Sterling Bay has secured $88 million in bonds in partnership with Piper Sandler Special District Group, a specialty financing firm, to begin infrastructure work this spring at Redtail Ridge—a 2.6 million-square-foot mixed-use life science campus in Boulder County, Colo.

Sterling Bay received final approval for the 389-acre Redtail Ridge innovation district in August last year, from the Louisville, Colo., city council. The developer acquired the site more than two years ago. The property had been vacant for more than 20 years and, prior to that, it served as the global headquarters of data storage firm StorageTek.

The first phase of Redtail Ridge’s horizontal infrastructure is set to begin in April. It is being designed in collaboration with architectural firm Perkins & Will and will be constructed by Mortenson. The initial phase is expected to be complete in 18 months, with the first delivery of buildings set to take place in late 2026, according to a Sterling Bay spokesperson.

The developer anticipates constructing two industrial and/or manufacturing buildings—one 95,000 square feet and the second 144,000 square feet—along with a 100,000-square-foot life science building in the first phase, the spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive.

Located along the U.S. 36 corridor between Denver and Boulder, Colo., the campus will also feature a 20,000-square-foot amenity center with a gym, yoga spaces, lounge, conference center and 20 miles of trails and dedicated open spaces. The site will also include a new home for the 160-bed AdventHealth Avista Hospital. The full build out is expected to take six years.

Mixed-use campus breakdown

The mixed-use campus development is designed to meet the growing demand for life science, R&D, biomanufacturing, office and industrial facilities in the region. It is expected to drive economic growth, foster innovation and expand opportunities for the life science sector in Colorado.

READ ALSO: Prism Places, McWhinney Plan Mixed-Use Districts Near Denver

Last year, Sterling Bay estimated that Redtail Ridge’s construction will generate $43 million in taxes and fees. Once complete, the campus is expected to provide $24.4 million annually in tax revenue, while projected annual retail sales might reach $144 million.

Plans call for six districts across the campus with built-to-suit opportunities available:

• Life Sciences District West—294,695 square feet of life science development with 825 parking spaces
• GMP/Industrial District—462,804 square feet of GMP development, 612,400 square feet of industrial development and 2,200 parking spaces
• Life Sciences District East—177,375 square feet of life science development with 492 parking spaces
• R&D District—123,722 square feet of R&D development with 390 parking spaces
• Office District—336,127 square feet of office space with 1,425 parking spaces
• Retail/Life Science—14,000 square feet of retail space, 111,646 square feet of life science development and 460 parking spaces

Proximity to bioscience programs

Redtail Ridge will benefit from its proximity to four bioscience programs at University of Colorado-Boulder, Colorado State University, University of Denver and University of Colorado-Denver. Colorado continues to solidify its reputation as an innovation destination due to the rapidly growing life science ecosystem and record-breaking private and NIH funding that has exceeded $9 billion over the past five years, according to Sterling Bay.

The campus will be within 30 miles of Denver International Airport, downtown Denver and Boulder. Nearby major life science companies include Agilent Technologies, Eli Lilly & Co., KBI Biopharma and Novo Nordisk.

The post Sterling Bay Secures $88M for Denver-Area Mixed-Use appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Echo Real Estate Capital Inc. has acquired Rampart Medical Campus, a two-building, 71,000-square-foot property in Denver. Healthcare Realty Trust sold the asset with the assistance of CBRE. 

The property changed hands for $8.6 million, according to Denver Business Journal, less than half of what it sold for in 2019. Back then, the sale price was $18.9 million.

The purchase marked Echo’s return to Colorado, where it previously owned health-care and retail properties. The firm’s portfolio also includes Arizona, Indiana, Illinois and Massachusetts assets.

Rampart Medical Campus, up close

The medical campus consists of two three-story buildings located at 125 and 130 Rampart Way, in the historic Lowry neighborhood. Originally completed in 1942 as a school, the property was converted to office use in 1983, according to CommercialEdge information. 

The asset was 45 percent leased by seven companies at the time of sale. Anchor tenants include Colorado Allergy & Asthma Centers, U.S. Dermatology Partners and Denver Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery. Echo Real Estate Capital took out financing from AGP Capital and Aspen Funds for capital improvements, cosmetic upgrades and spec-suite construction, to grow the property’s occupancy. 

Rampart Medical Campus is 4 miles east of downtown Denver, adjacent to the Lowry Town Center shopping mall. Rose Medical Center, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and The Medical Center of Aurora are within a 5-mile radius.

Despite economic uncertainties, the medical office sector remains resilient, with outpatient volumes expected to increase by 26 percent over the next decade. Investors are increasingly interested in such properties due to their stable, long-term tenants. However, challenges such as workforce shortages, rising labor costs and high construction expenses persist.

The post Echo Real Estate Buys Denver Medical Campus at Steep Discount appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Office deals in Denver posted a 31.3 percent year-over-year drop, but the metro’s total office investment placed it among the top-performing U.S. markets, outpacing San Francisco. Meanwhile, even if the metro’s vacancy rate became one of the highest ones in the nation, Denver still closed some significant leasing agreements since the start of the year.

As of November, there were 680,961 square feet of office space under construction across seven properties, accounting for 0.4 percent of total stock—below the national rate of 0.8 percent. The figure was on par with that of Detroit’s and Phoenix’s, while it outpaced that of Portland’s (0.1 percent). When adding projects in prospective and planning stages, Denver’s rate reached 2.8 percent of existing stock—still below the national rate of 3.0 percent.

Notable office projects came online

In terms of office supply, Denver’s pipeline outpaced that of Phoenix’s (529,050 square feet), Charlotte (524,657 square feet), while Atlanta led across similar markets, with 1.7 million square feet. One of the largest office developments currently underway in the metro is Beacon Capital Partners’ Steel House, a 309,308-square-foot project in Denver’s Five Points submarkets. Construction on the 12-story project started in February 2023, with $100.2 million in construction financing by Bank OZK. The project is designed to received LEED Gold and WELL certifications.

Another notable development nearing completion is the 134,393-square-foot CV Innovation Campus, a life science project in Louisville, Colo. Developed by Koelbel & Co., the project is an adaptive reuse development of a former 1996-built Lowe’s store into life science and R&D space aimed for biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

Year-to-date through November, developers had broken ground in 690,666 square feet across six properties, while deliveries totaled nearly 1.3 million square feet across seven properties—accounting for 0.7 percent of existing stock and marking a 19.8 percent year-over-year growth.

A recently delivered project is the 726,450-square-foot 1900 Lawrence, a Class A+ high-rise in Denver’s central business district. Completed in August, the 30-story office tower was developed by Riverside Investment & Development and financed by a $242 million loan by Bank OZK. Currently marketed for lease by JLL, the property is considered the largest skyscraper delivered in Denver in four decades.

Denver’s potential for office-to-residential makeovers

As vacancies continue to increase in most markets, office-to-residential conversion emerged as a trend for office owners across the U.S. CommercialEdge launched The Conversion Feasibility Index, a new tool that evaluates which markets show strong office-to-residential repurposing fundamentals, based on a set of property-level scores.

Denver had 18 properties totaling 1.7 million square feet in the Tier I category, with CFI scores between 90 and 100 points. Meanwhile, 212 properties accounting for 22.1million square feet of space made up the Tier II category, with CFI scores between 75 and 89 points.

One example of an office-to-residential project currently underway is the 124,000-square-foot building at 4340 S. Monaco St., that was purchased by Shea Properties. The company started the adaptive reuse project, with plans to add 143 affordable residential units. Originally completed in 2001, the Class A four-story property has been vacant for the past five years.

A drop in office sales

Year-to-date through November, Denver investors traded $768 million in office assets, with 60 properties totaling 8.2 million square feet of space that changed hands at an average sale price of $119 per square foot—below the national average of $179 per square foot. Among similar markets, deals were pricier in Phoenix ($164 per square foot), Portland ($164 per square foot), Atlanta ($148 per square foot), while Denver prices per square foot outpaced the ones from Houston ($107 per square foot) and Dallas ($115 per square foot).

The total sales volume in the metro was 31.3 percent lower on a year-over-year basis and placed Denver 13th among the top 25 U.S. office markets, outpacing San Francisco ($747 million), Seattle ($687 million) and San Diego ($651 million). Among notable deals in Denver is the $45.5 million sale of TeleTech Headquarters, a 271,678-square-foot property in Englewood, Colo. CommonSpirit Health, a Catholic hospital chain, acquired the property at 9197 S. Peoria St. from TeleTech Services, with plans to turn it into a medical campus.

Another significant deal is the $31.2 million sale of Sisters Grove Pavilion, a 116,367-square-foot medical office building in Colorado Springs, Colo. Harrison Street and MedCraft Investment Partners bought the property from CommonSpirit Health in October.

Office vacancy continues to rise

As of November, Denver’s office sector had a 24.6 percent average vacancy rate, one of the highest rates in the nation, and marking a 320-basis-point increase over the same period of last year. While the national rate was set at 19.4 percent, Atlanta and Phoenix were the similar markets with lower vacancy rates, with 17.8 percent and 18.4 percent, respectively.

Significant deals in the metro include Bet365’s 120,000-square-foot lease at One Platte, a 250,000-square-foot building owned by Nichols Partnership and Shorenstein. The U.K.-based sports betting firm opened its new U.S. corporate headquarters at the property in October, with the move expected to bring nearly 1,000 jobs in the area.

In May, Brookfield Properties signed a 121,000-square-foot renewal agreement at 717 17th St., a 693,565-square-foot property in downtown Denver. The tenant is Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary that will continue to use the space as its global headquarters through at least 2035.

A high share of flex office space

As of November, Denver’s coworking sector reached 3.7 million square feet of space, representing 2.2 percent of total leasable office space—above the national figure of 1.9 percent.

The largest flex office provider in Denver remained Regus, with operations totaling 694,250 square feet of space. The company was followed by WeWork (307,846 square feet), Expansive (229,867 square feet), Spaces (180,252 square feet) and Office Evolution (155,916 square feet).

The post Denver’s Office Sales Slow as Deliveries Tick Up appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

The holiday shopping season is in full swing and managing the increased foot traffic in shopping malls around this time of the year can be challenging, but Nick LeMasters knows exactly how to maximize success. He’s the CEO of Cherry Creek North, a walkable open-air shopping and lifestyle district close to downtown Denver, and has decades of experience in the retail real estate industry.

Commercial Property Executive talked to LeMasters about shopping mall safety during the busiest time of the year, what it takes to manage the influx of shoppers, as well as trends he’s seeing in the retail real estate space.

Beyond special deals and offers, what matters most to shoppers and how are retail managers responding?

LeMasters: Let’s begin with the basics: the blocking and tackling of retail real estate. Owners and property managers have an obligation to ensure the safety and convenience of the retail shopper and their tenants. Without these two fundamental conditions in place, it will be very difficult to attract customers. Properties that carry negative perceptions regarding personal safety will be challenged. Convenience takes the form of abundant parking and pedestrian access.

READ ALSO: Shopping Changed Dramatically. Retail Design Is One Step Ahead.

How have retailers and landlords prepared for the increase in foot traffic across their physical stores? 

LeMasters: Preparations for increased foot traffic are centered on two primary activities: inventory and sales help. Both activities need to be carefully balanced. Inventory levels should reflect current purchasing trends that customers have exhibited. Are there specific fashions, brands, colors, or other factors that will help to increase gross margins and minimize seasonal markdowns? No one wants to see a customer walk away disappointed that they were unable to secure the item(s) that they had intended to purchase.

In this current economic environment, workforce issues are a significant concern for retailers. Locating and hiring qualified staff has long been a priority for the retail community but the challenge has become greater given a limited supply of qualified applicants.

Are there any lessons from previous holiday seasons that retailers can successfully apply this year? What common pitfalls should they avoid?

LeMasters: Experienced retailers are constantly learning from previous holiday seasons. Those that are successful have learned to refine their offering and stay in touch with their customers’ wants and needs. The most common pitfall that retailers must be aware of is to ensure the proper training of their sales staff. The holiday season becomes all-consuming for retail managers. Despite the demands of the season, managers must make time to train staff members and provide guidance and clear expectations. A well-trained staff will go a long way to ensuring a successful and profitable holiday season.

In-store versus online shopping this holiday season—what will be the balance?

LeMasters: Despite the perceived threat that online shopping has become, one thing has proven to be true: The death of brick-and-mortar retail has been highly exaggerated. In today’s retail environment, online and brick-and-mortar retail have seamlessly coexisted. Online shopping will continue to grow but not at the expense of the physical retail store.

Customers have proven to be resilient and loyal to their favorite retail store. The social engagement and touch and feel of the merchandise cannot be replicated online. The best and brightest of retailers have learned that they no longer must choose between these two formats. They have adopted both and have found ways to satisfy the customers’ needs regardless of the format that they have chosen.

How much will experiential retail drive business success this holiday season?

LeMasters: Experiential retail—while growing in its importance—should not be expected to drive retail success in 2024. Landlords will continue to identify and place attractive experiential concepts in their properties—and they should. Apparel, jewelry, electronics, toys and other traditional gift items should be expected to carry the day for most retailers.

What are your expectations for retail real estate performance when it comes to urban versus suburban assets?

LeMasters: Landlords evaluate performance on a property by property level in every market in which they have a presence. Many central business districts throughout the country continue to experience challenges related to slow return-to-office policies thus reducing daytime foot traffic. Additionally, many of these same CBDs continue to be challenged with vagrancy, homelessness and perceived safety concerns. Urban centers that have effectively addressed these societal issues should be fine. Those that have not or have been unsuccessful may see continued challenges. In those markets, customers may prefer the suburban experience even though it may require a longer drive.

How can retailers leverage data analytics to improve their holiday season strategies?

LeMasters: Data analytics can be a useful tool in evaluating holiday season strategies. Analytics—when properly applied—can inform retailers on several levels. For example, the use of technologies like Placer.ai can reveal demographic information that is useful in targeting customers in specific zip codes and neighborhoods that fit the profile of those the retailer believes can be attractive and potentially profitable.

To what extent could shopping trends this holiday season impact retail real estate in 2025?

LeMasters: Shopping trends that emerge from the 2024 holiday season will undoubtedly affect retail real estate decisions in the coming year. Owners, managers and brokers will maintain a keen eye on emerging and existing retail concepts that are performing well. These concepts will be targeted for expansion into new markets or additional store locations within an existing metro area.

What final advice would you give to retailers looking to maximize their success during this holiday season and beyond?

LeMasters: To maximize success during this holiday season, retailers should focus on a few key actions. Hiring and training qualified staff is essential. Consider bringing on regular customers who already trust the brand and can speak from experience. Effective communication with customers is also crucial, leveraging social media platforms with engaging content, especially videos.

Creating a welcoming store environment with friendly staff, refreshments, music and activities can help engage customers for longer periods. Beyond the season, retailers should continue to evaluate their location and determine if it best fits their needs and that of their customer.

The post Unwrapping Holiday Retail Trends: Insights From a Denver Mall CEO appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Consolidated Investment Group has secured a five-year, fixed-rate note amounting to $17.5 million for two Class A industrial assets in Aurora, Colo., totaling 235,987 square feet. JLL arranged the loan.

Dubbed Building 5 and 6, the properties are within Consolidated’s Eastpark 70, a six-building industrial campus encompassing 1.1 million square feet. The two facilities were the park’s latest addition, having made their debut in 2022, while the other four structures opened between 2016 and 2019. A seventh 116,550-square-foot build-to-suit facility is in the planning stages.

