2026-08-04 15:39 ## The High-Desert Orbit 🗺️ **Current Dispatch:** W. Colfax Ave, Denver, CO — parked behind a taco joint across from the Kalaco fence ⛽ **Local Diesel:** $3.89/gal ☕ **Diner Coffee Index:** $4.10 — burnt, served in a paper cup that's already leaking, but the woman behind the counter called me "honey" so we'll call it a wash ⏳ **Days in trip:** 7 I'm in the cab with the windows cracked. Staring at a 280-unit apartment block rising from 1.9 acres on West Colfax. The Kalaco project. Opus just locked a $67 million refi on it. Three-year loan from a big balance sheet lender. That's not spec money, Bob. That's big capital saying **we think this dirt is worth holding.** Two days ago, Mayor Mike Johnston stood at a podium. He rolled out a $100 million, four-part jobs plan to "bring downtown back as the city's heart." Forty million of that is pure cash from the Denver Downtown Development Authority to lure office tenants. Another $45 million goes to job training. Six million for startups. Ten and a half million in small-biz loans. The question I keep asking from this seat: Where does the money hit the ground? --- [Subscribe](#/portal/signup) --- ### The Driver’s Scene: 26 Grants, One Barber Shop, and the Smell of Pho I walked East Colfax this morning. Past the BlueBird Colfax BID front. Past Exclusive Cuts Barber Shop. Past La Abeja, where the lunch board hadn't changed since Tuesday. These are some of the 26 spots that got Denver Urban Renewal Authority STAND grants. Nearly $1 million total. Spread across small shops, nonprofits, and BIDs in downtown, East Colfax, Welton, Auraria, and other renewal zones. The grants cover building fixes, gear, and new programs. DURA says the next round opens late fall 2026. A million bucks across 26 groups. That's about $38,000 each. I asked the guy sweeping up at one of the BID fronts what that kind of cash means. He said, "New awning, maybe. Fix the bathroom. Keep the lights on one more quarter." Now hold that number — $38,000 per small shop — next to the $40 million in corporate lures meant to spark new office leases downtown. That's a ratio of roughly 1,000-to-1\. Big corp lease over a family spot's working toilet. I'm not saying one is wrong and the other right. I'm saying the ratio tells you who the city thinks the "heart" really is. **The Macro Shift:** This pattern repeats in every mid-tier U.S. city right now. City halls run a two-track spend: small, showy grants for optics. Massive deals for the real bet. Denver's $100 million plan — with most funds pulled from state, federal, and DDDA sources to "protect the general fund," as Johnston put it — is a textbook case. The general fund stays clean. The dev authority takes the risk. The small-biz grants give them the photo ops. Meanwhile, Crow Holdings just closed $380 million in apartment refis across Texas, Colorado, and Virginia. Knightbridge Capital grabbed a two-building office set in Englewood. The GSA broke ground on a $228 million FDA food lab in Lakewood. Student beds in Greeley moved at $63,922 per unit — 97% full at sale. This isn't a city in trouble. This is a city in rotation. Cash is cycling out of hype plays and into hard stuff: workforce housing, gov labs, student beds, apartment refis. The big money already made its call. The question is whether you've made yours. --- ### Big Oil Just Bet Big on Lithium Eni, Italy’s largest oil producer, just signed a strategic agreement to invest into [**EnergyX’s**](https://clkgrid.com/6a511829aca3e68ab23061da?email=mail3@live.com&domain=327TBES&type=SA&product=PAPEX1%5FSA&ref=the-bare-economy.ghost.io) lithium project in Chile, a stake that could reach $225M. The project is expected to generate $1.3B in annual revenue at forecasted market prices. It’s just one piece of EnergyX’s portfolio holding up to 15M+ tons of untapped lithium, and it’s the latest proof of EnergyX’s progress. Until July 16, you can invest as an early-stage shareholder and share in that growth. Natural resources weren’t the only draw. EnergyX’s patented tech recovers up to 3X more lithium than traditional methods at 500X the speed, paving the way to commercial-scale production. Lithium demand is projected to grow 5X by 2040, so the timing couldn’t be better. General Motors and POSCO are already EnergyX shareholders. [**Now it’s your turn. Become an early-stage EnergyX shareholder before the July 16 deadline.**](https://clkgrid.com/6a511829aca3e68ab23061da?email=mail3@live.com&domain=327TBES&type=SA&product=PAPEX1%5FSA&ref=the-bare-economy.ghost.io) **Disclaimer:** Energy Exploration Technologies, Inc. (“EnergyX”) has engaged Dynamic Industries to publish this communication in connection with EnergyX’s ongoing Regulation A offering. Dynamic Industries has been paid in cash and may receive additional compensation. Dynamic Industries and/or its affiliates do not currently hold securities of EnergyX. This compensation and any current or future ownership interest could create a conflict of interest. Please consider this disclosure alongside EnergyX’s offering materials. EnergyX’s Regulation A offering has been qualified by the SEC. Offers and sales may be made only by means of the qualified offering circular. Before investing, carefully review the offering circular, including the risk factors. The offering circular is available at [**invest.energyx.com**](https://clkgrid.com/6a511829aca3e68ab23061da?email=mail3@live.com&domain=327TBES&type=SA&product=PAPEX1%5FSA&ref=the-bare-economy.ghost.io). Comparisons