The Confluence Denver

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I visited a number of sites having open houses in conjunction with Doors Open Denver this past weekend.  One of these sites was The Confluence Denver, a 35 story apartment building that has been open for about a year now.  It is located at the confluence of the Platte River and Cherry Creek, which is the spot where the City of Denver began.  It was also where the Arapaho Indians originally lived and then forced from there onto an Indian Reservation in Oklahoma - but not until many women and children were killed during the Sand Creek Massacre.  But I digress.

Our group had to wait a while for a tour, but eventually we were taken up to the 27th floor to see one of the penthouse apartments (the tour guide evidently recognized big spenders when he saw them).  The 27th through 34th floors have 4 units each, two on each side of the building, while the 35th floor has just two units. The apartment was quite nice, and had great views of both the mountains and city.  It was a two bedroom unit, with a decent size, state of the art kitchen, a large dining area, and a small living room, two sides of which were floor to ceiling glass, as were all the other rooms.  There was even a small room for a home office off the front entrance.  The place also had a private elevator, if you happen to be the shy type.

There were also two balconies, one off the kitchen area and one off the master bedroom.  It really was a nice unit, but the monthly rental is $9,000, which to me seems a bit on the pricey side.  I don't know how many of these 9K penthouses are rented, but the two units on the 35th floor are both occupied, at the bargain price of $15,000 per month.  I don't mean to be judgmental,  but who in the hell pays $9,000 a month for an apartment, let alone $15,000 per month?  The mind just boggles.  In any case, for the great unwashed you can rent a studio apartment starting at $1,600 per month.  Find two roommates to share the cost and that will put it at $533 each, although it might be a little cozy in there, and the view might not be as spectacular.  As an aside, when I was waiting to move into my condo across from the University of Denver, when it was being converted over from apartments, I was moved to the top floor of the building (the 11th) and had a spectacular view of the front range and the mountains.  Some days I could even see all the way down to Pikes Peak.  Whenever I had a visitor, we would walk out on the balcony and look at the view, and that turned out to be the only time I would look at that view after the first few months.  Something to think about if you are considering renting that penthouse. And by the way, as our group was heading down after touring that 27th floor penthouse, we got stuck in the elevator.  What do you expect for nine grand?