Building 5 and 6 feature 32-foot clear heights, dock-high and drive-in doors, as well as 120 parking spaces combined. The former’s truck court reaches a depth between 130 and 185 feet.

READ ALSO: You’ve Survived Till 2025. Now What?

Performance Contracting’s deal to occupy the entire 77,140-square-foot Building 6 and Empire Today’s lease for 60,350 square feet inside Building 5 brought Eastpark 70 to full occupancy. The deals closed last year.

Carrying the addresses 19722 & 19922 E. 22nd Ave., the two facilities are less than 3 miles from Interstate 70 about 16 miles east of downtown Denver. The Colorado Air and Space Port, as well as The Denver International Airport, are within roughly 15 miles.

JLL Directors Rob Bova and William Haass represented Consolidated Investment Group in the financing proceedings.

Denver International Airport attracts investors

Industrial investment skyrocketed throughout Greater Denver, with deals amounting to north of $1.1 billion during the first 10 months of the year, according to a CommercialEdge report. By comparison, in 2023 investment volume only reached $485 million. Other Western markets fared significantly better this year, such as the Bay Area ($3.0 billion) and Los Angeles ($2.4 billion).

The markets’ heightened investor interest is closely linked to the Denver International Airport, which plays a key role in the region’s logistics and distribution operations. Investcorp’s 1.3 million-square-foot portfolio acquisition is one such example. The collection traded for $200 million, and its 31 assets are located within Denver and South Florida.

Greater Denver’s industrial vacancy rate stood at 9.6 percent in October, above the national average of 7.2 percent and higher than all other Western Markets, the same source shows. The metro’s industrial pipeline reached 6.8 million square feet in October, a figure outshined only by Phoenix (28.1 million) and the Inland Empire (10.2 million).

The post Consolidated Secures $18M for Denver-Area Industrial Assets appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Prism Places and McWhinney are teaming up to create two separate mixed-use commercial districts totaling about 676,000 square feet across 213 acres in growing master-planned communities developed by McWhinney in the Denver suburbs. The retail and commercial space will be built in Broomfield and Loveland in northern Colorado starting next year.

Leases with an organic grocer have been signed for both developments. The stores will be 37,000 square feet each. The firms are not identifying the grocer at this time. All components of each project will be built concurrently.

Designed by AO, the first project to break ground will be Avenue South, a 364,000-square-foot district that will be the business and commercial hub for Centerra, a 3,000-acre master-planned community in Loveland. Construction is expected to begin in November 2025 and finish by March 2028. In addition to the organic grocery store, it will feature 128,000 square feet of retail, 72,000 square feet of restaurant space, 127,000 square feet of Class A office space and more than 1,750 new residential units.

READ ALSO: Why Mixed-Use Developments Are All About the Right Synergies

Center Street will total approximately 312,000 square feet and will serve as the business district for Baseline, a 1,100-acre master-planned community in Broomfield. Prism Places and McWhinney are expected to break ground on Center Street in September 2026. It is slated for completion by August 2028. The walkable commercial center will have 80,000 square feet of office space, 116,000 square feet of retail, 78,500 square feet of restaurant space and the 37,000-square-foot organic grocery store.  Michael Hsu Office of Architecture will design Center Street, which is also expected to have more than 400 residential units.

The partners want to offer a curated collection of sought-after brands, culinary talent, breweries, coffee shops, fast-casual favorites, wellness, fitness and other services. They listened to each of the communities to create dynamic yet distinct commercial spaces that reflect the DNAs of both Loveland and Broomfield, Stenn Parton, founder & CEO of Prism Places said in a company statement.

“We know that being walkable to amenities, restaurants, office and retail is a huge draw for residents, so creating these thoughtfully curated mixed-use commercial centers was always part of our plan for both Centerra and Baseline,” Chad McWhinney, co-founder, chairman & CEO of Denver- and Loveland-based McWhinney, told Commercial Property Executive.

“These projects are part of creating dynamic, complete communities, fostering economic resilience and encouraging community connection. With the growth in Loveland and Broomfield, these developments will provide essential hubs in support of local economies,” he added.

Earlier partnership

McWhinney and Prism Places have previously worked together. In June 2021, the companies acquired the Foothills Mall and several single- and multi-tenant buildings in Fort Collins, Colo., for $45 million after the previous owner defaulted on a $46.6 million loan and the 63-acre property was placed in receivership, according to The Coloradoan newspaper. The group that defaulted on the mall property was comprised of affiliates of Walton Street Capital and Alberta Development Partners, the newspaper reported.

In April 2023, the partners unveiled a mixed-use redevelopment proposal for the mall. Estimated at more than $300 million, the plan includes demolishing part of the enclosed mall to construct a walkable community center featuring a 70,000-square-foot office building, at least 750 residential units with a mix of for-sale and rental options and 440,000 square feet of open-air retail and restaurant space. The proposal includes a potential brewery and a large outdoor area for community gatherings.

The post Prism Places, McWhinney Plan Mixed-Use Districts Near Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

A partnership of NexCore Group, Intermountain Health and Nuveen has officially opened the Lutheran Medical Office Building, a 138,000-square-foot medical outpatient building in Englewood, Colo.

The development team included Davis Partnership Architects, which provided design services, and Saunders Construction as general contractor. Martin Consulting Engineers and Cator, Ruma & Associates served as civil and electrical engineers, respectively. Construction began in December 2022.

Davis Partnership also provided architectural services for the partnership’s Aurora East Crossroads, an 85,000-square-foot medical office building in Aurora, Colo. The MOB debuted this August.

READ ALSO: Outpatient Facilities Step Into the Spotlight

The Lutheran Medical Office Building rises five stories or 87 feet. Its primary entry, facing westward, features a vehicular pull-out for patient drop. Its southside includes a pick-up point for surgery patients.

Intermountain Health provides medical services such as cardiovascular care and cardiac rehabilitation, neurology and neurosurgery, maternal and fetal medicine, as well as a sleep lab and orthopedics, among others.

The facility ranked 11th in Commercial Search’s Top 20 Largest Medical Office Buildings to Be Completed in 2024. UW Health’s 439,000-square-foot project dubbed The Eastpark Medical Center took the crown. The Madison, Wis., property was slated for delivery in the third quarter.

Located on 28 acres at 12905 W. 40th Ave., the Lutheran Medical Office Building is less than 1 mile from Interstate 70, while downtown Denver is about 15 miles southeast. Numerous lakes, retail facilities and parks can be found within walking distance.

The relocation of a 100-acre medical campus

The MOB is part of the Lutheran Medical Center Campus, which also includes a hospital and a pedestrian bridge that connects the duo. The entire campus alongside the hospital—which had served Wheat Ridge for over a century—recently relocated.

Its current position is less than 4 miles from its prior placement. The previous campus sprawled roughly 100 acres and with its relocation, a master redevelopment plan emerged. As of 2021, the new vision included a mixed-use development in the former campus’ center, as well as buffer and transitional areas toward the edges.

Medical Office deliveries expected to drop

At a national level, roughly 10 million square feet of medical office product is slated for delivery this year—a decline from 2023’s figure of 12.5 million square feet—according to a report by Marcus & Millichap. However, this drop in completions will temper the sector’s rise in vacancy as the rate is estimated to inch up by 30 basis points in 2024.

Given the fluctuating nature of costs related to development, labor and capital, MOB construction starts may remain tepid going forward, Marcus & Millichap’s report shows. To offset expenses, developers could eye traditional office conversion projects.

The post NexCore Group Partnership Debuts MOB Facility appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Institutional Property Advisors brokered the off-market transaction, with Executive Director Tom Lagos working on behalf of the buyer. SITE Centers sold the asset, according to CommercialEdge data.

At the time of the deal, the retail center was 100 percent leased. The tenant roster boasts a diverse range of retailers such as King Soopers, Michaels, Marshalls, Office Depot, AT&T, PetSmart, Great Clips, Five Below, Bank of the West, Ulta Beauty, Mika Sushi, Starbucks Coffee and Chick-fil-A, among others.

University Hills encompasses six buildings on some 20 acres. Originally a strip shopping center built in 1953, the property faced decline but was revitalized in the 1990s. University Hills Inc. acquired the land in February 1995 and a joint venture between Goldberg Property Associates and Greystone Realty Corp. purchased the asset in July 1996. The redevelopment was supported by the city and county of Denver, the city council, neighborhood groups and DURA.

READ ALSO: Unlocking the Sun Belt’s Retail Potential

Located at 2750 S. Colorado Blvd. in the Glendale submarket, the shopping center serves around 420,000 individuals within a 5-mile radius of the center, with the average household income of approximately $130,000, according to KPR. Due to its location in a healthy market, the center recorded more than 3.6 million visitors per year.

Active in 18 states, KPR Centers has a portfolio of approximately 10 million square feet of owned and self-managed properties. This year, the company purchased a 1.5 million-square-foot retail portfolio in Florida and the Midwest for $180 million. Kimco Realty Corp. sold the eight assets.

Denver’s healthy retail market

Denver retail market trends kept stable this year. During the second quarter of 2024, the metro sustained a low vacancy rate of 4.6 percent, according to a Colliers report.

The average asking rate increased to $19.06 per square foot, while investment slowed, reaching $351 million by mid-2024, according to the same source. Around 121,000 square feet of retail space was delivered in the metro area in the second quarter, with more than 468,000 square feet under construction.

The post KPR Enters Denver With $57M Retail Acquisition appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Bet365 struck a deal through Newmark, the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade to take up residence at One Platte, a 250,000-square-foot Class A building at 1701 Platte St.

Bet365 will occupy 120,000 square feet across two floors at the five-story property. One Platte sits between downtown Denver and the Highlands neighborhood.

The move is expected to bring nearly 1,000 jobs to the Denver community. The firm said it would onboard more than 300 employees within the first year of operations, of which approximately 50 will be employed at the opening.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Markets for Office Deliveries

Bet365 could receive as much as $14 million in a performance-based Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit from the Colorado Economic Development Commission over eight years.

In collaboration with Knight Frank, Newmark’s Blaustein and Director Josh Pons represented bet365 in leasing the space. Newmark Vice Chairman Jamie Gard and Executive Managing Director Jeff Castleton represented the landlords, Nichols Partnership and Shorenstein. Gensler served as the architect and designer for the renovation. Task PM led the project management.

Denver’s office market performance

Denver’s office market concluded the first half of 2024 with some signs of improvement along a few fundamentals. Despite the nationwide slowdown in new office development, plateauing utilization and high interest rates, Denver showed some resilience.

The metro’s construction pipeline has improved since last year. Although completions diminished by more than 26 percent, new construction starts signal demand is still present. Vacancy continued to rise, however, while the average price per square foot dropped below most of its peer markets.

Overall investment volume for the year’s first half decreased to less than half compared to the first six months of 2023.

The post Sports Betting Firm Opens US Headquarters appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Intermountain Health, in partnership with NexCore Group, has opened Aurora East Crossroads, an 85,000-square-foot medical office building in Aurora, Colo. Project partners also included Nuveen Real Estate.

NexCore Group broke ground on the facility in March 2023. Architect Davis Partnership and general contractor Waner Construction were part of the development team.

The three-story building features a 19,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center on the first floor. Medical services provided at the facility include primary care, general surgery, orthopedics, cardiovascular, podiatry and laboratory.

READ ALSO: Getting in the Heads of MOB Tenants

The property took shape on 30 acres at 23750 E. 14th Ave. on the Aurora East Crossroads Medical Campus, having access to Interstate 70. The facility is 10 miles east of downtown Aurora, while Denver is some 20 miles away. Medical providers in the surrounding area include Aurora Testing Center, Mountain Medical Care, Gateway Medical Center and Potomac Medical Plaza, among others.

As of August, Denver had approximately 770,000 square feet of medical office building space in various stages of development, CommercialEdge data shows.

Tepid medical office development

Aurora East Crossroads is the first major project of the NexCore-Intermountain Health partnership. The second is a five-story, 130,000-square-foot medical office building in Wheat Ridge, Colo., west of Denver. The development broke ground in December 2022 and is slated for completion in October.

Despite faring better than other real estate sectors amid economic volatility, medical office construction is experiencing a slowdown, according to a Marcus & Millichap national medical office report for the first half of 2024.

Nevertheless, the strong fundamentals of outpatient facilities and asset specificity keep this sector thriving, even if experts predict conversions to be more likely than ground-up projects.

The post NexCore Group JV Opens Denver MOB appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

The multi-phase mixed-use campus is along the U.S. 36 corridor in Boulder County and will eventually total more than 2.5 million square feet of commercial space, including life science, R&D, manufacturing (cGMP/Current Good Manufacturing Practices), industrial, office and retail buildings. The initial anchor will be a new 160-bed home for AdventHealth Avista Hospital.

Redtail Ridge will also feature more than 139 acres of public parks and dedicated open space and more than 20 miles of walking trails and bike paths. The project’s sustainability components will include Fitwel and LEED certifications and on-site solar generation.

Chicago-based Sterling Bay acquired the site two years ago. It had previously been the location of StorageTek’s global headquarters. StorageTek, a manufacturer of data storage systems, was bought by Sun Microsystems in 2005 for $4.1 billion; Sun was itself acquired by Oracle Corp. in 2010 for $7.4 billion.

READ ALSO: Here’s a Surprising Shift in Remote Work’s Appeal

Infrastructure investments by Sterling Bay as part of the development plan include more than $25 million in offsite improvements to the Northwest Parkway and a third underpass connecting Monarch Campus and Redtail Ridge.

Infrastructure work is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025, with the first building delivered in the second half of 2026.

Metro Denver’s lab space market

Last September, Conscience Bay Co., a local private equity firm, announced plans to develop a speculative 112,423-square-foot, all-electric tech campus in Boulder, Colo. Ridgeway Science & Tech reportedly will be Colorado’s first net–zero carbon life science and technology campus. It was scheduled to break ground this year and deliver in 2026.

Metro Denver’s inventory of lab/R&D space is about 1.5 million square feet, of which there’s a total availability of 31.1 percent, according to a recent report from Avison Young. Year to date, there was a minor amount—about 3,000 square feet—of negative absorption.

As of the second quarter, biotech job postings in metro Denver were languishing versus 2023, unlike most other U.S. biotech hubs, which have been seeing growth in job postings.

The post Sterling Bay Nails Down Final OK for Tech Campus Near Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Lovett Industrial has wrapped up construction on Broadway Logistics Center, a 201,329-square-foot Class A industrial building in Denver. Cushman & Wakefield is spearheading the leasing efforts.

The company closed on the 15-acre site in September 2022 and construction on the speculative project began two months later. Texas Capital Bank provided a $23.4 million construction note that same year, CommercialEdge data shows.

Broadway Logistics Center features 32-foot clear heights, a 6-inch reinforced concrete slab, 130-foot truck courts, 57 dock-high doors and four grade-level doors. The property also includes 204 auto parking spots and 50 trailer parks. Additionally, the rear-load facility has roughly 2,250 square feet of Class A office space.  

READ ALSO: What’s Next for Industrial Real Estate?

Located at 6795 Broadway inside the North Central industrial submarket, the property is 7 miles from downtown Denver. Interstates 25, 76 and 270, as well as U.S. Route 36, are less than 2 miles away, while the Denver International Airport operates some 23 miles northeast.

Cushman & Wakefield Executive Managing Director Drew McManus, alongside Senior Directors Bryan Fry and Ryan Searle, handle leasing on behalf of the owner.

Lovett’s new industrial developments

Lovett is active in more than 15 markets across the U.S., with a portfolio of some 16 million square feet of completed, acquired and under-construction warehouses, as well as north of 10 million square feet in the planning and permitting stages.

