If the development pattern is typical, office buildings near Denver's light rail station are likely to be newer. It is typically significantly more expensive to develop infrastructure among existing high level uses such as an office park. In addition there are typically density incentives for locating near mass transit that attract new development which existing automobile centric development cannot utilize without buying out existing leases, i.e. when the new rail station comes existing parking adjacent to buildings cannot be converted because it is already under lease agreement with existing tenants.
To go further, low occupancy rates of offices further from mass transit [and that's not quite the same thing as being walkable] may be a sign of impending redevelopment as leases are not renewed and older properties undergo less maintenance in preparation for redevelopment. Given the 30 year cycle that mortgages, depreciation schedules and institutional real-estate investors often operate on, things may not be as cut and dry as the article makes out. I wouldn't discount recent zero interest rates and the bottom falling out of the economy as factors either. [1]
Then again, in the big money long time horizon world of real-estate that's usually the case. Stable internal rates of return are the name of the game.
[1]: That transportation infrastructure was a major source of "shovel ready stimulus" projects is less direct but plausibly related to the public investment.
To go further, low occupancy rates of offices further from mass transit [and that's not quite the same thing as being walkable] may be a sign of impending redevelopment as leases are not renewed and older properties undergo less maintenance in preparation for redevelopment. Given the 30 year cycle that mortgages, depreciation schedules and institutional real-estate investors often operate on, things may not be as cut and dry as the article makes out. I wouldn't discount recent zero interest rates and the bottom falling out of the economy as factors either. [1]
Then again, in the big money long time horizon world of real-estate that's usually the case. Stable internal rates of return are the name of the game.
[1]: That transportation infrastructure was a major source of "shovel ready stimulus" projects is less direct but plausibly related to the public investment.