to other companies are for informational purposes only and should not imply similar results. (ad) --- ### The New Land Play: Churches, Opportunity Zones, and the Quiet Acreage Grab Here's the story nobody at the Denver press event brought up. It might be the biggest capital shift in Western real estate this decade. A firm called OLOS just launched in L.A. with one goal: help churches turn unused land and old buildings into housing. At the same time, Washington State passed House Bill 1859\. It lets builders put up homes on faith-owned land statewide. A study of church-owned lots across Eastside King County found over 200 sites. Those could hold about 9,000 units. I asked a pastor in Bellevue about this last month. He said his church had been sitting on two acres of parking lot for forty years. "We repave it every six years. Costs us $80,000\. Now someone says we can build 40 units and keep the church." That's the new land play, Carol. Not buying raw dirt. Not fighting zoning boards for three years. Teaming up with groups that already own the land, already have local trust, and now — thanks to new rules and bills like HB 1859 — have the legal path to build. And here's the kicker that makes this a **portfolio-level** event: **Opportunity Zones just went permanent.** The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act locked the OZ tax break into the tax code for good. It set up new rounds of picks every ten years. That means qualifying bets in tagged census tracts — many of which overlap with the exact renewal strips I'm driving right now on Colfax — carry lasting tax perks that won't sunset in two years. Stack permanent OZ status with faith-based land deals, TIF funding, CDBG block grants, Main Street Tax Credits (75% against state B&O taxes in Washington), and Colorado's Prop 123 Equity program offering below-market equity for rental builds — and you've got a layered capital stack. Big players are already building it. Retail folks are still arguing about the S&P. --- ### The Laptop Execution: Here’s how I’m set up from the cab. The hard-asset shift into real stuff — workforce housing, gov buildings, reuse projects — isn't just a Denver story. It's a national cycle. And it's speeding up because the funding rules (permanent OZs, TIF, CDBG, state density unlocks) are now **baked in** — not temp fixes. #### What I'm watching: \-**Apartment REITs with workforce housing** in smaller Western metros (Denver, Salt Lake, Boise strip). The Crow Holdings refi and Opus/Kalaco deal show where big balance sheets are leaning. Look for public firms with similar books — names heavy in Colorado, Texas, and Virginia apartments. **Plays near gov facility builds.** A $228 million FDA food lab in Lakewood means subs, gear suppliers, and long-term staff. Follow the bid trail. **Physical gold as the base layer.** When city halls pull $100 million from "state and federal partners" to shield their general fund, that's not strength — that's a dance. The buying power of the dollar in your savings is the thing being quietly burned to fund these deals. Non-custodial physical metal stays the floor under your stack. Period. **Trail stop rules**: If apartment REIT spots break below their 50-week moving average on volume, I'm out. No ego. No story loyalty. The windshield says the trend holds today. Tomorrow's a new road. --- ### The Roadside Detour: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cd/fb/cdfb58c0-652d-463c-a766-e899e4b817ba/content/images/2026/08/784154ae-dbae-4c12-80be-7de9e232a023_1376x768.png) One last thing before I pull out of this lot. The Kalaco complex I've been eyeing sits on West Colfax — which, fun fact, is the longest straight commercial street in America. Twenty-six miles, tip to tip. In the 1960s, it was neon motels, jazz clubs, and Kerouac vibes. By the '90s, it was the kind of street your mom told you to lock the doors on. Now it's $67 million refi deals and DURA grants for a place called Duke's Apron Bakery. Colfax doesn't die. It just rotates capital. Same as everything else in this country — if you're paying attention. I'm pulling onto I-70 West. Diesel's $3.89\. Coffee's already cold. And somewhere in Utah, there's a church parking lot that doesn't know it's about to become a housing project. Stay free. Stay liquid. Stay moving. — Brook ***The Bare Economy. From the road. For the road.*** --- ### The institutional “Paper Trail” is public While headlines focus on China and Iran… the smart money is moving. Recent 13F filings show that institutional giants like BlackRock and Morgan Stanley have already started accumulating shares. They are moving into one small company tied to a newly confirmed U.S. resource discovery. This isn't speculation—it is a matter of public record. After 20 years of mapping, the U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Task Force just confirmed access to massive undersea minerals. These are the same metals—Nickel, Cobalt, and Manganese—that China currently controls. Most retail investors haven't looked at the federal filings yet. That's why this asset is still significantly mispriced. Get the ticker before the institutional "accumulation phase" ends. [**See the filings and the ticker symbol here >>**](https://clkgrid.com/694e6112757ce6459037744b?email=mail3@live.com&domain=327TBES&type=SA&product=BTHA22%5FSA&ref=the-bare-economy.ghost.io) (In partnership with Behind the Markets) --- [Subscribe](#/portal/signup)