Just last month, the company received approval to develop a 298,000-square-foot industrial project in Chino, Calif. Lovett paid $40 million for the development site and construction is expected to begin later this year.

In May, Lovett began construction on another urban infill project. Lake Forest Bank & Trust Co. issued an $18.4 million construction loan for the 282,000-square-foot industrial business park in Charlotte, N.C.

Metro Denver’s industrial pipeline shrinks, vacancy goes up

Metro Denver witnessed 1.5 million square feet of industrial space coming online during 2024’s second quarter, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report. This quarter’s industrial deliveries outshined the space that came online during the first three months of the year—879,806 square feet—but fell short of 2023’s second quarter figures, which are close to 2 million square feet.

As of June, Greater Denver’s pipeline held nearly 5 million square feet of under-construction industrial space, the lowest since 2019, the report goes on to show. The metro’s net absorption year-to-date through June amounted to 755,157 square feet.

Despite robust absorption, metro Denver’s industrial vacancy rate stood at 8.0 percent in June, 110 basis points higher over the year. However, the North Central submarket fared better, its availability rate clocking in at 5.2 percent that month.

The post Lovett Delivers Denver Industrial Facility appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

River Rise Capital has purchased Rampart Center, a 100,455-square-foot two-building office campus in Englewood, Colo., within Denver’s Centennial submarket. The property traded for $18 million.

JLL Capital Markets negotiated on behalf of the seller, Libitzky Property Cos. The property is 94 occupied by five tenants working in a variety of industries, with JRF Ortho, The Village Workspace and DaVita Inc. among them, according to CommercialEdge.

Rampart Center previously changed hands in 2020 for $14.5 million, when Libitzky Property Cos. picked up the asset from LBA Realty, Arapahoe County records show.

READ ALSO: CRE Outlook Remains Stable Despite Headwinds

Rampart Center comprises two single-story office two buildings at 7173 and 7245 S. Havana St. The Class B campus came online in 1999 and features 14-foot ceiling heights and options for other uses, such as R&D, shared office or medical office. Recent improvements at the property include the addition of a fitness center.

The approximately 10-acre office property is close to Centennial Airport and to Interstate 25, in an area with multiple retail, entertainment and dining options. The campus is 16 miles from downtown Denver and 31 miles from Denver International Airport.

The JLL Capital Markets team that negotiated on behalf of the seller included Senior Director Sean Whitney and Managing Director Larry Thiel.

Slow investment activity

In the first six months of 2024, there were $215 million in office investments in Denver, a recent CommercialEdge report shows. The number marked a 60.6 percent year-over-year drop, mirroring a nationwide slowdown.

Office properties changed hands for an average sale price of $125 per square foot, below the national figure of $172. Across Western metros, Denver’s average sale price per square foot was the lowest, with Los Angeles’s $362 per square foot leading the ranking, followed by San Francisco’s $324.

A recent deal in the metro is Cress Capital’s acquisition of The 410, a 24-story office tower in downtown Denver. The company purchased the loan on the 440,000-square-foot asset, then later negotiated a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure with the previous owner.

The post River Rise Capital Makes $18M Purchase in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Denver’s office market concluded the first half of 2024 with some signs of improvement along a few fundamentals. Amid the nationwide slowdown in new office development, plateauing utilization, along with high interest rates, Denver showed some resilience.

The metro’s construction pipeline has improved since last year. Although completions diminished by more than 26 percent, new construction starts signal demand is still present. Vacancy continued to rise, however, while the average price per square foot dropped below most of its peer markets. Overall investment volume for the first half of the year decreased to less than half compared to the first six months of 2023.

Construction pipeline slightly improves

Denver had 1.7 million square feet of office space under construction in June. This represented 1.1 percent of total stock, on par with the national rate. The metro outpaced peer markets such as Phoenix (0.3 percent of stock underway), Portland, Ore., (0.6 percent) and Atlanta (0.9 percent), but lagged Seattle (1.7 percent) and San Diego (4.0 percent).

Chicago-based Riverside Investment & Developments is working on the largest office project underway in the metro, at 1901 Arapahoe St., in Denver’s CBD. The upcoming 30-story building is set to encompass more than 700,000 square feet of office space and include two underground and four above-ground parking levels, along with 9,500 square feet of retail.

READ ALSO: As Office Pipeline Shrinks, Existing Class A Buildings Should Benefit

Denver’s office market added 552,482 square feet across five properties to its inventory in the first half of this year, which represented a 0.3 percent expansion of existing stock. Completions slowed down, as this total space was 26.4 percent less than what was delivered in the first half of 2023.

John Perlmutter & Co., together with Rockefeller Group, completed Paradigm River North in Denver’s River North Art District, at 3400 Walnut St. At 188,000 square feet of rentable space, it was the largest office property to come online in the first half of the year.

The second largest was Boulder 29 in Boulder, Colo., which came online at the start of the year. Corum Real Estate Group’s three-story, 163,000-square-foot creative office asset was developed with the help of a $73.4 million construction loan provided by Banc of California.

There are signs that development activity is picking up again, as developers broke ground on 966,679 square feet of office space in the first six months. This was a notable improvement from the pause in construction starts of last year.

Denver office average prices drop significantly

Denver investors traded $215 million in office assets in the first half of the year, down 60.6 percent year-over-year. Activity slowed down nationwide, as loans continue to be few and far in between. Properties in the metro traded for an average of $125 per square foot, clocking in below the national average of $172.

Prices in the metro also dropped below most of its peer markets, including Atlanta ($140), Phoenix $167), Seattle ($182), Portland ($182) and San Diego ($274).

A recent CommercialEdge report found that more than $260 billion in office loans have matured recently or will mature by the end of 2026, affecting 30 percent of all office loans and more than 12,000 properties. Denver’s office market was among a few that had a large amount of its loan volume maturing in this time frame, at 41.8 percent.

Cress Capital, together with E2M Ventures, acquired The 410, a 24-story office tower in downtown Denver, one of the largest buildings that traded during the first half of the year. The buyer initially acquired the existing loan on the 440,000-square-foot asset, and later it negotiated a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure with the previous owner.

Another significant deal took shape in Denver’s 24 – I-25 Corridor submarket. Remedy Medical Properties acquired the 73,403-square-foot, two-story asset at 14190 Orchard Parkway for $30.6 million, from Development Solutions Group. The asset traded at roughly $416 per square foot, one of the highest prices in the market.

Vacancy rises above average U.S. levels

Denver’s office sector struggled to maintain a healthy level of occupancy, as vacancy clocked in at 22.1 percent, up 170 basis points over a 12-month period ending in June. This was higher than the national rate (18.1 percent), as well as peer markets Portland (17.1 percent), Phoenix (18.3 percent) and Atlanta (18.4 percent). Seattle had a higher vacancy, at 23.2 percent.

Brookfield Properties signed a significant deal with tenant Johns Manville in May. The manufacturer renewed its agreement for 121,000 square feet at 717 17th St. in downtown Denver, which serves as its global headquarters. The company has been a tenant there since 1988 and is planning to invest in improvements across the five stories it occupies.

In terms of new leases, suburban office properties have had some success. At the start of the year, Google Fiber signed a 13,000-square-foot agreement at Belmar in Lakewood, Colo., with owner Bridge33 Capital. The provider will relocate to the mixed-use district later this year.

Denver’s office market expands flexible solutions

In June, Denver had 3.8 million square feet of flexible office space, which represented 2.2 percent of its entire inventory. This was higher than the 1.8 percent national share, as well as most peer markets, such as Seattle (1.8 percent), San Diego (2.0 percent) and Atlanta (2.1 percent).

Regus remained the leading coworking provider in Denver, with more than 600,000 square feet across 33 locations. WeWork also had a sizeable offering, with more than 340,000 square feet across six properties.

In January, New York-based provider Coalition Spaces entered the Denver coworking market with a 16,000-square-foot location at 1660 Lincoln St. The flexible office company signed an agreement with owner Westport Capital Partners to occupy the 20th floor of the 274,582-square-foot building.

The post A Mixed Performance for Denver’s Office Market appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

SKB purchased the 22.7-acre site at 2555 W. Midway Blvd. for $17 million from Mile High Labs, a CBD producer and cannabinoid product manufacturer. Todd Gooding, SKB president & principal, told Commercial Property Executive the firm plans to spend $27 million to improve, demolish and renovate the two existing buildings on the site.

“We have enough land to add about 100,000 square feet,” Gooding said. “We have not made that determination at this time.”

Gooding mentioned the buildings are currently vacant but noted the property could be used by multiple tenants or a single one.

The facility has nearly 12,000 amps of power, making it a prime location to serve businesses with substantial power requirements including those with advanced manufacturing operations. The buildings currently have clear heights ranging from 18 feet to 38 feet and include existing labs and clean rooms. The property has 609 parking spaces. There is also ample outside storage space for prospective tenants.

READ ALSO: Top Mid-Atlantic Markets for Industrial Transactions

The site is located between Denver and Boulder, Colo., providing access to the region’s highly skilled labor pool and advanced infrastructure, Gooding said. Broomfield is the primary aerospace and advanced manufacturing hub of the Denver metropolitan market. Nearby industry leaders include Honeywell Aerospace, Sierra Nevada Corp., Ball Aerospace and Lockheed Martin.

The industrial property came online in 1974. Mile High Labs purchased the facility for $18.8 million in June 2019 from Novartis, which no longer used the site due to declining generics sales, according to Fierce Pharma. That deal included the land, labs, buildings and all the drug manufacturing equipment. The international company, founded in 2016, is now based in Loveland, Colo. In 2019, the company opened a distribution center in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

SKB Colorado moves

Founded in 1993, SKB focuses on major West Coast markets including Portland, Seattle, the Bay Area, Phoenix and Denver. The firm has generated more than $5.3 billion in portfolio activities and its diverse assets total more than 34 million square feet of commercial real estate.

Gooding said SKB started investing in the Denver market in 2004. The firm acquired York Street Yards, a flexible mixed-use industrial campus in Denver, in January 2020. Tenants include electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, which has a showroom in York Street Yards.

Earlier this month, SKB and Landrock announced the acquisition of Walnut Business Center, a 6.4-acre urban industrial and retail complex in Boulder, Colo. The partners plan to invest heavily in the property to modernize it and create a state-of-the-art urban mixed-use district that caters to a variety of tenants similar to York Street Yards, Gooding mentioned.

Planned enhancements include upgrades to roofing, parking lots and mechanical systems, as well as significant aesthetic improvements. The property, located between Walnut Street and Pearl Parkway, will also be rebranded.

The post SKB Buys Former Pharma Manufacturing Site Near Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

The joint venture between Ryan Cos. and PGIM Real Estate has obtained financing for a two-building industrial project in Broomfield, Colo. Upon completion, Northwest Commerce Center will be a Class A campus totaling more than 343,000 square feet.

Ryan Cos. intends to break ground on the project that was designed by Ware Malcomb. JLL’s Carmon Hicks, Patrick McGettigan and Jason White will head up marketing and leasing. Delivery is expected by the second quarter of 2025.

Outside of Colorado, Ryan recently began construction on a three-building industrial project in Chandler, Ariz. Schrader Farms Business Park is set to be comprise 432,000 square feet and is anticipated to come online in the third quarter of 2025.

Northwest Commerce Center, up close

Northwest Commerce Center will take shape within the 600-acre Verve Innovation Park, a mixed-use campus including aviation, industrial, retail, hotel, flex and corporate spaces. Ryan Cos. acquired the roughly 25-acre site for $10.3 million, Jefferson County public documents show.

Each building will feature a 32-foot clear height, LED lighting, a 4,000-amp electrical service and an ESFR sprinkler system. The development is set to have have 22 trailer parking spots and accommodate a range of industrial tenants and uses.

The site is some 18 miles from downtown Denver, adjacent to The Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport and 2 miles from U.S. Route 36. Companies nearby include Medtronic, Ball Aerospace and Covidien.

Metro Denver had some 2.9 million square feet of industrial space underway as of May, according to a recent CommercialEdge report, representing 2.9 percent of stock. The rate was 100 basis point higher than the one recorded on average nationally.

The post Ryan Cos., PGIM to Develop Denver Industrial Campus appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

BroadRange Logistics has signed the largest industrial lease recorded so far in Colorado. The third-party logistics firm committed long-term to more than 1.1 million square feet at 76 Commerce Center, a 1.7 million-square-foot campus in Brighton. This also marks the firm’s first location in the state.

The company will occupy Buildings 1 and 3 at the property owned by Hyde Development and Mortenson Properties Inc. starting September. CBRE arranged the deal on behalf of both parties, with Strategic Real Estate Partners also representing the tenant.

BroadRange, which specializes in servicing the green energy sector, will use part of the space to distribute solar panel components. The firm also signed a 1 million-square-foot lease in Fort Pierce, Fla., in a deal that also was the largest in the state year-to-date at the time.

CBRE Senior Vice Presidents Todd Witty and Daniel Close worked on behalf of the landlords. Senior Associate Sam Dragan and Vice Chair James Bolt, in partnership with Strategic Real Estate Partners, represented the tenant.

A fully-leased industrial campus

Completed last year, the 546,000-square-foot Building 1 features 106 dock-high loading doors, 123 trailer stalls and 2,522 square feet of office space. Building 3, delivered in 2021, totals 526,000 square feet and includes 108 dock loading doors, 144 trailer spots and 2,479 square feet of office.

Additionally, each cross-dock building has 36-foot clear heights and four drive-in doors. The two facilities came online with help from a $42 million loan originated by Bell Bank and a $30.1 million loan from First National Bank of Omaha, CommercialEdge shows.

The properties are at 22250 and 22500 E. I-76 Frontage Road, 5 miles from downtown Brighton and within 25 miles from downtown Denver. In addition, Denver International Airport is some 20 miles away.

The four-building 76 Commerce Center occupies 155 acres. Buildings 4 and 5 came online in 2020 and 2018, respectively, and are fully leased to five tenants, including Walmart and Outrider. The two assets changed hands in 2022.

Denver’s industrial sector holds steady

Metro Denver’s industrial vacancy rate stood at 8.4 percent as of May, 280 basis points above the national average, according to a CommercialEdge industrial report. The market’s rents during the same month averaged $8.35, marking a 4.6 percent growth year-over-year.

In January, Silver Point Development landed two tenants at its 1 million-square-foot industrial project in Mead, Colo. Leanin’ Tree and Renee’s Garden Seeds committed to 109,676 and 27,777 square feet, respectively, within Elevation25.

The post 3PL Firm Signs Colorado’s Largest Industrial Lease appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

JLL Capital Markets and CBRE arranged $21 million in acquisition financing for the buyer. Voya Financial originated the fixed-rate insurance company loan.

BKM purchased the light industrial property from Baron Properties for $24.3 million in 2019, the same source shows. That sale was subject to a $17.5 million loan from Bank of America.

Valley Business Center encompasses five buildings with an average suite size of 10,249 square feet. The 1984-built facility features suite configurations and various loading capabilities, 16- to 20-foot clear heights, climate control, ESFR and approximately 224 parking spaces.

READ ALSO: Industrial Property Values on the Upswing

The asset is within South Denver, at 700 W Mississippi Ave. Interstate 25 is a nearby major thoroughfare, allowing access to the wider metro area.

Valley Business Center’s tenant roster includes Baron Glass, Metall, RadonAway, Capital Paint Co., DEWALT and ReSource Colorado, among others, with an weighted average lease term of 2.45 years. At the time of the deal, the property was 100 percent leased and had maintained an average occupancy rate of 98 percent over the past decade.

