How to Pull a Commercial Building Permit in Denver, CO: Process, Permit Types, and Tracking

In the May 11 to June 5, 2026 window, PermitPursuit tracked an average of 85 commercial permits per week in Denver, CO, filed with the City of Denver Community Planning and Development office.

How to Pull a Commercial Building Permit in Denver

Commercial building permits in Denver run through the City of Denver Community Planning and Development office. Applications are filed online through the city's Accela Citizen Access portal at aca-prod.accela.com/DENVER. That portal is where you create the application, upload your drawings, respond to review comments, request inspections, and check the status of your permit as it moves through the system. Once a record is created, it becomes part of the public permit data, which is how a service like PermitPursuit can surface it.

The General Sequence

Every commercial permit follows the same broad path, even though the depth of review and the time it takes vary widely by project. The stages are application, plan review, corrections, issuance, and inspections.

• Application. The owner, the contractor, or the design professional starts a record in the portal, selects the permit type, enters the project and parcel information, and uploads the required documents. A complete, accurate submittal here is the single biggest factor in how smoothly the rest of the process goes.
• Plan review. Community Planning and Development staff and the relevant disciplines review the drawings against the adopted building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and zoning codes. Larger projects touch more reviewers, so the review depth scales with scope.
• Corrections. Most commercial submittals come back with comments. The applicant revises the drawings, responds to each item, and resubmits through the portal. Projects can cycle through more than one round of corrections before everything clears.
• Issuance. Once all review comments are resolved and any fees are paid, the permit is issued and work can legally begin.
• Inspections. As the work proceeds, the contractor requests inspections at the required stages. Passing the final inspection is what closes out the permit.

Timelines for each stage depend on project scope, completeness of the submittal, and current department workload, and they change over time. For current processing times, check the status of your own record in the portal rather than relying on a fixed estimate.

The Commercial Permit Types Issued in Denver

Across the window we tracked, Denver's 85 weekly commercial filings break down across a handful of categories. Commercial construction dominates the volume, while demolition, site development, and the entitlement filings make up the rest.

• Commercial Construction. The largest category at 61 per week. This is the core of Denver's commercial pipeline, covering ground-up buildings and the larger build-out and alteration work that needs a full building permit.
• Demolition. About 17 per week. Each demo permit is a site being cleared, which usually precedes something new going up, so it is a useful forward indicator for commercial work.
• Formal Site Development Plan. Around 6 per week. Grading, utility connections, and infrastructure planning that come before vertical construction, signaling where commercial activity will cluster in the months ahead.
• Rezoning. Roughly 1 per week. Land use changes moving through the entitlement process, the earliest signal in the development pipeline.
• Large Development Review. About 1 per week. Major projects whose scale triggers additional city review, each one capable of generating multiple subcontractor opportunities.

Combined, commercial construction runs at 61 per week against 17 demolition filings, a ratio of roughly 3.6 to 1. For a deeper look at the two largest categories, see the breakdowns for commercial construction and demolition permits.

What Documents You Typically Need

The exact submittal package depends on the permit type and the size of the project, but commercial applications in Denver generally call for the same core items:

• Site plan. Showing the parcel, the building footprint, and how the work relates to the property and any zoning requirements.
• Construction drawings. The plans and specifications for the scope of work, prepared to the level of detail the project requires and, where applicable, stamped by a licensed design professional.
• Contractor information. The licensed contractor performing the work, with the credentials the city requires for that trade.
• Owner information. The property owner of record and their authorization for the project.

Because fee amounts depend on project scope and valuation and are updated over time, do not budget from a number you read online. Confirm current fees directly in the City of Denver portal when you file.

How to Track New Filings

Every one of those 85 weekly permits becomes a public record the moment it is created. The problem is timing. By the time a project surfaces through referrals or a bid invitation, the build team is often already being assembled. Watching the filings as they land gives you the earliest formal signal that work is coming.

PermitPursuit pulls Denver permit data and delivers the filings that match your trade and geography, so a permit that lands this week shows up while it is still actionable. See what is filing now on the Denver permit page, and let PermitPursuit put new commercial filings in front of you before your competitors find them.