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If you think sharing an apartment means simply finding a place you can afford and talking a few friends into joining you (and splitting the dish-washing duties), now might be a good time to elevate your expectations. X Denver, a new apartment complex and membership club in the Union Station neighborhood, opens starting next month with relatively affordable co-living options and a list of swanky amenities for renters.
“We really attract the late-20s, early-30s young professional, regardless of unit type,” says Noah Gottlieb, CEO of the X Company. Those unit options include a traditional studio, one-bedroom or two-bedroom place, or a bed-bath suite in a fully furnished co-ownership apartment. “[Our client] wants their life to be easy and at their fingertips and…wants to feel like they’re part of a community,” Gottlieb adds.
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X Denver’s developers plan to foster that community through an extensive menu of offerings: a rooftop bar and restaurant with unobstructed views of the mountains, a 30-person hot tub, two pools (one for swimming, one for dipping), a sunbathing deck that accommodates several hundred people, a gym, and group fitness classes all included in the monthly rental fee. While tenants might have to wait to fully enjoy some of these perks until after the COVID-19 pandemic passes, the building also includes a 600-station co-working space with 14 private offices that can be reserved easily through the community’s app, for tenants tired of working on their couches. “[The co-working space] is 11,000 square feet at the top of the building,” Gottlieb says, noting that a lot of his competitors offer “a 200-square-foot business center in a room with no windows.” Non-residents can access the club’s amenities for a monthly fee of $275.
But perhaps the most distinguishing aspect of X Denver is its co-living model, which starts at $985 a month. A tenant can rent a private bedroom suite (with bathroom) in a fully furnished two-, three- or four-bedroom apartment. “We’ve addressed the two things people hate about living with strangers,” Gottlieb says. “First: cleaning. You get biweekly professional cleaning of all the [co-living unit’s] common spaces included in your rent.” (For an additional fee, you can opt for the cleaning crew to scrub down your bedroom and bathroom, too.) “The other worry is: ‘What if he’s a deadbeat and doesn’t pay his share of the electric bill?’ We take that off the table; your financial arrangement is with us.” And if you really can’t stand one of your co-living roomies, the building will accommodate your move to a new suite.
The X Company has plans for at least one more project in Denver (at 21st and Arapahoe Street). And while Gottlieb is pretty sure his firm is setting a new standard in the city—and other places he has his sights on, including Tampa, Arizona (where a Phoenix project will open later this year), and Northern California—Realtor Kerron Stokes, co-founder of the Resource Group at Re/Max, points out that co-living has existed for a long time in ad-hoc arrangements. “Co-living has been an ownership strategy for millennials for the last 5 to 10 years,” he says. “As a passive way to deal with affordability for working professionals in the metro area, [co-living] provides some really cool solutions.” He predicts that the Mile High City will see more co-living options—both for renters and buyers—popping up in the very near future. “It provides some hope for people in a very constrained market,” he says.
No surprise that Gottlieb seems to agree: “Denver needs more developers and owners to listen to what the customers want, what they can pay for, and where they want to be,” he says. “[Developers should be] fitting the buildings and products to what the customers want and not to what they built last time.”
Studio pricing starts at $1,495 unfurnished, $1,650 furnished. One-bedroom units start at $1,835 unfurnished, $2,045 furnished. Co-living suites start at $985. X Denver is targeting an April 1 move-in date for residents, and a June 1 grand opening for the membership club.