CBRE National Partners’ Executive Vice Presidents Jeremy Ballenger and Tyler Carner, Associate Director Mike Machado and Investment Sales Manager Morgan Dunn—along with Senior Managing Director Melissa Rose and Director Rob Bova from JLL Capital Markets’ Debt Advisory team—represented Adler.

Denver’s industrial sector remains attractive for investors

In April, Investcorp paid $200 million for a 31-building industrial portfolio, located in Denver and South Florida. The properties encompass 1.3 million square feet.

Another major deal took shape in March—Prologis sold a 431,157-square-foot industrial park in Denver. A joint venture of Westfield and Reinsurance Group of America purchased the 100 percent leased property.

Denver investors traded $585 million in industrial assets year-to-date through May, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. These traded for an average of $147 per square foot, just $5 above the U.S. figure.

The post Adler Pays $38M for Denver Light Industrial Facility appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Flexential is gearing up to build a new 249,000-square-foot, 22.5-megawatt data center complex in Parker, Colo., roughly 20 miles outside of Denver. The planned colocation facility will be the firm’s fifth and largest project in the Denver area, bringing its portfolio in the metro to 759,000 square feet and 49.4 megawatts.

Leasing at Flexential’s latest project will begin in the second half of this year, while the facility is expected to break ground in the second quarter of 2025. With an expected opening in 2026, the data center will be the latest addition to the firm’s FlexAnywhere platform, which allows customers to access portfolio-wide interconnections with cloud providers, alongside data protection and in-house professional services.

READ ALSO: AI Is Changing the Game for Data Centers

The new 17-acre Parker facility will be geared primarily towards businesses in the manufacturing, healthcare and financial services sectors. The data center will benefit from the area’s rich natural resources and a lower risk of natural disasters in comparison to some Eastern and Southern markets.

As part of a recent collaboration with Applied Digital, servers in the facility will be equipped with Nvidia H100 Tensor Core graphics processors, which are designed for exascale computing. Additionally, they can more quickly train large language models for artificial intelligence platforms.

Flexing muscles

A yearly update from Commercial Property Executive found that power availability and reliability are among the top considerations for data center developers amid the ongoing AI boom, pushing many new projects into secondary markets and rural areas. 

A similar mindset has motivated the locations of some of the Flexential’s recent expansions. In July, the firm broke ground on two new developments in Atlanta and Portland, Ore., also part of the FlexAnywhere platform. The facilities have a total output of 110 megawatts.

Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley currently dominate the power consumption competition, respectively outputting 2,552 and 615 megawatts.

Data centers dominate investment portfolios

DLA Piper’s latest State of the Market Survey found that data centers have become the most attractive assets for commercial real estate investors, with 53 percent of survey identifying them as their top prospect.

Last week, Wisconsin’s data center market received a boost as Microsoft announced an investment package of more than $3 billion that will see the expansion of the company’s current campus project in Mount Pleasant. The project will also include educational collaborations with Gateway Technical College, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United Way Wisconsin and Racine, as well as the Racine Unified School District.

The post Flexential Eyes New Denver Data Center appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Johns Manville has renewed its 121,000-square-foot lease with Brookfield Properties in downtown Denver. The Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary will continue to occupy the space at 717 17th St., serving as its global headquarters, through at least 2035.

The manufacturer of building and specialty products moved at the 29-story, 693,565-square-foot tower in July 1988 and plans to improve the five-story leased space where more than 300 employees work.

JLL represented both parties. The Mayor’s Office and the Downtown Denver Partnership also provided assistance in recent months while JM sought information related to safety, construction, traffic and parking.

A LEED Gold-certified building

JM’s home is part of Denver City Center, a two-building office campus totaling some 1.3 million square feet. Brookfield acquired both assets in February 2020 from Shorenstein for $400 million, according to CommercialEdge information, financing the purchase with a $230 million loan originated by Wells Fargo Bank.

Also known as Johns Manville Plaza, the Class A high-rise came online in 1978. The building went through a cosmetic renovation in 2013 and, more recently, through a comprehensive modernization program that comprised the full remodeling of the lobbies and elevators.

READ ALSO: Where Office Work Is Heading Now

The property features floorplates averaging 24,000 square feet, almost 3,970 square feet of retail and some some 690 parking spaces. Amenities comprise a fitness center, tenant lounge and fully tech-enabled conference center.

The tenant roster at the LEED Gold-certified building also includes SunRun Solar, Medpace, Suncor Energy and Evolve Vacation Rental Network, CommercialEdge information shows.

JLL International Director Barry Dorfman, Managing Directors Patrick Bolick and Tim Bourdelais, alongside Executive Vice President Janessa Biller, represented the tenant. Managing Directors Michael Crane and Andy Ross, along with Vice President Julie Rhoades, worked on behalf of the landlord.

Denver’s office sector faces challenges

Denver’s office vacancy rate clocked in at 22.7 percent as of March, 450 basis points higher than the national average, according to the latest CommercialEdge national office report. Meanwhile, the metro’s listing rates stood at $30.24 on average, 120 basis points lower year-over-year.

In January, Bow River Capital signed a headquarters relocation, committing to 30,000 square feet at Magnetic Capital’s 2nd & Adams, a 100,000-square-foot office project in Denver. The property is expected to come online in the third quarter of next year.

Other notable deals in the area include Google Fiber’s relocation to 13,000 square feet at Belmar, a 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use district in Lakewood, Colo. Bridge33 Capital is the landlord.

The post Brookfield Properties Lands 121 KSF Renewal appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

JCR Cos. has entered Colorado with the $26.7 million purchase of Promenade at Highlands Ranch, a 136,521-square-foot retail center in Highlands Ranch. Grant Street Funding provided a $18.2 million acquisition loan, public records show.

The previous owner, Dana Investments, had purchased the retail asset back in 2005 for $14.3 million, according to CommercialEdge data. Institutional Property Advisors brokered the current transaction.

Promenade at Highlands Ranch came online in 1986. Its tenant roster includes a diverse mix of retailers such as State Farm, Club Champion Golf, Bike Source, Carpet Mill, Fitness Gallery and Taste of Philly, among others.

IPA Senior Director Ryan Bowlby and Senior Managing Director Drew Isaac represented the seller and procured the buyer.

Denver’s retail slowdown

Located at 2660-2690 E. County Line Road, the retail center is near the intersection of State Highway 470 and University Boulevard, which allows easy access across the Denver metropolitan area. The Promenade at Highlands Ranch is in an area where the average household income reaches $150,000 and the daily traffic count sees approximately 170,000 vehicles.

READ ALSO: What 99 Cents Only’s Demise Means for CRE

Denver’s retail sector continued to stand firm in the fourth quarter of last year thanks to its low vacancy rates, constrained new development and robust consumer foundation, according to a Hoff & Leigh report.

However, the rising interest rates impacted the retail real estate sales and led to a slowdown. The metro’s investment volume totaled $765 million last year—below the long-term average of $1.4 billion, the same research shows. Meanwhile, approximately 380,000 square feet of retail space were under construction across Denver, representing just 0.2 percent of the total inventory.

The post JCR Enters Colorado, Buys Denver Shopping Center appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Cress Capital has acquired The 410, a 24-story Class A office building in downtown Denver. In collaboration with Denver-based E2M Ventures, Cress had acquired the loan on the 440,000-square-foot building earlier this year and later negotiated a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure with the previous owner.

Cress Capital declined to comment on whether there was any cash consideration, or if so how much, as part of the deed-in-lieu.

The property is located at 410 17th St., within blocks of the Colorado State Capitol. The building and was completed in 1977 and renovated in 2021.

The 410 features a contemporary lobby and amenities such as a fitness center, conference and training facilities, an outdoor tenant lounge, a coffee bar and a detached eight-story parking structure. In addition, the building has nearly 35,000 square feet of spec suites ready for immediate occupancy.

The building is currently just under 30 percent occupancy, Tom Parnell, managing partner at Cress Capital told Commercial Property Executive. 

Slow Times a Mile High

Metro Denver’s office market was slow through 2023, with lower construction starts and completions versus 2022 and a continuing lull in activity in January of this year, Commercial Property Executive reported in March. Further, the overall office vacancy remained above than the national average.

One bright spot was T3 RiNo, a six-story mass timber building developed in River North by Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery. Last November, Xcel Energy–Colorado preleased all 220,000-plus square feet of office space at the property, intending to occupy it as Xcel’s new regional headquarters starting in 2025.

The post Cress Capital Acquires Downtown Denver Tower appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

With this purchase, Investcorp has about 43 million square feet of U.S. industrial real estate assets, valued at about $5.1 billion.

Investcorp described the portfolio as being located in two of the nation’s best-performing industrial markets, in infill areas that are convenient to major thoroughfares, strong transportation infrastructure, labor bases and residential neighborhoods.

An Investcorp spokesperson was unable to provide additional information requested by Commercial Property Executive, including the portfolio’s seller.

Steady acquisitions 

Growth in the metro Denver industrial real estate market is currently being driven in large measure by demand for space near Denver International Airport, which is seeing cargo volumes noticeably ahead of those before the pandemic, according to a first-quarter report by Marcus & Millichap.

READ ALSO: CRE’s Deal Anxiety Shows Signs of Easing

Elsewhere in the region, however, “fundamentals are softening,” the report states. Overall vacancy has been trending up for at least two years, to a level not seen since 2011, and the current construction pipeline will add about 2.0 percent to Denver’s industrial inventory.

Miami-Dade’s industrial market is notably healthier, with an overall vacancy of just 2.3 percent and steady leasing and sales activity, according to a first-quarter report from JLL. About 7.5 million square feet of space is under construction, fairly evenly shared across the major submarkets. 

The Bahrain-headquartered Investcorp has a recent history of acquiring significant industrial portfolios, buying:

•  $800 million in U.S. industrial assets in November 2019. The two deals netted 126 properties in all, totaling 10.2 million square feet.

•  $280 million worth of properties that included a 434,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Cleveland that was leased to Amazon, in October 2020.

•  An 89-property, 2.2 million-square-foot Class B portfolio across four markets, for $380 million in October 2021.

•  In February 2022, a 64-property, 5.6 million-square-foot portfolio across seven markets for $640 million.

•  In partnership with BKM Capital Partners, a seven-building, 740,000-square-foot portfolio in Las Vegas, for $158 million, in March 2023.

The post Investcorp Acquires $200M Industrial Portfolio appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

At the time of the sale, Centerpark was 100 percent leased to a total of 10 tenants, including Outdoor Edge, Mittera, Controlled Products Systems Group, Canyon Materials, Kush Supply and TriMark Foodcarft, among others.

The industrial park last traded in 2007, when Lowe sold it in a $38.4 million portfolio transaction to DCT Industrial, CommercialEdge data shows. In 2018, Prologis completed its all-stock acquisition of DCT Industrial Trust Inc. for $8.5 billion, including the assumption of debt. The company assumed the ownership of all existing DCT Industrial assets across the U.S., including Centerpark.

READ ALSO: Staying Busy When Industrial Momentum Hits the Brakes

The industrial park comprises three buildings spread on some 22 acres:

• a 174,132-square-foot building with 2,668 square feet of retail space at 4900 Osage St.
• a 176,800-square-foot building at 5000 Osage St.
• a 78,000-square-foot building 5050 Osage St.

The single-story buildings feature multiple points of ingress/egress, highly suitable tenant size flexibility with various storefronts, spine crossdocks, functional column spacing, concrete truck aprons, substantial power, sky lights, ESFR fire sprinklers, insulated ceilings, climate control and parking spaces.

Cushman & Wakefield Executive Vice Chair Will Strong, Vice Chair Jim Carpenter, Senior Director Kirk Kuller, Director Michael Matchett, Senior Associates Molly Hunt and Dean Wiley worked on the deal. Additionally, the company’s Executive Directors Alec Rhodes, Aaron Valdez and Tyler Smith provided leasing advisory services and were also retained by the new ownership to handle leasing at the park.

Second-largest volume of sales in the region

Centerpark is within the I-25 Corridor in Denver’s North Central submarket, near the intersections of interstates 25, 76, 70 and 270, and Route 36. The asset is also close to Denver’s central business district and in the proximity of Denver International Airport and Denver Tech Center.

Due to its strategic location and access to major transportation networks, Denver’s North Central submarket is considered to be one of the best-performing areas in the metro. As of December 2023, the submarket’s vacancy rate was just 3.8 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield. In 2023, the area registered 1.7 million square feet of leasing activity and 500,000 square feet of annual occupancy growth.

Among western markets, Denver recorded the second-largest sales volume in the region in 2023, with investors closing on $210 million in investment deals, according to a recent CommercialEdge report.

The post Prologis Sells Denver Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

New York-based Watchung Capital has sold a fully net-leased, 101,788-square-foot industrial property in Denver, Colo., for $13.8 million, according to Denver County public records. The same source shows that the buyer is an entity related to Solana Beach, Calif.-based Midtown National Group.

JLL Capital Markets arranged the transaction, led by Director Rob Key and Managing Director Larry Thiel.

The one-story, Class B property is at 4800 Dahlia St. Built in 1959, it features 22-foot clear heights, two-grade-level doors, HVAC climate control systems, loading doors, dock levelers and bumpers, 14 dock-high doors and 144 vehicle parking spots.

Saltbox is the sole tenant of the 5.5-acre asset. The building was upgraded in 2021, when the seller picked it up for $7.9 million from DWF Wholesale, according to CommercialEdge.

The building provides access to the I-70 East Corridor and is 9 miles from Aurora, Colo., 16 miles from Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, 14 miles from Denver International Airport and within 27 miles of Boulder, Colo.

Slow start for industrial sales

Industrial investments are off to a slow start this year, with $2.6 billion in transactions recorded on a national level in the first month of 2024, a recent CommercialEdge report shows. Denver recorded $210 million in industrial sales as of January, ranking third nationwide behind the Bay Area ($229 million) and Chicago ($243 million).

Last month, Midtown National Group made another industrial purchase in the I-70 East submarket. The company paid $21.5 million for Commerce Square, a two-building light industrial campus totaling 145,242 square feet in Aurora, Colo.

Another significant industrial acquisition in the metro included Hyde Development and Mortenson Properties’ $73.5 million purchase of Peoria Business Center. Invesco sold the three-building, 592,572-square-foot Class A industrial campus last month.

The post Midtown National Buys Saltbox-Occupied Facility in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Denver’s office market has continued to slowdown throughout 2023, as both construction starts and completions have significantly decreased from the previous year, CommercialEdge data shows. Furthermore, no new development activity has been registered in the metro as of January. Transactions also declined with per-square-foot prices contracting year-over-year, but still holding well above the national average.

The metro’s vacancy rate ranked among the highest in the U.S., considerably above the national average. However, there were a number of sizeable leasing deals recorded last year, through both new tenants as well as renewals and expansions.

Development activity drops

As of January, there were more than 2.4 million of square feet of office space under construction in Denver across 13 properties. The pipeline accounted for 1.3 percent of total stock, slightly below the national rate of 1.6 percent. The metro considerably outpaced many of its peers including Salt Lake City (0.1 percent), Portland (0.5 percent) and Phoenix (0.6 percent) and was on par with Atlanta (1.4 percent).

One of the largest developments underway is Paradigm River North, a 200,000-square-foot building developed by a joint venture of Jordon Perlmutter & Co. and Rockefeller Group. Also known as 3400 Walnut St., the project broke ground in 2022 and is taking shape in the city’s River North Arts District.

Throughout all of 2023, developers broke ground on eight properties totaling 932,255 square feet. The pipeline considerably decreased from the previous year, when despite construction starting on only six projects, they amounted to 1.6 million square feet.

