Off of West Colfax Avenue, a mile away from downtown, a new art deco-inspired apartment complex stands on the corner waiting to be filled with tenants.

Inside the building, there’s a gym lit by giant orb lights. The heated rooftop pool has views of Denver’s skyline behind Empower Field. And each floor’s hallway is lined with dozens of photographs, paintings and illustrations.

Wilder, with its nearly 200 units, is among the thousands of new apartments that have hit the market in the metro Denver area over the past year.

The complex at 1521 Hooker St. was developed by The Max Collaborative, the same developers behind 2024’s most notable apartment opening in the region: One River North (the canyon building).

The developer’s latest build rounds out its “first cycle of projects” in the Denver area, said Ryan Bartizal, senior director of The Max Collaborative.

Wilder sets out to create a community focused on health and art to stand out, he explained.

The gym boasts a yoga studio and the building has close proximity to downtown and Sloan’s Lake Park.

The developers also commissioned Denver-based art consultants from NINE dot ARTS to curate 400 pieces of art to create a gallery on each floor — surrounding residents with visual imagery tied to Colorado-inspired ethos of nature, exploration and wonder.

“It differentiates us from the rest of the supply that’s been delivered over the last year,” Bartizal said. “It’s this creative, unique, niche, renter that we’re trying to appeal to and one that I feel sets us apart.”

Denver’s apartment market has seen a boom in construction recently.

Nearly 20,000 new units hit the market in 2024, based on data from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver.

That’s a “huge” 4.8% increase to the rental inventory over the course of a year, according to the association.

Demand for apartments kept up with the construction boom for most of 2024 until the end of the year, keeping vacancies around 5%.

Until the fourth quarter, that is.

The rental market showed some strain at the end of the year as demand began to falter behind the surge of supply. Rents fell quickly, about 1.5%, as vacancies inched up to nearly 7% and landlords faced more competition to attract and keep tenants due to the surge of construction.

Denver is among the first U.S. metros to see rent prices drop due to the construction boom, according to a Zillow report, though more are expected to follow.

As rents are falling, Denver was named among the top 10 most affordable metro areas to rent an apartment by real estate firm Redfin, which compared apartment prices with local median incomes.

Renters would need to make $67,800 to reasonably afford most apartments in the Denver metro, which is still a higher income than most cities rent rates require. But most renters in the area do make a higher wage, about 7% higher than the income needed to be comfortable, according to Redfin.

For Wilder, Bartizal said the influx of direct competition doesn’t scare the developers.

They’re long-term investors, he explained, and Denver will continue to be a popular place people want to move to — maybe just not as much as before.

“It’s a little bit of a difficult time to be pre-leasing,” he said. “But ultimately, we’re very, very optimistic that we’re going to fill up quickly and attract or harvest the rents that are going to come.”

Bartizal wouldn’t say how many leases the building has signed, though they’re doing well and “weathering the oversaturated market.”

During a tour in early February, a leasing agent explained there’s at least one resident per floor since the building opened in the new year.

The building includes studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units ranging from 579 square feet to 1,240 square feet. Apartments start around $1,800 and go up to $3,700 for the largest suites.

Each unit has an open kitchen, in-unit washer and dryers, stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops, vinyl flooring, matte black fixtures and custom storage cabinets. Some apartments have movable kitchen islands, walk-in closets and outdoor terraces.

It also has two rooftop terraces with views of both the city and the Rocky Mountains, a communal lounge area and co-working spaces.

Bartizal said the West Colfax neighborhood was ideal for this art-deco project and attracting the artsy tenant who wants to be both close to downtown and the mountains.

Hiring art consultants was also a large part of creating a living experience to get the attention of tenants. Each floor has a different theme of art pieces including travel, wilderness or greenery.

“It was just an idea that we had, that we wanted to set us apart,” he said. “We know we wanted to speak to this creative, artistic individual who appreciated all that Wilder had to offer.”