When JAB Real Estate had the chance to buy and restore 2935 Zuni Street, they knew they had to jump at the chance. The historic Ochiltree Block building, built in 1892 when the City of Highland was growing west of the Platte River, featured red brick walls, arched windows, and plenty of character. More than 130 years later, it’s still just as beautiful. The development team saw the potential for an adaptive reuse project—bringing new life and purpose to a classic Denver building—and they were ready to take on the challenge.
Adaptive reuse projects like this can often be expensive. In a building this old, there can be unexpected issues to resolve during renovation.
“We knew we needed a way to make the project financially viable,” Daniel Morisette from JAB told us. “Historic Denver allowed us to add a new construction addition to the side of the building, which doubled the number of units we could offer.”
The idea of blending the old with the new drove the whole ethos of the project. “Space was at an absolute premium. We realized that mini split heat pumps were the perfect solution to provide heating and cooling in the small apartment space we had available.” This early decision to use all-electric heat pumps to heat and cool the building brought the team to heat pump rebates offered by Denver and by Xcel Energy.
Denver’s rebate program provided financial support and advisory services to commercial and multifamily buildings looking to replace their HVAC systems with heat pumps. The goal: encourage all-electric upgrades and identify obstacles buildings might face.
The Denver team jumped at the opportunity to work with 2935 Zuni Street. “A historic building, an adaptive reuse project, and the opportunity to bring cooling to tenants for the first time – we were really excited to support the project and learn from it,” said Sam Domeier, a program manager for the city.
In the end, the project team reported that the obstacles they encountered in electrifying the building were no more challenging to overcome than if they had gone with gas furnaces. “The difference between upgrading the heating and cooling to gas or to electric is not very large when you’re working on an old building,” Jim Jann from JAB told us. “You're going to have to re-pipe the entire HVAC system either way. So, upgrading the system to handle all electric is pretty straightforward at that point.”
And is the team happy with how the mini splits worked out? Absolutely. When you are renting space to people, they want to get the maximum amount of space for living, rather
than housing heating and cooling equipment. “The electric equipment is small, efficient, and it works really well. If it’s 90 degrees outside, you can cool the whole place off in a couple of minutes.”
Beyond that, they’ve learned that the market has shifted over time as well. “When I first saw the mini splits, I thought ‘people are not going to like them. They’re going to look like window units’” Jann said. “But that hasn’t been the case. We get a lot of feedback when we are doing showings, and we just don’t think there’s any worry that these units will turn off a potential tenant or that they’re aesthetically unappealing.” Most tenants are happy to find a beautiful, old building that has cooling in every unit.
The 2935 Zuni project shows that electrifying a historic building can benefit owners, managers, and tenants alike.