A significant development that started construction in 2023 was Schnitzer West and Brue Baukol Capital Partners’ 201 Filmore, a 140,000-square-foot office and retail building in the Cherry Creek submarket. The project expects completion in 2025’s third quarter and aims for LEED Gold certification.

Last year, nine properties came online in the Denver office market totaling more than 1.1 million square feet, which accounts for 0.6 percent of total stock, slightly below the national delivery rate of 0.8 percent. Completions mark a significant drop from the previous year when almost double the space was delivered at 2 million square feet.

In terms of delivered volume, Denver surpassed some of its peers such as Salt Lake City (383,430 square feet) and Portland (315,714 square feet), but considerably lagged other comparably sized markets including Atlanta (2 million square feet) and Austin (2.8 million square feet).

One of the largest properties to come online in 2023 was The Current, a 240,000-square-foot building developed by Schnitzer West. The project was supported by a $77 million construction loan from Otera Capital, maturing this year.

Denver investments almost halve

As the year kicked off, two office properties traded in January totaling 251,368 square feet for a combined $32 million. Throughout 2023, some 4.8 million square feet changed hands in the Denver office market for a total of slightly above $1 billion. These figures represent a considerable drop from 2022 numbers, when nearly 9.4 million square feet traded for a total investment volume of more than $2.8 billion.

Consequently, prices also decreased with the average price per square foot being registered at $243 in 2023, an 18.7 percent drop from the previous year’s figure. The Denver office market was however more expensive than the national average of $192 and surpassed many of its peers including Atlanta ($145), Salt Lake City ($165), Phoenix ($180) and Portland ($192).

One of the largest transactions recorded in 2023 in Denver was Benderson Development and CGA Capital’s $205.2 million acquisition of a nearly 400,000-square-foot campus in a sale-leaseback deal. Kiewit Corp. sold the asset at $520.8 per square foot and will continue to occupy space at the property under a 20-year lease.

Vacancy rates soar in Denver’s office market

As of January, the vacancy rate in Denver stood at 22.2 percent, marking a 3.9 percent year-over-year increase. The metro registered one of the highest vacancy rates in the U.S. and was considerably above the national rate of 17.8 percent. It was nearly on par with Austin (22.0 percent), but fared worse than many of its peers including Dallas (19.7 percent), Phoenix (18.6 percent) and Atlanta (17.8 percent).

One of the most significant leasing deals registered in Denver throughout 2023 was Xcel Energy-Colorado taking more than 220,000 square feet at T3 RiNo, a brand-new mass timber building in the River North Arts District, the firm becoming the largest office tenant in the submarket. The property was developed by a joint venture of Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery.

Kaiser Permanente also renewed its nearly 121,000-square-foot lease at the Greenwood Plaza where it has been occupying space since 2013. The landlord, Franklin Street Properties, was represented by Cushman & Wakefield, while JLL brokered the deal on behalf of the tenant.

Denver has a high share of flexible office space

As of January, there were 3.3 million square feet of flexible office space in Denver, accounting for 2.0 percent of total stock. The proportion of shared space in the metro was above the national average of 1.7 percent, but slightly below the ones recorded in some of its peers like Atlanta (2.1 percent) and Salt Lake City (2.2 percent).

The largest coworking space operator in Denver was Regus, with more than 550,000 square feet across 29 properties. WeWork also commanded a sizeable footprint of 343,800 square feet in six locations. Recently, Coalition Space also entered the metro, taking 16,000 square feet at a Westport Capital Partners-owned building located downtown.

The post Denver’s Office Market Slow but With Bright Spots appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

The developer broke ground on the project in summer 2023. Clarion Partners provided $24.6 million in construction financing, according to CommercialEdge data.

Upon its completion in the second quarter, Point Central Business Park will encompass two Class A buildings totaling 74,618 square feet and 82,855 square feet. The development will feature approximately 2,358 square feet of office space,32-foot clear heights, 27 dock high truck doors, 8 drive-in doors and around 225 parking spaces.

Ware Malcomb designed the buildings to be able to accommodate occupier size ranges from 13,000 square feet to more than 157,000 square feet, suitable for a wide range of tenants.

Cushman & Wakefield Executive Managing Director Drew McManus and Senior Directors Bryan Fry and Ryan Searle will oversee leasing efforts for Point Central Business Park.

A central location

The 9.5-acre Point Central Business Park is taking shape at 1051 E. 73 Ave., in the Central Denver submarket. The development is close to the intersection of Route 36 and interstates 76, 270 and 25, allowing quick access across metro Denver. Due to its location in the Unincorporated Adams County, the industrial tenants will benefit from low sales tax rates.

Denver’s overall industrial vacancy remained flat at 7.0 percent in the final quarter of last year, according to a recent Cushman & Wakefield report. The metro became one of the most active over the past few years, ranking third place for industrial construction within the Western region, with 7.3 million square feet of industrial space underway as of January, CommercialEdge data shows.

The post StarPoint Properties Nears Completion of Denver Industrial Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Graham Street Realty has sold Commerce Square, two light industrial buildings totaling 145,242 square feet in Aurora, Colo. Midtown National Group purchased the buildings for $21.5 million, financing the acquisition with a $8.8 million loan from Nationwide Insurance Co., according to CommercialEdge data. JLL Capital Markets worked on behalf of the seller and procured the buyer.

At the time of the sale, Commerce Square was leased to 12 tenants including Frontier Business Products, PARTpoint, Grane RX, ExperiGreen, Berendsen Fluid Power and Colorado Automation and Design, the same source shows.

Commerce Square previously traded in 2020, when Graham acquired it for $16 million from First Industrial Realty Trust. A JLL team represented the seller back then as well.

READ ALSO: Industrial Sector Set for 2024 Transformation

Completed in 1985, Commerce Square comprises two one-story buildings with rear-loading configurations, 18-foot clear heights, 38 docks, 11 drive-in doors, climate control and 265 parking spaces.

Located on some 9 acres at 3250 Quentin St. and 3251 Revere St., the industrial buildings are near the intersection of interstates 70 and 225, which allows easy access across the Denver metropolitan area. Downtown Denver is some 10 miles west.

JLL Managing Directors Larry Thiel and Ryan Sitov, together with Director Rob Key, led the Capital Markets team who represented the seller. JLL Senior Managing Director Carmon Hicks and Managing Director Jason White spearhead the leasing efforts at the property.

An active and desirable industrial market

Commerce Square has received major interest due to its location in the I-70 East submarket, the front park rear-load configuration and small bay suite sizes, Key stated in a prepared remark.

Over the last decade, Denver has become one of the nation’s most active industrial markets. The metro ranked third for industrial construction among the western markets as of November, according to recent CommercialEdge research. Denver’s active pipeline featured 24 projects totaling 9.7 million square feet, accounting for 3.7 percent of total stock.

The post Denver-Area Industrial Asset Changes Hands appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Silver Point Development has signed two leasing agreements totaling 137,453 square feet at its two-building Class A industrial project in Mead, Colo., in Denver’s Greeley submarket. The two tenants are Leanin’ Tree—for 109,676 square feet—and Renee’s Garden Seeds—for 27,777 square feet. Avison Young negotiated the agreement on behalf of the landlord.

Elevation25 is an industrial park, currently under development and planned to include seven more buildings. The leasing agreements brought the first two buildings—completed in October last year—to full occupancy.

Located at 4460 Elevation Drive, Building I totals 94,076 square feet and features ample column spacing, 28-foot clear heights, speed bays, 26 dock-high doors, four drive-in doors and 145 vehicle parking spots. Renee’s Garden Seed will occupy space here, joining the roster that also includes M&M Thrift Management Co. and Premier Manufacturing and Supply Chain Services Inc.

Building II is at 4480 Elevation Drive and comprises 109,676 square feet. Its features include 28-foot clear heights, speed bays, four drive-in doors, 26 dock-high doors and 166 vehicle parking spots. Leanin’ Tree will fully occupy this building.

The developer financed this first phase of development with a $23.1 million construction loan from CIBC Bank USA, according to CommercialEdge.

The properties are situated on a 12-acre lot, providing easy access to the I-25 Corridor and are located 24 miles from Boulder, Colo., 32 miles from Denver and 38 miles from Denver International Airport. Avison Young’s team of Principal Dawn McCombs and Associate Ryan Almaleh are the exclusive leasing agents for Elevation25.

A speculative development

Elevation25 is planned to total 1 million square feet and is the only high-bay speculative industrial project in the I-25 Corridor area. Weld County has attracted significant companies in recent years and its population is expected to grow with 30 percent in the next five years, according to Avison Young. Other industrial users near Elevation25 include FedEx, Weatherford, McLane Co., UPS and Home Depot.

Silver Point Development commenced construction in early 2022. Its first phase initially included a five-building project totaling 578,240 square feet on 37 acres, while the second phase was expected to include four building on 36 acres, totaling 422,000 square feet, according to local authorities. In December 2023 the developer sold 54 acres—slated to include the remaining seven building—to Mark IV Capital. Silver Point Development will continue to own and operate the first two buildings.

Recent developments in Denver’s industrial pipeline

Denver had 8.1 million square feet of industrial space underway as of December, a recent CommercialEdge report shows. Among Western markets, Denver placed third in terms of new space under construction, behind Phoenix (42.5 million square feet) and the Inland Empire (19.4 million square feet).

Significant developments in the metro include Hines’ Quantum 56, a Class A six-building industrial park that will bring 868,360 square feet of space in North Central Denver. In joint venture with EnviroFinance Group, the developer commenced construction in August last year. JLL has been tapped as exclusive leasing agent.

In May, LaPour Partners received City Council’s approval for the development of Arista 36, a 359,800-square-foot industrial campus in Broomfield, Colo. The three-building project will be marketed for lease by Stream Realty Partners, with completion scheduled for 2025.

The post Silver Point Lands Two Tenants at Denver Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Bow River Capital, a private alternative asset manager, will relocate its headquarters to 30,000 square feet at Magnetic Capital’s 2nd & Adams, a 100,000-square-foot office project in Denver. Groundbreaking is expected this April, while completion is slated for the third quarter of next year.

The development team also includes OZ Architecture and general contractor Mortenson Construction. CBRE First Vice President Blake Holcomb is spearheading the leasing efforts at the property.

Upon delivery, the five-story building will comprise some 20,000 square feet of retail space and a 5,600-square-foot rooftop with a bar and a restaurant, along with a first-level restaurant and a lobby open to the bar area.

The development will rise at 3250 E. Second Ave. in the Cherry Creek neighborhood, close to a host of dining and retail options, including the Cherry Creek shopping mall, and less than 2 miles from Belcaro Shopping Center. Downtown Denver is roughly 4 miles from the site. The location is also some 5 miles from a 240,000-square-foot office building that opened last summer.

Denver’s office sector faces headwinds

Denver’s listing rate clocked in at $30.2 as of December, 1.1 percent higher year-over-year, but still considerably lower than the $37.6 national average, according to the latest CommercialEdge office report. The market’s vacancy rate reached 22.2 percent at the end of last year, up 400 basis points from the same period of 2022.

In one of the largest deals of last year in the metro, Xcel Energy-Colorado preleased more than 220,000 square feet at T3 RiNo, a six-story Class A building in Denver’s River North neighborhood. Upon moving into its new regional headquarters in 2025, Xcel Energy is expected to be the largest office tenant in the RiNo submarket.

Another significant transaction involved Kaiser Permanente’s lease extension at Greenwood Plaza, a 197,528-square-foot office campus in Eaglewood, Colo. Cushman & Wakefield brokered the 120,979-square-foot agreement on behalf of the landlord.

The post Denver Office Project Lands 30 KSF Tenant appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Google Fiber has signed a lease agreement for more than 13,000 square feet at Belmar, a 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use district in Lakewood, Colo. The landlord is Bridge33 Capital.

The internet service provider will relocate its Thornton, Colo., team and the Denver Webpass team to the new office, which is planned to open in October, according to the Denver Business Journal. The space will feature collaborative workspaces, hot desks, along with smaller offices and phone booths.

Belmar, up close

Denver-based Continuum Partners developed Belmar on the former site of the Villa Italia mall. Bridge33 acquired the 2004-completed property in 2021 for some $110 million from Starwood Capital Group.

Belmar currently comprises some 726,000 square feet of retail space, 300,000 square feet of office space and more than 1,300 residential units. Other office tenants include Muller Engineering Co., The Integer Group and PC Assist, according to CommercialEdge data.

Located at the crossroads of Wadsworth Boulevard and Alameda Avenue in Lakewood’s downtown, the 22-block development also features the Lakewood City Commons shopping mall, a Target store and a Whole Foods market.

A below-average performance for Denver’s office market

Denver had a 22.2 percent vacancy rate as of December, 390 basis points higher than the national average, according to the latest CommercialEdge office report. The metro’s listing rate was also lower than the country’s $37.6 average, clocking in at $30.2.

In one of last year’s more significant deals, Xcel Energy-Colorado preleased all 220,000-plus square feet of office space at T3 RiNo in Denver. Developed by Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery, the building will house the company’s new regional headquarters starting with 2025.

Also last year, architecture firm Merrick & Co. signed a 69,154-square-foot lease at Drawbridge Realty’s 100,338-square-foot building in Greenwood Village, Colo. The firm committed to 12 years at Greenwood 4, one of five buildings at Greenwood Corporate Plaza.

The post Google Fiber Signs Lease at Denver-Area Mixed-Use Campus appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Hyde Development and Mortenson Properties have paid $73.5 million for Peoria Business Center, an industrial campus in Denver, financing the purchase with a $44 million loan from Hartford Financial Services Group, public records show.

Invesco sold the three-building asset totaling 592,572 square feet with the assistance of CBRE. The Class A property previously traded in 2004 for $31 million.

Located at 12330 E. 46th Ave., 12360 E. 46th Ave. and 13100 E. Albrook Drive, in the Airport submarket, the campus came online between 1998 and 2001. The buildings feature ESFR sprinklers, dock-high and drive-in loading capabilities and LED lighting. There are eight points of ingress and egress within the property.

READ ALSO: What’s Next for Industrial Real Estate?

At the time of the sale, Peoria Business Center was 98 percent leased to 19 tenants occupying an average suite size of 28,000 square feet.

The industrial property is close to Interstate 70, providing distribution access across the nation; interstates 225 and 270 are also nearby. Downtown Denver is approximately 11 miles away, while Denver International Airport is some 13 miles northeast.

CBRE’s Jeremy Ballenger, Tyler Carner, Jessica Ostermick and Jim Bolt represented the seller in the transaction.

The Denver industrial market saw an investment volume of only $364 million in 2023 through November, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. Properties traded at $130 per square foot, a price equating the national average; however, the value marked a 24 percent drop from the metro’s same period of 2022.

Partnering in Denver

Hyde Development and Mortenson Properties have also partnered on another industrial project in the Denver area. The HighPoint Elevated industrial and logistics park is set to comprise 5.5 million square feet at full build-out. The development site was purchased in 2022.

Earlier this year, the partnership landed a new tenant at the same campus as PrimeSource Building Products signed a 170,300-square-foot lease within Building 1. At the time of the deal, the speculative warehouse was 70 percent leased.

The post Invesco Sells Denver Industrial Campus for $74M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

1660 Lincoln St. rises 31 stories in downtown Denver. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

New York-based flexible office provider Coalition Space will open a new coworking location spanning 16,000 square feet in downtown Denver. The firm signed an agreement with landlord Westport Capital Partners for the space at 1660 Lincoln St., slated to open in January 2024.

