Downtown Denver and the tech company Ibotta have been through a lot together.
The city core has been choked by the pandemic and construction closures, while Ibotta has slogged through layoffs, lawsuits and declining stock prices. And Ibotta’s CEO, Bryan Leach, has been a key ally of Mayor Mike Johnston.
Now, leaders of both the city and the company are hoping for a shot in the arm as Ibotta opens a new 85,000-square-foot office at Market and 16th streets.
Roughly 500 Front Range workers will come to the office Tuesday through Thursday, and enjoy amenities like a high-altitude training room that simulates Himalayan elevation, and a grand piano room, while working on Ibotta’s brand-loyalty software for other businesses.
The city of Denver did not provide any funding for Ibotta to stay downtown and move to LoDo — though it gave the company a grant and a loan a decade ago. But Leach says the mayor’s administration’s support was important to getting the office downtown.
“I've worked very closely with the mayor,” said Leach, who was Johnston’s campaign finance chair. “I was part of his campaign. I believe in his vision for a vibrant Denver, the revitalization of 16th Street.”
The city “made it easier” to navigate the city’s permitting process by assigning Ibotta a liaison to facilitate the process, Leach said.
“I think if we didn't have those relationships, it might have been harder,” Leach said.
While Mayor Mike Johnston says the new office is important, he noted Ibotta received the same treatment as other businesses and developers building downtown. Since the mayor rolled out reforms to the permitting process, the city has assigned “project champions” to different developments and renovations. Permitting reviews have been expedited citywide.
“Ibotta is betting big on Downtown Denver and its potential for growth and revitalization over the next ten years,” Ewing wrote. “Large companies and small businesses alike are seeing the changes happening in the city’s center and they want to be a part of it.”
Leach founded the company in the basement of a Lower Downtown fire station 13 years ago. Now, he is establishing himself as a leader for the future of the city center.
“This is a bit of a homecoming to the part of town that we think is the most vibrant, where many early-stage tech companies are,” Leach said. “And we want to be part of revitalizing that.”
Downtown still has problems.
Despite hundreds of millions of investments in the city center, the recovery from pandemic blight is still in the works. Office vacancies have skyrocketed, with nearly a third of office space going empty. Storefronts remain empty.
Yet Ibotta signed a 10-year lease on its LoDo building — and Leach is betting on a wider downtown bounce-back.
“We want to lead by example and persuade other CEOs of other companies that it makes sense to create density in this area,” he said. “And we think being near Union Station long term is a smart bet, because we want to capture talent from up and down the Front Range.”
There are some other signs of a recovery, too. Pedestrian traffic is at 93 percent of its pre-pandemic levels, a sign that people are returning to downtown, and 56 new ground-floor businesses have opened this year, according to the Downtown Denver Partnership.
More office workers are also coming back to downtown, but the weekday workforce is still only 64 percent of 2019 levels, DDP reported — a result in large part of the shift to remote work.
World-class cities have great downtowns, Leach said. And as both a business leader and an aspiring civic one, Leach sees it as his responsibility to keep downtown from being gutted.
“Ibotta’s decision to locate their headquarters on 16th Street sends a powerful message about downtown’s current trajectory, one of optimism and momentum,” Kourtny Garrett, head of the Downtown Denver Partnership, said in a statement.
Other companies are leaving downtown. Why not Ibotta?
“I don't believe that many of our employees would want to work in the Tech Center,” Leach said, referring to the office hub south of downtown Denver. “It's just not walkable, and so we wanted to be part of a place where our employees could roll out of work, go to a bar, go to a restaurant, interact with each other, give back to the local economy.”
Leach lives near Cherry Creek – a neighborhood that has boomed in recent years, where boosters claim they are creating a safer, cleaner alternative to downtown. Office vacancies are lower in that neighborhood.
Some companies are abandoning downtown Denver for the swankier area, including software giant Palantir and the energy company Antero Resources.
“I have to say that businesses that are leaving Denver to go to Cherry Creek feel to me like they're giving up on Denver,” he said.
Trains, buses and automobiles
The company has Colorado workers as far away as Colorado Springs, Boulder, Castle Pines and Fort Collins, and being close to public transit makes their commutes easier, he said.
With the new headquarters, employees can take a bus or light rail to Union Station and walk four minutes to the office. Of course, return-to-office mandates have sometimes drawn fierce pushback from employees, since reporting to an office requires more cost and time and can disrupt family schedules. On the other hand, employers like Ibotta claim that some office work can strengthen culture and productivity.
Ultimately, Leach hopes the dream of Front Range Passenger Rail comes to fruition, cementing the region as a megalopolis.
“I might be a little optimistic,” he said. “But we have 10 years.”
For workers who continue to drive downtown, they have few affordable parking options. Ibotta’s new offices come with limited parking.
The public transit commute from Leach’s home in the Cory-Merrill neighborhood doesn’t work so well for him, and like many CEOs, he has claimed one parking spot for himself.
“I have a truck that is so long that the person adjacent to my space has left an anonymous note on my windshield asking me to park somewhere else so they can more easily back out,” he said.
Colorado Matters’ Ryan Warner contributed reporting to this story.
