In March 2025, Nichols Partnership paid $7.8 million for a 0.43-acre lot at 2625 E. Third Ave., the home of Cherry Creek Dance. Founder Randy Nichols said at first that he was deciding between condos and office space. In January 2026, his son Daniel Nichols, a partner at the firm, said condos were the goal. His reasoning was that single-family owners in Country Club and Cherry Creek want to stay in the area when they downsize.
The project is likely to have 20 to 30 units. That puts it among the largest new for-sale condo efforts in a district where the Denver Post counted eight major developments under construction through 2028. The missing condos aren't about demand. They come down to who will insure the builder, and that same pressure decides which price points get built at all.
The pipeline, counted by who can own it
The Denver Post described Cherry Creek's current wave of building as "a mix of office, retail and apartments, with a sprinkling of luxury condos." Sorting the named projects by whether a household can buy a unit shows how thin that sprinkling is:
- Cherry Lane, 2375 E. 1st Ave. 380 apartments plus retail and office space. This is the largest project now going up.
- Cherry Creek West. Demolition began in March 2026. Phase one calls for about 400 residences, and full buildout is reported at 840 residences, with the first building due in summer 2029. The Denver Post later described the residential component as 830 apartments. None of the reporting names any for-sale allocation.
- Waldorf Astoria Residences, 185 Steele St. PMG's five-story, 37-condo building broke ground in November 2025.
- The Residences at 135 Adams. 13 upper-floor condos of about 400 to 900 square feet, released in phases through January 2026.
- 2625 E. Third Ave. The Nichols project, now rezoned, with an estimate of 20 to 30 condos.
Add up the for-sale units and you get roughly 70 to 80, spread over several years. Phase one of Cherry Creek West alone could deliver about 400 homes, and the reporting describes all of them in rental terms.
Developers keep choosing the product with falling rents
Market signals alone don't explain this. Metro Denver had the second-largest decline in apartment rents in the country last year, after Austin. Willy Walker of Walker & Dunlop told a Cherry Creek Alliance audience in May 2026 that this has made it harder for multifamily investors to earn a return.
Condo buyers, meanwhile, have been showing up early. Waldorf was 65% sold by its groundbreaking, with units starting just above $2 million and penthouses above $10 million. By June 2026, the Denver Business Journal reported that only about 10 of the 37 residences were left. A resale tells a similar story at the very top. A penthouse at The Laurel, 155 Steele St., listed at $9.8 million in September 2025 and drew a bidding war. It closed that October for $10.1 million.
In a normal market, capital would shift toward the buyers who are bidding. In Colorado it mostly hasn't. The Common Sense Institute estimates that across the Denver metro in 2025, attached rental units outnumbered new condos by about 45 to 1. In other words, it would take 45 years of condo building at the 2025 pace to match one year of attached rental construction. The same analysis estimates that 367 condo units were built across 11 Front Range counties in 2025, compared with more than 24,000 new residents.
The Colorado Sun has reported that apartment projects are easier to finance and easier to sell to investors than condos, which have to be sold one unit at a time. The bigger difference is liability. Once a condo is sold, the builder faces potential defect claims from many owners and their association. Insurance for that risk is the line item that changes the math.
What insuring a condo builder costs in Colorado
Common Sense Institute's March 2026 review cites a January 2026 update from the insurance advisory firm IMA. It found that fewer than five excess-and-surplus carriers will currently write condominium liability coverage in the state, and that premiums typically run 4% to 6% of a project's hard costs. CSI puts Colorado's typical rate at 5% to 5.5%. Builders in Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and New Mexico generally pay in the 1% to 2% range.
Defense costs make it worse. Under many of these policies, legal defense spending reduces the coverage limit. IMA's example is a builder with a $10 million limit who spends $4 million on defense and has only $6 million left for claimants.
Daniel Nichols described the situation from a developer's side:
"I think there's ways to protect yourself now that's expensive but reduce the risk."
He also said insurers "have kind of figured it out a little bit," and that more change is still needed on the legal side.
What the 2025 law changed
Colorado passed HB25-1272, the Colorado American Dream Act, in 2025. Builders of attached multifamily housing with two or more units can now opt into a program that begins January 1, 2026. Builders who participate must provide specified warranties, use third-party inspections and record a notice of participation. In exchange, claims under the program are limited to specified damage, component failures or safety risks. The law also raised the share of homeowners who must approve before an HOA files a defect suit, from a majority to 65%. Associations that win must use recovered damages for repairs first.
Two competing approaches failed that session. HB25-1261, the homeowner-protection alternative, was postponed indefinitely on a 13-0 committee vote in March 2025. SB25-185 passed the Senate but was lost in the House.
The early read is cautious. CSI wrote in March 2026 that it is too early to judge HB25-1272's effect. The IMA update reported widespread insurer doubt that the voluntary program will change underwriting before it shows lower losses over time. Premiums follow loss history, and loss history takes years to build up. That means the condos that start construction in Cherry Creek over the next few years will still be priced under today's insurance costs.
Why new supply comes in at $450,000 or $2 million
A high, fixed share of costs pushes condo projects toward two kinds of deals.
At the top, the cost spreads across units that sell for $2 million and up. Waldorf's sales pace suggests buyers at that level have absorbed it.
The low end looks different. 135 Adams is a conversion of an existing building, with units priced from $450,000 to the high $800,000s. The listing broker estimated about $1,000 per square foot there and claimed typical Cherry Creek product runs $1,300 to $2,000. Units have been released in stages as some apartments still had tenants.
The Nichols building is the middle-sized test case. Denver Bill 26-0207 rezoned the 18,750-square-foot site to C-CCN-4, which allows four stories and building forms up to 57 feet. The Planning Board voted 9-0 to recommend it on February 4, 2026. City Council passed it on April 13, and Mayor Mike Johnston signed it April 17. Of 13 public comments, five opposed the rezoning, citing height, traffic and the loss of a green buffer. The Cherry Creek North Neighborhood Association supported it after negotiating limits on uses, landscaping, north-side patios and rooftops, noise, construction practices and ongoing project updates. No pricing or construction start has been announced.
How this changes a Cherry Creek condo search
The metro numbers point one way. In DMAR's September 2026 report, the Denver-area attached median close price was $365,500, down 6.28% from a year earlier, with 7.21 months of inventory. In August 2026, attached listings had a median of 45 days in the MLS. Those figures describe a metro-wide condo and townhome market where buyers have more choice. They don't show how new Cherry Creek product is priced, because that supply is limited by insurance costs, not by how many buyers show up.
For a downsizer leaving a single-family home nearby, that affects planning in a few concrete ways:
- Timing. The new for-sale homes with dates attached are Waldorf, targeting the first quarter of 2028, and 135 Adams, which is already releasing units. The Nichols project has no announced start. Cherry Creek West's first building is due in summer 2029, and reporting describes its homes as apartments.
- Price tiers. New construction in the district has clustered at the micro-condo level and the $2-million-plus level. Buyers looking for something in between will mostly be choosing among existing buildings.
- Builder participation. HB25-1272's program is optional, and builders who opt in must record a notice of participation. Whether a specific new building is in the program is a factual question to raise early in a purchase.
- Association rules. For buildings covered by the 2025 law, an HOA now needs 65% owner approval before filing a defect suit.
If you're thinking about trading a Cherry Creek or Country Club house for a condo, the first step is knowing what your current home is worth against a short list of new options. Lara Property Group can put your house value side by side with the condo projects named here and their delivery dates. Get your instant home valuation to start.