The location will be on the building’s 20th floor and will comprise flexible desks, dedicated desks and private offices, along with conference rooms. Amenities at the dog-friendly location will include a fitness center, coffee shop, arcade and an equipped kitchen.

Completed in 1972, the building spans 274,582 square feet across 31 stories. The owner acquired it in 2018 for $67.2 million, according to CommercialEdge data. In 2021, the property became subject to a $53.5 million three-year bridge loan from Franklin BSP Realty Trust, the same source shows. Tenants at the tower include Unico, Mill Creek Residential and CIG.

Located in the metro’s downtown, 1660 Lincoln St. is close to the Metropolitan State University of Denver and St Joseph Hospital. It is also within walking distance of the 16th Street Mall.

As of November, Denver’s vacancy rate reached 21 percent, representing a 2.3 percent year-over-year increase and above the national figure of 18.2 percent, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. The average listing rate in the metro was $30 per square foot, marking a 1.3 percent increase over 12 months and below the national average of $38, the same source shows.

The post Coalition Space Enters Denver With Downtown Location appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Rendering of T3 RiNo in Denver. Image courtesy of Hines

Xcel Energy-Colorado has preleased all 220,000-plus square feet of office space at T3 RiNo, a new Class A, six-story, mass timber office building in Denver’s River North (RiNo) Arts District. Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery, the building’s co-developers, landed the leasing deal.

Upon moving into its new regional headquarters in 2025, Xcel Energy is expected to be the largest office tenant in the RiNo submarket.

Located at 3500 Blake St., T3 RiNo will feature underground parking for 376 cars, according to information provided by CommercialEdge.

The mass timber design features exposed wood, open layouts, 12-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows with mountain views and natural light. The building is expected to achieve LEED, WiredScore, WELL and ENERGY STAR certifications at the highest levels.

Amenities include a conference center, private outdoor terraces on every floor, a 5,000-square-foot fitness center, bike storage, 18,500 square feet of ground floor retail and a connection to the RTD commuter rail system.

Xcel Energy was represented on the lease transaction by Rick Schuham and Brendan Fisher of Savills. Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines and McCaffery were represented by JLL’s James Roupp, John Beason, Don Misner and Maddy Stevenson.

“T3 RiNo will provide several benefits important to our coworkers including more parking, proximity to the RTD light rail system, greater security and more,” Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy-Colorado, said in a prepared statement. “Being in a single-tenant building allows us to design collaborative workspaces for increasingly interconnected teams.”

T3 is Hines’ brand for mass-timber buildings, standing for Timber, Transit, Technology. The company currently has 26 T3 projects completed, in design or under construction in the United States and overseas.

Slow for now

At the moment, the Denver office market is experiencing a decline in office-using employment driven by hybrid work. Overall occupancy has fallen for five straight quarters and is now at nearly three percentage points below the U.S. average, according to a third-quarter report from JLL. Almost all submarkets in the area reported negative net absorption in the past quarter, primarily in older assets.

On the other hand, JLL reported that return-to-office initiatives are anticipated to gain momentum, leading to continued demand for top-tier assets.

Earlier this month, Schnitzer West, in partnership with Brue Baukol Capital Partners, began construction of 201 Filmore, a 140,000-square-foot Class A office and retail development in Denver’s Cherry Creek submarket. Like T3 RiNo, 201 Filmore has fully preleased its office space, in this case to Antero Resources.

The post Xcel Takes 220 KSF at Denver Mass Timber Building appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Block 162 totals 596,295 square feet of Class A office space. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

Patrinely Group has signed a 29,867-square-foot long-term lease at Block 162, a 596,295-square-foot Class A office building in Denver’s central business district. Law firm Snell & Wilmer will occupy the building’s 25th floor.

CBRE and Savills represented the tenant, while Cushman & Wakefield negotiated on behalf of the landlord. Since its opening in 2021, 390,000 square feet were leased at Block 162, which is currently 35 percent vacant.

The property, developed in partnership with USAA Real Estate, has received LEED Gold Core and Shell certifications. Its tenant roster includes Matillion, Moss Adams, as well as Haynes and Boone. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is a majority tenant, with a 103,874-square-foot footprint, according to CommercialEdge. Earlier this year, Sherman & Howard added 12,049 square feet to its initial 60,000-square-foot lease.

Block 162 is a 30-story office tower at 675 15th St. The high-rise features 12 passenger elevators, 29,636-square-foot floorplates, 10,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor and 956 vehicle parking spots, according to the same source. The property’s office space is spread across floors 11 through 30, and includes column free design.

The amenity area, located on the 11th floor, features a fitness center with lockers and private showers, a roof garden with seating areas and fire pits, a social lounge, as well as a 2,800-square-foot conference and meeting area, while the building’s outdoor sky terrace offers an outdoor conference space and two fire pits.

The all-glass tower is close to Interstate 25 and to multiple railway and bus stations, 4 miles from Cherry Creek Shopping Center, 16 miles from Aurora, Colo., 21 miles from Denver International Airport and within 28 miles of Boulder, Colo.

CBRE’s Executive Vice President Chuck Nixon and Savills’ Chairman Rick Schuham represented the tenant. Cushman & Wakefield’s Vice Chairman Todd Wheeler and Executive Managing Director Doug Wulf, with the assistance of Patrinely Group’s Executive Managing Director Dennis Tarro, negotiated on behalf of the landlord.

Significant office deals in Denver

Earlier this year, Cushman & Wakefield brokered another notable office lease in Denver, when landlord Drawbridge Realty signed a 69,154-square-foot long-term commitment at Greenwood 4, a 100,338-square-foot building in Greenwood Village, Colo. The tenant, engineering and architecture firm Merrick & Co., inked a 12-year agreement, bringing the property’s occupancy to 97 percent.

In June, Kaiser Permanente signed a 120,979-square-foot renewal at Greenwood Plaza, an office campus in Eaglewood, Colo. The firm has been an anchor tenant at Franklin Street Properties’ two-building asset since 2013.

The post Patrinely Inks Denver Office Lease appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Moncrieff Business Center last changed hands in 2019. Image by Virtuance, courtesy of CBRE

Crosse Partners has acquired Moncrieff Business Center, a 101,406-square-foot industrial building in Aurora, Colo., for $10.9 million. CBRE negotiated on behalf of the seller, an affiliate of Zurich Alternative Asset Management. The property last changed hands in 2019, when Berkeley Partners sold it for $9.9 million, according to CommercialEdge.

Moncrieff Business Center is a Class B story distribution center within Denver’s Airport submarket. The property features 22- to 24-foot clear heights, sky lights, ample column spacing, ESFR sprinkler systems, an office build-out component, loading doors, dock levelers and bumpers, a truck court and 90 vehicle parking spots, according to the same source.

The industrial building at 14603 E. Moncrieff Place provides easy access to interstates 70 and 255, as well as to Union Pacific Rail Line. The 4.3 property is 9 miles from Denver International Airport, 13 miles from downtown Denver, 20 miles from Lakewood, Colo. and within 35 miles of Boulder, Colo.

The CBRE team representing the seller included Vice Presidents Jeremy Ballenger and Tyler Carner, Senior Vice President Jessica Ostermick and Vice Chairman Jim Bolt.

Recent industrial acquisitions in Denver

The same CBRE team worked on behalf of Westcore Properties in another industrial sale in Denver. In August, the company sold Dove Valley Business Center, a 149,776-square-foot industrial property in Englewood, Colo., for $29.8 million.

Year-to-date though September, industrial sales in Denver amounted to $288 million, according to a recent CommercialEdge report, at an average price per square foot of $133. In May, Comunale Properties and J.P. Morgan Asset Management sold Central Connection, a two-building industrial campus totaling 194,710 square feet in Denver’s North Central submarket. The property changed hands for $39.6 million.

The post Crosse Partners Buys Denver-Area Distribution Center appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

201 Filmore is scheduled for delivery for late 2025. Image courtesy of Schnitzer West

Schnitzer West, in partnership with Brue Baukol Capital Partners, has commenced construction on 201 Filmore, a 140,000-square-foot Class A office and retail development in Denver’s Cherry Creek submarket.

The project is designed by Goettsch Partners, while PCL Construction is the appointed general contractor. 201 Filmore is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification and is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of 2025.

201 Filmore will be an eight-story building that will include 8,600 square feet of retail space, 15,000- to 18,000-square-foot column-free floorplates, secure loading docks, bike parking and 251 vehicle parking spots. Common-area amenities will feature a restaurant on the ground floor, rooftop terrace and a flexible working space area on the second floor.

In November 2022, the partnership secured the development site and launched the project. During the same period, they also signed a preleasing agreement for the project’s entire office space with Antero Resources, according to CommercialEdge.

Committed to Denver

201 Filmore is close to Cherry Creek Shopping Center and to multiple bus stations, being 3.8 miles from downtown Denver, 19 miles from Denver International Airport and within 32 miles of Boulder, Colo.

Schnitzer West repositioned and delivered more than 11.3 million square feet of Class A office across the U.S. The company recently delivered The Current, a 240,000-square-foot office building in Denver’s River North neighborhood. The project was financed by a $77 million construction loan.

In July, Cushman & Wakefield arranged a $196 million refinancing package for Schnitzer West’s Fiddler’s Green Portfolio in Greenwood Village, Colo., consisting of 740,000 square feet of Class A office space spread across three suburban Denver office properties.

The post Schnitzer West JV Breaks Ground on Denver Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Built in the 1980s, Summer Valley Shopping Center was renovated and modernized over the years. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Arbor Plaza LLC has sold Summer Valley Shopping Center, a 95,669-square-foot retail center in Aurora, Colo., for $20.4 million. Cushman & Wakefield brokered the transaction on behalf of the seller.

Arbor Plaza purchased the asset back in 2018 for $19.7 million, according to CommercialEdge data. Independent Bank provided a $12.5 million acquisition loan, the same source shows.

Vasa Fitness and Dollar Tree are the anchor tenants at the property, which was 99 percent leased at the time of the sale. The roster also includes Hana Sushi, T-Mobile, State Farm, Blackjack Pizza and Thai Garden. A total of five tenants have been at the property for more than 15 years, while 14 tenants have been there for around five years.

Summer Valley Shopping Center encompasses two buildings, on an 8.1-acre site on the northeast corner of E. Quincy Avenue and S. Buckley Road, in the Carriage Place neighborhood. The property underwent several renovations since its construction in the 1980s.

Executive Directors Jon Hendrickson and Aaron Johnson and Senior Associate Mitch Veremeychik comprised the Cushman & Wakefield broker team.

Denver’s retail sector showed resilience throughout the second quarter, according a CBRE report. The construction pipeline exceeded 410,000 square feet, while a total of 233,000 square feet of space delivered during the first six months of the year. Meanwhile, sales volume totaled $153.4 million for the second quarter, while asking rents clocked in at $19.77 per square foot, the same source shows.

The post Denver-Area Retail Asset Trades for $20M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Quantum 56 broke ground on a speculative basis. Image courtesy of Hines

With an amenity package out of the ordinary for an industrial asset, Phase I is set to include 581,000 square feet, with multiple configurations to allow for utmost flexibility for prospective tenants, according to JLL’s’ Managing Director Jason White. Quantum 56 will be ideal for tenants looking for infill, last-mile delivery locations.

To find out what makes this project stand out in the Denver industrial market, Commercial Property Executive asked White and Hines’ Director Courtney Schneider to share details and give a sneak peek into the projects’ second phase, which is set to encompass three buildings.

What’s one of the biggest challenges in developing an industrial project of this scale today?

Courtney Schneider said Quantum 56 will capitalize on the increased demand for best-in-class, well-located industrial space. Image courtesy of Hines

Schneider: The biggest challenge in developing an industrial project of this scale today is building the right team to execute on the transaction in an uncertain financing environment. In this case, we worked with Essex Financial Group to source the right lender for the project and couldn’t be happier with the outcome we were able to achieve.

We believe building the right product that will lease and stand the test of time is the key to the long-term success of the project and we are confident that is what we are building at Quantum 56.

Have the current economic conditions impacted the development of the project in any way?

Schneider: Essex Financial Group was hired on an exclusive basis to source the construction financing on behalf of Hines. They ran a competitive process encompassing more than 100 lenders and ultimately secured a loan with one of Essex’s correspondent life insurance company relationships that yielded the best deal economics for the project. Given the irreplaceable infill location, Quantum 56 is a project Hines is proud to develop and own for the long term, and therefore the current economic conditions aren’t necessarily deterrents for us in executing on our business plan.

What does each phase of the project include exactly? When do you expect to be able to break ground on the second phase?

White: Phase I features three buildings totaling 581,250 square feet of space, with varying configurations to allow for maximum flexibility for prospective tenants. In addition to these three buildings, Phase I will also include a one-of-a-kind amenity tract including a full-sized basketball court, picnic tables and walking trails. Phase II offers users the ability to have their own buildings and is expected to break ground as demand dictates. There is no set groundbreaking for Phase II at this time.

READ ALSO: Industrial Amenities Are Important, Too

Tell us more about the features that make this industrial project stand out in the North Central submarket.

Quatum 56’s amenity tract includes a full-sized basketball court, picnic tables and walking trails. Image courtesy of Hines

Schneider: The amenity tract is the only of its kind within the Denver metro area, offering on-site outdoor amenities within an industrial park. The project encompasses diverse building configurations including cross-dock, rear-load and future owner-occupier buildings, providing maximum flexibility and appeal to a wide range of tenants. Notably, the trailer parking allocated to Building 1 surpasses that of any other project in the North Central submarket.

Each building is equipped with heavy power to effectively address the increasing demands for power from industrial tenants, particularly where automation and electrification is becoming more prevalent. In addition, Building 1 boasts a clear height of 36 feet, a first for the North Central submarket.

Building 6 holds a significant advantage with an existing water aquifer located beneath it. This strategic advantage presents a unique benefit for groups with substantial water requirements, as it provides the opportunity to draw considerable water volumes from the aquifer. This, in turn, can translate to substantial cost savings compared to relying solely on city water sources.

READ ALSO: Industrial Sector Continues Growth Amid Rising Rates

What advantages will the development offer to future tenants, from a geographic point of view? 

Quantum 56 has received multiple offers from various tenants, said Jason White. Image courtesy of JLL

White: Direct access to major highways is now a critical factor for industrial occupiers when considering location. Quantum 56 offers a prime position right next to interstates 25 and 70, granting unrivaled connectivity throughout the Denver metro area. Beyond the convenience of freeway access, its proximity to downtown Denver offers significant last-mile benefits, connecting to the most densely populated areas of the city and a robust labor pool.

The location of the project also provides a lower sales tax compared to surrounding areas. Can you share some details about these advantages?

White: Unincorporated Adam’s County offers 4.25 percent sales tax, compared to the more than 8 percent in all the surrounding incorporated municipalities, making it an ideal choice for businesses with on-site sales such as a showroom or customer pickup operations.

What type of businesses will the space be suitable for? Have you begun negotiations with potential tenants to occupy the first phase?

White: Quantum 56 has received multiple proposals and offers from a variety of tenants. Anticipated tenant profiles encompass a wide spectrum of industrial users, ranging from distributors and manufacturers to local service providers such as HVAC and plumbing suppliers.

Why is it important for the project to serve both large-scale users and smaller, single occupiers?

Schneider: Since the project is breaking ground on a speculative basis, it is important that Quantum 56 is able to provide maximum flexibility and be able to accommodate a variety of tenants, from 20,000 square-foot tenants looking for warehouse or showroom space, to larger tenants of 350,000 square feet seeking infill, last-mile delivery locations.

What can you tell us about demand for industrial space in Denver? 

