Denver Neighborhoods - Historic Cherry Creek

No Denver neighborhood portrays the Horatio Alger “rags to riches” motif better than Cherry Creek. Its success as a center of culture and upscale living has been so complete that today very few recall its humble origins.

From the early days, the creek has helped to define the area. With traffic following its natural contours, the banks of the Cherry Creek offered a popular picnic spot for 19th century Denverites. Such patterns also attracted gypsy encampments, religious revivals, indigents, and roadhouses. In 1886, as a means to protect against “tramps, bums, bummers, and the liquor traffic,” residents formed the town of Harman. But high tax rates and a nationwide depression ultimately led to the Harman’s annexation by Denver in 1894.

Within Denver, the area remained a forgotten backwater. Homes in early twentieth century Cherry Creek were sometimes made of timber or cinder blocks, and real estate developer Temple Buell let the land go to waste. Until the river’s rages were controlled by the Cherry Creek Dam in 1950, much of the area was literally a dump. When the city redesigned the intersection of Cherry Creek North and Alameda in 1988, they had to remove 12 feet of underground garbage.

The Cherry Creek Shopping Center, one of the first in America and currently one of Denver’s prime attractions, initiated the area’s transformation in 1950. The Denver Dry goods store (forerunner to Foleys, and now Macy's) and nearby Sears (linked by an underground tunnel under 1st Avenue) capitalized on commuting trends by offering a commercial haven outside of downtown. An increasingly upper class residential district led Buell to construct a far more artistic and upscale mall in 1986. It was an unqualified success: in the first six months, more than 10,000 people per day visited its 1 million square feet of luxury shops.

Enriched by consumerism, Cherry Creek today offers a variety of activities. Hundreds of thousands of people each year attend the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, which along with the Taste of Cherry Creek and Cherry Creek Sneak make the neighborhood instantly recognizable. The boutiques, art galleries, spas, and restaurants of North Cherry Creek reinforce the image of graceful living. And the banks of the creek continue to draw crowds, as the 22-mile Cherry Creek path teem with runners, bikers, and in-line skaters.

Though the neighborhood history is easily lost among the newly-constructed town homes and spacious modern dwellings, the area’s core is well represented by its multiplex activities, commercial designs, and ongoing designs for improvement.

Cherry Creek Real Estate Prices for January 2008
(data from August 1, 2007 to January 31, 2008)

53 detached single family homes were sold with a median list price of $910,000. On average homes took 181 days to sell and sold for a median price of $865,000. Median price is a better measure of sold price than average, which is skewed by a few high-priced homes at the top end and low-priced homes at the bottom. Lowest sold price for detached single family homes was $195,000; highest sold price was $865,000. For condos and townhomes (attached family homes) the lowest sold price was $43,000 while the highest was $2,500,000. The median sold price was $351,500, and the average was $414,500.

The ratio of sold to list price was 97.11% for detached homes. The ratio of sold to original price was 89.71%, which means that sellers are still listing homes at too high a price The net sold (after seller concessions such as down payment or closing cost assistance, and the like) to original list price was 89.21%. To simplify, if a seller originally listed their home at $500,000, they realized $446,050 from the sale.

By the time the seller finally reached a marketable price after having listing it too high, the sold to list ratio improved to 94.47%, and the net sold to list price was 95.93%.