Denver's 86 Weekly Permits: Commercial Construction Dominates at 71%

In the May 11 to June 5, 2026 window, PermitPursuit tracked an average of 86 commercial permits per week in Denver, CO, filed with the City of Denver Community Planning and Development office.

86 Permits Per Week: Denver's Full Breakdown

Denver's Community Planning and Development office averages 86 commercial permits per week across five categories. Here is where every permit lands:

Two things stand out immediately. First, commercial construction is not just the largest category. It is larger than all other categories combined. At 61 permits per week, it accounts for more filings than the next four categories put together (25). Second, demolition at 17 per week is the clear number two, which tells you Denver is in active replacement mode rather than early-stage development.

The Most Lopsided Permit Mix We Track

Denver's 72% concentration in commercial construction is unusual. In many markets the leading category accounts for a much smaller slice of total volume, with filings spread across renovation, tenant improvement, and new construction without any single category dominating. Denver is the opposite. One category carries nearly three quarters of the weekly load.

Denver's concentration means something specific for contractors working in the market. The overwhelming majority of permit activity in the city is directly related to building or rebuilding commercial structures. If you are a commercial GC or sub, Denver's pipeline is almost entirely your pipeline. You are not sorting through residential noise, electrical repair permits, or sign applications to find the commercial work. It is front and center in the data.

The flip side is competitive density. Sixty-one commercial construction permits per week means many projects competing for the same subcontractor pool. During peak filing weeks, the demand for framing, MEP, concrete, and finish trades can exceed local capacity. Subs who track the weekly filing volume can anticipate tight labor windows and price accordingly.

What the Smaller Categories Tell You

The three smallest categories in Denver's mix are the most useful for forward-looking intelligence.

Formal site development plan (6 per week, 7%): These permits cover grading, utility extensions, stormwater management, and road access work. A site development permit means the land is being prepared for vertical construction. The commercial construction permit typically follows months later, depending on the scale of the site work. Six per week means roughly 312 sites per year are being readied for new buildings across the Denver metro.

Rezoning (1 per week, 1%): Rezoning requests are the earliest publicly visible step in the development process. Before a property owner can file for demolition, site development, or construction, they often need the land use changed to allow their intended project. One rezoning filing per week means roughly 52 parcels per year are being repositioned for new development. These are future construction sites, and the lead time from rezoning to construction permit can stretch over a year, which gives contractors and subs a long runway to identify and pursue the resulting projects.

Large development review (1 per week, 1%): These are the biggest projects in the pipeline. Denver triggers additional review for projects above certain size and impact thresholds. At 1 per week, that is roughly 52 major projects per year. Each large development review project generates work for many subcontractors across multiple phases. These are the projects worth tracking individually because a single award can fill a crew's schedule for months.

Reading the Development Phase

Denver's permit mix tells you where the city sits in its development cycle. A market in the early phase of a construction boom would show higher proportions of rezoning and site development permits relative to commercial construction. The entitlement and infrastructure work would be leading the building activity. A market at the peak of a cycle shows heavy commercial construction with declining rezoning and site development, meaning the pipeline is being consumed faster than it is being replenished.

Denver's current mix suggests a market in mid-cycle. Commercial construction dominates at 72%, indicating strong active building. But rezoning at 1 per week and formal site development plans at 6 per week are still feeding the pipeline. The demolition rate of 17 per week, or 20% of total volume, confirms that sites are being recycled for new uses. The pipeline is not drying up. New entitlements and site preparations are generating the next wave of commercial construction permits even as the current wave files at 61 per week.

For contractors, this means the current volume is sustainable rather than a spike that will drop off. The feeder categories are active. The replacement cycle is running. Crews that staff up for Denver's current pace have reason to believe the work will continue at a similar rate through the next several quarters.

PermitPursuit pulls all five permit categories from Denver's system daily. For the full city feed and category breakdowns, see the Denver permit page or browse more analysis on the PermitPursuit blog.