White: Large, centrally located parcels of industrial land available for development are increasingly scarce, presenting a high barrier to entry for developers. As supply continues to be absorbed and demand remains steady, fewer opportunities will exist for groups that need to be located here.

Schneider: Delivering Quantum 56 to the region will capitalize on this increased demand for best-in-class, well-located industrial space.

The post A Backstage Look at Hines’ Quantum 56 Project in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

An engineering and architecture company is on board for 12 years. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

Drawbridge Realty has signed a long-term lease for 69,154 square feet in Greenwood Village, Colo. Merrick & Co., an engineering and architecture firm, committed to 12 years at Greenwood 4, one of five buildings at Greenwood Corporate Plaza. Newmark negotiated on behalf of the landlord, while Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant.

Greenwood 4 is a 100,338-square-foot, three-story building at 8051 E. Maplewood Ave. It features two passenger elevators, floorplates ranging from 34,000 to 38,221 square feet, as well as 397 parking spots, CommercialEdge shows. Located about 14 miles from downtown Denver, the 36-acre Greenwood Corporate Plaza offers access to Interstate 25 and to multiple bus and rail stations.

Merrick’s lease brings occupancy at Greenwood 4 to 97 percent, Drawbridge noted. The tenant roster at the building, which is LEED Silver-certified, also includes Advanced Emissions Solutions Inc. and Pacific Medical Data Solutions.

Long-term owner

Drawbridge Realty has owned Greenwood 4 since 2015, when it purchased the building from ScanlanKemperBard Cos. as part of a $37 million portfolio deal, according to CommercialEdge. Also included in that acquisition was the campus’ 104,459-square-foot Greenwood 1, which is LEED Gold-certified.

Newmark’s team of Executive Managing Director Jamie Gard and Senior Managing Director Pete Staab negotiated on behalf of Drawbridge Realty. Cushman & Wakefield’s Vice Chairman Todd Wheeler and Steve Billigmeier, together with Managing Director Rob Bain and Director Sid Dixon, worked on behalf of the tenant.

Earlier this year, Cushman & Wakefield brokered another notable Denver deal: landlord Franklin Street Properties signed a lease renewal for 120,979 square feet at Greenwood Plaza, a two-building office campus in Eaglewood, Colo.

The post Drawbridge Inks Long-Term Lease at Denver Office Campus appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Dove Valley Business Center is a small-bay property that came online in 2018. Image courtesy of CBRE

Haleakala Ranch Co. has acquired Dove Valley Business Center, a 149,776-square-foot industrial property in Englewood, Colo., according to Arapahoe County records. Westcore Properties sold the asset for $29.8 million, with the assistance of CBRE. MidPacific Asset Advisors represented the buyer.

The property previously traded in 2020, when Westcore purchased the industrial asset for $23 million from Brennan Investment Group, CommercialEdge data shows.

READ ALSO: Real Estate Market Sentiment Improves

Completed in 2018 on 10.7 acres, the Class A small-bay facility features 28-foot clear heights, 30 dock-high doors, six drive-in doors, ESFR sprinklers, a large truck court and outdoor storage. Tenant suites range between 23,700 and 26,300 square feet.

Dove Valley Business Center is near Interstate 25 at 14101 E. Otero Ave., about 20 miles southeast of downtown Denver and less than 2 miles from Centennial Airport (KAPA). The surrounding area is home to American Furniture Warehouse, Amazon, Digicomm International Inc. and Beehive Industries, among others.

CBRE Executive Vice President Jeremy Ballenger, Vice Chairman Jim Bolt, SIOR Executive Vice President Tyer Carner and Senior Vice President Jessica Ostermick represented the seller.

Fully leased small-bay property

The distribution center was fully occupied by five tenants at the time of sale. Executive Managing Director Tyler Reed, Executive Vice President Dominic DiOrio and Managing Director Peter Beugg with Stream Realty Partners handled the leasing efforts.

Year-to-date as of June, industrial sales amounted to $137 million in Denver, the per-square-foot price averaging $131, a recent CommercialEdge report shows. The metro had a vacancy rate of 6.8 percent, with an average rent rate that rose 4.1 percent in the last 12 months ending in June.

Since its founding in 2000, Westcore had more than 100 million square feet of assets under management. In one of its more recent purchases, the firm acquired a 519,905-square-foot industrial campus from BentallGreenOak.

The post Westcore Sells Denver-Area Industrial Asset appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

The Quantum 56 park in Denver is set to include six warehouses. Image courtesy of Hines

Hines and partner EnviroFinance Group have broken ground on the first phase of Quantum 56, a Class A six-building, 868,360-square-foot industrial park in North Central Denver. The project will cater to the needs of large-scale distribution and manufacturing users, as well as smaller, single occupiers and owners.

Ware Malcomb Denver is the designer behind Quantum 56, with Arch-Con Corp. serving as the general contractor.

Phase I, which is set to encompass three buildings totaling 581,250 square feet of warehouse and manufacturing space, is slated for completion in the second quarter of next year. Essex Financial Group secured the construction loan for this phase of the project from an unidentified life insurance company. Further details on the loan were not disclosed. The Essex Capital Markets team was led by Vice President of Loan Production Blaire Butler, President Cooper Williams and Real Estate Analyst Matt Perigard.

READ ALSO: Manufacturing Thrives Amid Construction Surges

The industrial park will be located west of Interstate 25 on 56^th Avenue, about 10 minutes from Denver’s Central Business District. The project is part of unincorporated Adams County, which has a lower sales tax —4.75 percent—compared to surrounding areas, where sales tax rates exceed 8 percent, according to JLL. That advantage should make the industrial park attractive to businesses with showroom or customer pickup operations.

For multiple types of users

Quantum 56 is set to include 1.6-acre park with a basketball court. Image courtesy of Hines

Three buildings and amenities including a 1.6-acre park with a basketball court, picnic tables and walking path, are set to be built in Phase 1. Building 1 will be a 350,400-square-foot, 36-foot clear cross-dock structure with ample trailer parking. At completion, it will be the only cross-dock building available for lease in the submarket. Building 2 will have 121,600 square feet, while Building 3 is set to have 109,250 square feet. Both assets will be 32-foot clear rear-loaded buildings of varying depths.

Plans call for Phase II to include build-to-suit opportunities at the 157,080-square-foot Building 4 and additional compact owner-user opportunities at Building 5 (68,752 square feet) and Building 6 (61,500 square feet). Building 6 will have an aquifer beneath it, providing an additional water source for heavy users and reducing reliance on the utility provider.

Courtney Schneider, a director at Hines, said in a prepared statement that North Central Denver is a fast-growing submarket where occupier demand for Class A industrial space continues to outpace existing supply. Schneider mentioned Quantum 56 will capitalize on the increased demand for best-in-class, well-located industrial space.

Hines tapped JLL to lease the properties. Jason White, managing director at JLL Denver, along with Senior Vice President Mitchell Zatz and Managing Director Carmon Hicks, Denver industrial lead, will lead the leasing efforts.

More Hines industrial moves

Last month, Hines selected NAI James E. Hanson as exclusive leasing agent for Newark Distribution Center, a three-building 716,158-square-foot industrial campus in Newark, N.J. Hines acquired the property earlier this year for $127 million.

In June, Hines completed the purchase of Covington Logistics Center, a 501,600-square-foot industrial property on 36 acres in Covington Township, Pa., for $60 million from Portman Holdings and Rockpoint. All-Ways Pacific, a freight distribution company, signed a lease for the entire building in February.

The post Hines Breaks Ground on Denver Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Law firm Moye White is The Current’s first tenant. Image courtesy of Schnitzer West

Schnitzer West has opened The Current, a 240,000-square-foot office building in in Denver’s River North neighborhood. Swinerton acted as general contractor for the property, and Davis Partnership Architects designed it.

The development is subject to a $77 million construction loan from Otera Capital, originated in 2021 and maturing in 2024, according to CommercialEdge data.

The building rises 12 stories and includes eight floors of office space, four levels of above-grade parking along with two more of underground parking. The property has approximately 29,000-square-foot floor plates and amenities such as a fitness center, yoga studio and smart windows, along with a shared great room on the 11th and 12th floors.

Located at 3615 Delgany St., The Current is close to interstates 25 and 70, and less than 3 miles from downtown Denver. It is also within close walking distance of the 38th – Blake train station, providing car free access. It is surrounded by dining and retail options, being in the fast-growing RiNo neighborhood.

Developer Schnitzer West has delivered or repositioned more than 12 million square feet of office space under different subclasses, and now manages more than 3 million square feet of office space which is under construction or in pre-development stages. Last year, the company teamed up with Brue Baukol Capital Partners for the construction of a 140,000-square-foot office building, also in metro Denver.

The post Schnitzer West Delivers 240 KSF Denver Office Building appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Pyramid Pointe. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Certus has purchased Pyramid Pointe, a 120,449-square-foot office building in Englewood, Colo. Graham Street Realty sold the multi-tenant asset for $9.9 million, according to public records. The same sources show that Adams Bank & Trust provided a $7.5 million acquisition loan. Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller.

Pyramid Pointe previously traded back in 2017, when Graham Street acquired it in a portfolio transaction from Westcore Properties, according to CommercialEdge data.

Completed in 1995, the two-story building was renovated in 2016 and 2020. Featuring a fitness center, three passenger elevators, controlled access and some 580 parking spaces, the property was 78 percent leased at the time of sale. Tenants include Envision Mechanical Engineers, Golden Triangle Construction, Lode Data Corp., Eventus Solutions and DaVita.

Located at 9777 Pyramid Court in the Meridian submarket, the office building is near the intersection of Interstate 25 and State Road 470, which provide direct access to downtown Denver. The location is less than 2 miles from a nearly 400,000-square-foot Class A office campus that changed hands this month for more than $205 million.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Executive Director Aaron Johnson and Managing Director Jon Hendrickson worked on behalf of Graham Street.

The post Certus Buys 120 KSF Office Building in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

10055 Trainstation Circle. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

The joint venture of Benderson Development and CGA Capital has purchased Kiewit Corp.’s nearly 400,000-square-foot Class A office campus in Lone Tree, Colo., for $205.2 million, public records show. In addition, CGA Mortgage provided $201.4 million in acquisition financing. Kiewit will remain at the campus under a 20-year lease.

The property traded for a whopping $520.8 per square foot. Located at 10051 and 10055 Trainstation Circle in the 3,500-acre RidgeGate master-planned community, the campus comprises two office buildings, a parking structure for 950 vehicles and a surface parking lot.

READ ALSO: Are Suburban Offices Strengthening Their Comeback?

The first building, dubbed K1, came online in July 2021. The five-story, 252,000-square-foot structure features outdoor spaces, a cafe and a fitness center. The second building, K2, was finished the following year and totals 142,000 square feet, according to information from CommercialEdge.

The property is near Lincoln Avenue and Interstate 25, adjacent to the Sky Ridge light rail station. Downtown Denver is some 17 miles northwest.

Office sales across Denver

Metro Denver’s office market saw $195 million in sales year-to-date as of May, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. The price per square foot, averaging $233, was 19.5 percent higher than the one recorded on a national level. As of May, the supply pipeline amounted to 2.5 million square feet of office space underway, representing 1.6 percent of total stock.

In one of the metro’s priciest deals recorded in the first five months of the year, Altus paid $54 million for a 101,725-square-foot office campus located in Denver’s Cherry Creek submarket. The sale price for the Class B property equates to $530.8 per square foot.

The post Denver Office Campus Trades for $205M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Greenwood Plaza. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Kaiser Permanente has extended its lease at Franklin Street Properties’ Greenwood Plaza, a 197,528-square-foot office campus in Eaglewood, Colo. Cushman & Wakefield brokered the 120,979-square-foot agreement on behalf of the landlord, while JLL represented the tenant.

Situated on more than 8 acres at 6550 and 6560 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., the office complex encompasses two buildings of three and five stories, respectively. Franklin Street acquired the Class A asset in 2005 for $44 million, according to CommercialEdge information.

READ ALSO: A Closer Look at Tech Layoffs’ Impact on Office Leasing

Kaiser has been anchoring the office campus since 2013, the same data provider shows. AT&T and Bright Horizons also have leases at the property.

Greenwood Plaza is near the Village Center Light Rail Station and Interstate 25, being surrounded by a variety of retail and dining destinations. Downtown Denver is some 13 miles northwest.

Cushman & Wakefield Managing Directors Ryan Stout and Nathan Bradley, along with Director Zachary Williams and Associate Broker Kiley Crews, brokered the transaction on behalf of Franklin Street. JLL Executive Vice President Patrick Bolick and Vice President Kurt Liss represented the tenant in the lease renewal.

Denver office vacancy rate hits record high

The prominent office markets in the Western region observed a notable surge in vacancy rates, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. This can be attributed to the substantial presence of tech companies and the prevalence of remote work.

In Denver, a market where 27.5 percent of employees are working remotely, the office vacancy rate reached 20.2 percent as of May, report data shows. The index recorded a 3 percent increase year-over-year, making it the highest vacancy rate in the region and the third highest nationwide.

The post Franklin Street Inks 121 KSF Denver Lease Renewal appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

2300 55th St. Image courtesy of CBRE

CordenPharma, a full-service Contract Development & Manufacturing Organization, has signed a lease to occupy 61,117 square feet at 2300 55th St., a life science property in Boulder, Colo. CBRE’s Blake Harris brokered the lease on behalf of the landlord, TriTower Financial Group.

TriTower purchased the building from Trimble for $21 million in 2021, according to CommercialEdge data. FirstBank provided a $19.4 million acquisition loan, the same source shows.

Completed in 1996 and recently renovated, the property incorporates advanced technology features, providing tech-enabled meeting rooms, high-end office space and modern laboratory space. Amenities include a fitness center, a passenger elevator, controlled access and approximately 180 parking spaces.

CordenPharma has other facilities in the site’s proximity, the lease at 2300 55th representing an expansion of the company’s operations in the area. The firm will use the life science building for engineering, research and development operations.

Located in Denver’s Boulder submarket, the facility is close to an abundance of dining options, retail centers and green areas. Boulder Municipal Airport and Valmont City Park are within 1.5 miles from the property.

The vacancy for lab and good manufacturing practice space in Boulder has reached 4.2 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2023, according to CBRE. The brokerage company has recently represented IDEAYA Biosciences in a 44,000-square-foot lease transaction at 5000 Shoreline Court in South San Francisco.

The post CordenPharma Signs Life Science Lease in Greater Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Eastpark 70. Image courtesy of CBRE

Developer and landlord Consolidated Investment Group has secured 137,500 square feet in new leases at Eastpark 70, a 13-building, 1.3 million-square-foot business park in Aurora, Colo. CBRE brokered the deal on the ownership’s behalf.

Performance Contracting signed a 77,140-square-foot lease to occupy the entire Building 6 within the campus, while Empire Today inked an agreement to occupy the remaining available 60,350 square feet in Building 5. The closing of these leases resulted in the industrial park reaching full occupancy.

READ ALSO: Industrial Leasing Trends for 2023

UPS, Benjamin Moore, JFC International and Empire Flooring are among the other tenants at Eastpark 70, according to CommercialEdge,

Buildings 5 and 6 reached completion in October of last year. Both have dock-high and drive-in loading, ESFR sprinklers, 32-foot clear heights and trailer parking. The developer plans the construction of an additional 117,500-square-foot building.

Located at 19722 E. 22nd Ave. and 19922 E. 22nd Ave., the two buildings are located just west of Interstate 70, near the intersection with Tower Road, offering connectivity to other thoroughfares including toll road E-470, as well as interstates 25, 225 and 270.

