University

Pricing trends

University prices below University Park and Platt Park for detached homes and offers some of the DU area's most attainable condominiums, many bought by investors for student rentals. Renovated bungalows on the quieter southern blocks carry the premium. The Denver table below carries the citywide numbers.

Citywide figures for Denver. Source: Local Market Update, August 2026, REcolorado data compiled by the Colorado Association of REALTORS®. Neighborhood-level figures vary; ask me for comparables on any specific home. See all area tables.

About University

University is the neighborhood on the west side of the University of Denver, between the campus and Downing Street, where the university's buildings, the Ritchie Center and the light rail station meet blocks of 1910s to 1950s bungalows and brick cottages. It has a college-town feel with students, faculty and long-time residents on the same streets, and it is the most affordable corner of the DU area for a detached home.

Location

University runs from Evans Avenue south to Yale Avenue between Downing Street and University Boulevard, with the DU campus and University Park to the east, Platt Park and Rosedale to the west across Downing, Wash Park and Cory-Merrill to the north and Wellshire to the south. The University of Denver station on the E and H lines is on the campus edge.

History and background

The University of Denver moved from downtown to its present campus in 1890, on land south of the city given by the potato farmer Rufus Clark, and the blocks west of it were platted for the faculty, staff and families that followed. The streetcar on South University Boulevard and later on Evans Avenue connected the neighborhood to the city.

Bungalows and brick cottages filled the blocks from the 1910s through the 1930s, and the ranches of the 1940s and 1950s completed them as the university grew after the Second World War. Student rentals and apartment buildings spread along the campus edge from the 1960s on, giving the neighborhood its mix of owners and renters.

The opening of the light rail station on the campus in 2006 and the university's building boom of the 2000s and 2010s, including the Ritchie Center and the Newman Center, pushed values up across the neighborhood, and the original bungalows have been renovated or replaced on many blocks since.

Housing and architecture

The streets hold 1910s to 1930s bungalows and brick cottages on 37- and 50-foot lots, 1940s and 1950s ranches, and a dense band of apartments, condominiums and rented houses nearest the campus. Pop-tops and rebuilds have spread through the single-family blocks since the 2010s, and new townhomes line Evans and Buchtel Boulevard near the station.

Parks and recreation

Harvard Gulch Park, with its par-3 golf course and recreation center, is at the neighborhood's west edge, and Observatory Park is east across the campus. The university's Ritchie Center offers public ice time and fitness memberships, Washington Park is a short ride north and the Platte River Trail is reachable at Evans.

Dining, shopping and daily life

The campus edge along Evans Avenue and University Boulevard holds coffee, casual restaurants, a bookstore and the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, with Old South Pearl Street's restaurants and farmers market a few blocks west. Groceries are at the Safeway on Evans or the King Soopers at University and Yale.