Denver Files 61 Commercial Construction Permits Per Week

In the May 11 to June 5, 2026 window, PermitPursuit tracked an average of 61 commercial construction permits per week in Denver, CO, filed with the City of Denver Community Planning and Development office.

Denver Filed 61 Commercial Construction Permits Per Week

Denver's Community Planning and Development office processed an average of 61 commercial construction permits per week. That is 71% of the city's total of 86 weekly filings. One category, commercial construction, accounts for roughly three-quarters of everything Denver files.

Annualized, that pace works out to about 3,172 commercial construction permits per year, out of roughly 4,472 total filings the city processes across all categories. If you are a commercial contractor operating in Denver, that is a steady stream of new work entering the pipeline every week.

The Rest of Denver's Permit Mix

The remaining 25 permits per week break down across four categories:

• Demolition: 17 permits. Twenty percent of Denver's weekly volume. Demolition feeds directly into the commercial construction pipeline. Every demo permit is a site being cleared for something new. More on this in Denver's demolition permit analysis.
• Formal site development plan: 6 permits. Grading, utility connections, and infrastructure planning that precedes vertical construction. These filings signal where commercial construction permits will cluster in the coming months.
• Rezoning: 1 permit. Land use changes moving through the entitlement process. Rezoning filings are the earliest signal in the development pipeline. A rezoning request today becomes a site development plan in the months ahead and a commercial construction permit further down the line.
• Large development review: 1 permit. These are major projects that trigger additional city review due to their scale. One per week means roughly 52 large-scale projects entering Denver's pipeline each year, each one generating multiple subcontractor opportunities.

Why Denver's Mix Is Top-Heavy

Denver's 72% concentration in commercial construction tells you two things about the market.

First, Denver's development cycle is active. The city is not in an early infrastructure phase where site development and rezoning dominate. Projects that were entitled and graded in prior years are now pulling building permits. The pipeline has already been loaded, and the work is moving to vertical construction.

Second, the data gives a clean read on commercial activity. The 86 weekly permits we track are concentrated in the categories that matter most to commercial contractors, so the mix is not diluted by residential alterations, additions, and repairs. That makes the commercial signal easier to act on.

What 61 Permits Per Week Means for Contractors

Sixty-one new commercial construction filings every week is a lot of opportunities to miss. Most contractors hear about projects through word of mouth, plan rooms, or bidding platforms. By the time a project reaches those channels, the GC has already started assembling their sub list. Permit data moves faster. The filing happens when the owner or GC submits to the city, before bid invitations go out.

For subs, the play is straightforward. The permit filing tells you who is building, what is being built, and where. You contact the GC or owner within days of the filing, before the bid list is locked. At 61 filings per week, even if only 10% are relevant to your trade and geography, that is around 6 new leads every seven days.

For GCs, the permit data shows competitive density. If 61 commercial construction permits file in a week, that is 61 projects competing for the same pool of subcontractors. Knowing what else is filing helps you anticipate pricing pressure and crew availability before you finalize your bid.

PermitPursuit pulls Denver's commercial construction filings daily. For the full breakdown of all 86 weekly permits, see the Denver permit data page.