Link to article: https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/america-s-emptiest-downtown-f1f4cdf1
Link to archived.ph article: https://archive.ph/B9kNf
Asher Luzzatto paid just $5.25 million for this two-building complex in downtown Denver.
Asher Luzzatto poses for a portrait at the 633 17th St. building in Denver.
By Peter GrantFollow | Photography by Theo Stroomer for WSJ
May 25, 2026 9:00 pm ET
DENVER—Developer Asher Luzzatto stared out at the snow-capped Rocky Mountains one recent April afternoon, admiring the postcard view from the 29th floor of his recently acquired office tower.
Then he turned his gaze lower, to the streets surrounding the downtown Denver building, where he glimpsed a less-inspiring sight: vacant store fronts, empty office buildings with darkened floors, and deserted streets.
The property, one of two office towers known as the Energy Center, is a testament to downtown Denver’s rapid decline. Luzzatto picked up the 785,000 square foot complex late last year for a little more than $5 million—97% below what a previous owner paid for it in 2013.
America’s downtowns are suffering a crisis. Office work has migrated into the suburbs, leaving abandoned buildings and blighted conditions behind. Central business districts from St. Louis to Dallas and Portland, Ore., are fighting to escape a death spiral.
Luzzatto has a plan to fix these downtown catastrophes. He is starting in Denver, where nearly 40% of the office space in the central business district is vacant, the highest among the country’s top 50 cities, according to real-estate services firm CBRE Group.
Cities built forests of skyscrapers when white-collar employment was inseparable from downtowns, and workers poured in daily from bedroom communities. But when remote work became more popular and these downtowns continued to deteriorate, waves of companies moved out jobs and business districts collapsed.
Luzzatto’s approach is to turn that old formula inside out, transforming desolate urban cores into welcoming places to live. He plans to convert half of the Energy Center plus two other downtown Denver office buildings into about 1,100 apartments. He’s also planning a bookstore, art gallery, children’s museum and daycare center.
He acquired all four buildings for pennies on the dollar. In a matter of months, the Los Angeles native has taken control of more than 7% of Denver’s traditional downtown office space. Those rock-bottom purchase prices make it economically feasible to convert his mostly empty office towers into residential buildings, he says. He said that his competitors, other bidders for the downtown properties, “had a lot of trouble seeing past what is here today.”
A pair of buildings on 17th Street connected by a soaring, glass-topped interior courtyard from the mid-1970s has been redubbed 'High Fidelity Plaza.'
Luzzatto is planning to turn the atrium into a community space for new residents, complete with a bakery, a wine-and-beer bar, a bookstore and a bodega, as seen in this rendering. HLW/The Luzzatto Company