The site is zoned as I-1 Aurora and has received approval for outside storage. Downtown Denver and Denver International Airport are both some 16 miles away. Additionally, Eastpark 70 is adjacent to Subaru and Amazon facilities.

Denver’s industrial sector shows resilience

CBRE Senior Vice Presidents Doug Viseur and Todd Witty brokered the lease on behalf of Consolidated Investment Group. Earlier this year, the same brokers were part of the team that represented a partnership between Confluent Development and Invesco Real Estate in signing two leases totaling 57,055 square feet at Building 1 of Central Park Business Center, a Class A, two-building industrial park in Denver. The leases brought that building to full occupancy as well.

The industrial sector in metro Denver recorded positive net absorption of 724,000 square feet in the first quarter of 2023, according to CBRE research. This achievement marked the 52nd consecutive quarter of positive net absorption.

Among Denver’s submarkets, the Airport submarket, where Eastpark 70 is situated, outperformed others by accounting for 42 percent of leasing activity and 46 percent of the total positive absorption in the quarter, the same source shows.

Despite the industrial sector being susceptible to economic fluctuations, it demonstrates continued resilience, said Witty in a prepared statement. The demand for modern industrial buildings remains robust among tenants, which is a significant factor contributing to Denver’s positive absorption, he added.

The post Consolidated Secures 138 KSF in Leases Near Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Arista 36 aerial rendering. Image by Norris Design, courtesy of Stream Realty Partners

LaPour Partners is one step closer to starting construction on Arista 36, a 359,800-square-foot industrial park in Broomfield, Colo. The developer has received the City Council’s approval for the development of the three-building project located on a 29.2-acre lot in the Northwest submarket. Groundbreaking is set for September of this year, with completion anticipated in 2025.

Arista 36 will come online at 11210-11250 Wadsworth Parkway. The three facilities, ranging from 75,600 to 150,000 square feet, will feature 28-foot clear heights and a total of 104 dock-high doors and 12 drive-in doors. Amenities will include 48 electric vehicle charging stations, bike racks, walking and biking trails and two community gathering areas with seating.

READ ALSO: How Debt Costs Will Affect Industrial Demand This Year

All buildings will cater to different uses such as manufacturing, distribution, life sciences, research and development and assembly. A 185-foot truck court will be shared between Building One and Building Two. Stream Realty Partners’ Tyler Reed, executive managing director, Peter Beugg, managing director, Dominic DiOrio, executive vice president, and Buzz Miller, senior associate, will serve as Arista 36’s leasing brokers.

Interstate 25 and the Northwest Parkway connect Arista 36 to major transportation routes leading to Denver and the Denver International Airport. The Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport is less than 3 miles away, while the nearby RTD Broomfield Station offers easy commuting. Brands including Google, Honeywell, Ball Corp., Lockheed Martin, Cisco, Century Link and Oracle are in proximity to the property.

A glimpse into the Denver industrial scene

Some 12.7 million square feet of industrial space were under construction in metro Denver at the end of March, representing 5.1 percent of total stock, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. However, the metro’s vacancy rate of 7.2 percent was nearly double the one recorded on a national level (3.9 percent).

One of the current developments will total 1.2 million square feet at full build-out. Trammell Crow and Clarion Partners completed the 571,000-square-foot first phase of the Commerce City, Colo., project in March.

In Denver’s North Central submarket an industrial asset recently traded for $39.6 million. At the time of the project’s completion it beat the record for the fastest lease-up of a speculative development in Central Denver.

The post LaPour Partners to Develop Denver-Area Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

1400 Wewatta St. & 1401 Wynkoop St. Image courtesy of JLL

Crestone Partners has secured a $66 million refinance for two interconnected Class A office buildings encompassing 279,188 square feet of space in Denver’s LoDo submarket.

JLL Capital Markets made arrangements on behalf of the borrower. Allianz Global Investors originated the fixed-rate, five-year loan, Denver County public records show.

The LEED Gold-certified property is currently 95 percent occupied by 13 tenants, including Heritage Title Company, UMB Bank, Gallagher Industries and others, CommercialEdge data shows. The property has outperformed its competitors in the LoDo area for average rents, occupancy and the quality of the tenant credit, noted Crestone Partners’ Principal Bob Flynn, in prepared remarks.

READ ALSO: CRE Lending Sees Significant Drop: CBRE

Located at 1400 Wewatta St. and at 1401 Wynkoop St., the two-building property features four passenger elevators, 27,000-square-foot floorplates, 25,188 square feet of retail space and a total of 467 parking spots. The nine and 10-story buildings are connected through a third-floor outdoor common-area terrace, as well as through a sky bridge, located on the fourth floor. Other tenant amenities include a fitness center and private terraces.

Situated on an approximately 4-acre lot, the asset is close to Interstate 25 and to multiple bus and train stations, including Union Station, 4 miles from the city’s Cherry Creek neighborhood, 15 miles from Aurora, Colo., and within 20 miles of Denver International Airport.

Recent mixed-use projects

Flynn along with Vice President of Property and Construction Services Heidi McKernan, Principals Garth Tait and Dave Meares represented Crestone Partners in-house, with the assistance of the JLL Capital Markets team of Senior Managing Director Eric Tupler and Director Kevin Barron. JLL’s Tupler also assisted Continuum Partners in April, in securing a $23 million refinancing for a mixed-use development in Denver. The loan, originated through HTLF, will be used for a 60,000-square-foot component of A Block, a Class A, $120 million mixed-use development comprising hotel, office and retail space.

In November 2022, Broe Real Estate Group announced plans to develop 250 Clayton, a mixed-use project in Denver’s Cherry Creek Hill district. With construction expected to start in late 2023, the project consists of 175,000 square feet of office and retail space.

The post Crestone Secures $66M Refi for Denver Office Campus appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Central Connection. Image courtesy of EverWest Real Estate Investors

EverWest Real Estate Investors has acquired Central Connection, a two-building, 194,710-square-foot industrial property in Denver’s North Central submarket. Comunale Properties and J. P. Morgan Asset Management sold the asset for $39.6 million, according to Adams County public records, with the assistance of CBRE.

Comunale broke ground on Central Connection in December 2019 and completed it in 2020. The following year, the property became subject to a $24.5 million loan originated by FirstBank, CommercialEdge data shows.

READ ALSO: How Much Will Investors, Lenders Reduce Activity?

Located at 1550 and 1210 E. 73rd Ave., Central Connection encompasses two industrial buildings of 153,264 and 41,446 square feet, respectively. The campus features 32- and 24-foot clear heights, ESFR sprinkler systems, an office build-out component, a 130-foot truck court and 411 parking spots.

The 14-acre property is close to interstates 25, 270, 76 and 70. The campus is 7 miles from downtown Denver and 18 miles from Denver International Airport.

A fully leased industrial campus

The property was fully leased at the time of sale. Back in 2020, at the time of its completion, the industrial asset beat the record for the quickest lease-up of a speculative development in Central Denver. Peloton, Outpost, Alpha, Carlisle, Epicurean and Newcomb Spring Corp. are currently occupying the campus.

Denver’s North Central industrial market is known for having one of the highest rents in the region, along with low vacancy rates, noted EverWest Managing Director of Acquisitions Brett Birkeland, in prepared statements. He also added that Central Connection stands out due to its modern design, in an area with older industrial products.

CBRE Executive Vice Presidents Jeremy Ballenger and Tyler Carner, Vice Chairman Jim Bolt and Senior Vice President Jessica Ostermick negotiated on behalf of the seller.

EverWest currently has $5.2 billion in assets under management, invested through separately managed accounts and commingled funds. The firm’s Denver portfolio also includes a 936,775-square-foot industrial complex in Thornton, Colo., that recently landed a full-building lease.

The post EverWest Pays $40M for Denver Industrial Asset appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

25 North. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

EverWest Real Estate Investors, in joint venture with Invesco Real Estate, has secured a full-building, long-term lease at 25 North, its 70-acre master-planned industrial project in Thornton, Colo., in metro Denver. The 135,000-square-foot Building 6 is part of the development’s second phase and will be occupied by Ferguson Enterprises.

Cushman & Wakefield Executive Directors Steve Hager and Matt Trone, together with Director Joey Trinkle, negotiated on behalf of the landlord, while Ferguson Enterprises was represented by CBRE Executive Vice Presidents Jeremy Ballenger and Tyler Carner, with assistance from Senior Vice President Jessica Ostermick.

The partnership purchased the North Denver industrial campus in July 2020 for $43.4 million, when it included two buildings totaling 219,000 square feet, with plans to expand. In April 2022, the landlords secured $101.3 million in financing for the project, that will total nearly 935,000 square feet spread across nine Class A industrial buildings with flex, warehouse and distribution capabilities.

Ferguson Enterprises will occupy the property located at 14827 Grant St., that is currently underway and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024. The single-story building will feature loading doors, 32-foot clear heights and 244 parking spots, according to CommercialEdge. Situated on an almost 11-acre lot, the property is close to Interstate 25, 16 miles from downtown Denver and 20 miles from Denver International Airport.

Recent industrial projects in metro Denver

The project’s Phase II will include six buildings totaling approximately 596,575 square feet, currently 42 percent preleased, while the first phase includes 340,200 square feet across three completed buildings, leased to Meati Foods, Sashco Inc. and Solid Power. All buildings include 28- to 32-foot clear heights, large parking capabilities for vehicles and trucks, ESFR sprinkler systems and clerestory windows.

In March, another joint venture moved forward with an industrial project in metro Denver: Trammell Crow Co., together with Clarion Partners, completed the first phase of 104th Commerce Park in Commerce City, Colo. With the second phase expected to begin later this year, the new development will include five buildings totaling 1.2 million square feet.

The post EverWest, Invesco Land 135 KSF Denver Tenant appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Renewal Medical Center. Image courtesy of Anchor Health Properties

Anchor Health Properties has acquired Renewal Medical Center, a 36,541-square-foot building in Lone Tree, Colo., through its Chestnut Healthcare Fund II, co-managed with Chestnut Funds. Medical Properties of America sold the asset for $13 million, according to Douglas County records. First Citizens Bank provided $18.7 million in debt financing, with a maturity date set for 2027.

Anchor Health will also provide asset and property management services. Renewal Medical Center was 97 percent occupied at the time of sale. Managing Partner Greg Trainor with Fairfield Asset Advisors represented the seller in the transaction.

The medical office building previously changed hands in 2015, when it traded for $5.2 million, with Baceline Investments as the seller, according to CommercialEdge data.

READ ALSO: Why MOBs Offer Healthy Investor Appeal

Rocky Mountain Kidney Care is the main tenant, with the roster also including Insight Surgery Center, Quantum Health Solutions, Broadway Plastic Surgery, T-Mobile and Sprint/Crown Castle. A variety of medical services are available at the property, including nephrology, ophthalmological and cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery and integrative medicine.

Previous owners conducted two rounds of renovations. The 1987-built, Class B asset received a cosmetic upgrade in 2005 and was fully redeveloped in 2012.

Located at 9777 S. Yosemite St., the building is 20 miles from downtown Denver and has access to Interstate 25, with Sky Ridge Medical Center less than 2 miles away. Other medical service providers in the area include UCHealth Lone tree Medical Center, Lone Tree Medical Plaza, with Centura Parker Adventist Hospital 9.4 miles east.

Denver has 611 KSF of medical office space underway

As of April, 24 medical office buildings—totaling 374,651 square feet—traded in the Denver market over a 12-month period, CommercialEdge data shows. Back in October 2022, another Lone Tree facility changed hands when Healthcare Realty Trust acquired Park Meadows Medical Center from Gulftech International in a $14.8 million transaction.

Denver has a supply pipeline of 10 medical facilities in various stages of development, set to add 611,027 square feet to the existing inventory. The market’s largest medical office underway is a 130,000-square-foot property, developed by Intermountain Healthcare and slated for completion in 2024.

The post Anchor Health Buys Denver MOB appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

1601 Wewatta St.’s 7th floor. Image courtesy of Newmark

Solar energy company Pivot Energy has signed a 22,628-square-foot headquarters lease at Morgan Stanley’s 1601 Wewatta St. in Denver’s Lower Downtown neighborhood. Newmark brokered the lease agreement on behalf of the tenant, while CBRE represented the landlord.

Pivot Energy will relocate from its current premises at 1750 15th St. and is scheduled to take up three quarters of the seventh floor at the 299,127-square-foot office building. Autodesk, Deloitte and NAVA Real Estate Development are part of the property’s roster, CommercialEdge reveals.

READ ALSO: Tech Layoffs’ Impact on Office Leasing

The tenant’s new location will include a 4,000-square-foot touchdown space for hybrid and traveling employees, doubled by a private patio with outdoor seating and grills. The expansion is part of the company’s commitment to offering flexible work arrangements to its workforce.

The Class A, LEED-certified building came online in 2015 and features ground-level retail and restaurants, along with underground parking. The property is adjacent to the Union Station transportation hub, also offering connectivity to Interstate 25, RTD light rail and the nearby residential areas.

Senior Managing Director Andrew Blaustein and Associate Director Josh Pons led the Newmark team that brokered the deal on behalf of the tenant, while CBRE’s Senior Vice President Chris Phenicie and First Vice President Allison represented the landlord.

Slow market activity persists in Denver amid economic uncertainty

According to the latest CommercialEdge report, Denver had the highest vacancy rate among major Western markets. The rise in direct vacancy is a result of several factors, including a fluctuating economy in the Denver metropolitan area, prolonged decision-making processes among tenants, as well as ongoing employee preference for remote work, a recent CBRE market report reveals.

Despite the fact that the vacancy rate for Class B properties is still the highest, at 22.0 percent, Class A properties saw the largest increase in vacancy during the first quarter of the year, according to the same source. The rate increased by 60 basis points from the previous quarter and by 150 basis points from the previous year, reaching 20.2 percent.

The post Morgan Stanley Inks HQ Lease in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

T3 RiNo. Image courtesy of Ivanhoé Cambridge

Hines, Ivanhoé Cambridge and McCaffrey have topped out a 235,000-square-foot mass timber office building in Denver. The six-story project, T3 RiNo, is expected to be one of most sustainable and environmentally friendly developments in the city.

The office building is set to feature 43,000-square-foot floorplates with 12-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. Tenant amenities are expected to include a 5,000-square-foot fitness center, 100 bike storage spaces, private outdoor decks on each floor, 5,000 square feet of common areas and a conference center. Plans also call for 17,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.

READ ALSO: Inside the Mass Timber Playbook

Situated at 3500 Blake St. in Denver’s RiNo Art District, the building is being developed on an approximately 1-acre parcel, according to CommercialEdge data. Future tenants will be nearby a connection to the RTD commuter rail system offering access to Denver’s Union Station Transit Hub and the Denver International Airport.

Project completion is expected later this year.

Built with sustainability at the forefront

Designed by Pickard Chilton Architects and DLR Group, the project’s design is fully recyclable, renewable and non-toxic. Sourced from Nordic Structures, the timber used for this project is manufactured by Chantiers Chibougamau out of the boreal forest’s black spruce. Certifications including a LEED Gold, WiredScore Platinum, WELL and ENERGY STAR are all expected to be achieved by the development.

T3 RiNo is named after Hine’s proprietary T3 office concept—timber, transit, technology—and the area it is situated in, Denver’s River North Art District (RiNo).

Hines’ T3 is a product aimed toward more sustainable developments centered around the sustainability of timber, new technological innovations and transit benefits. So far, the Hines T3 portfolio encompasses 26 assets, including T3 Eastside, a Class A office project currently under construction in Austin’s East submarket.

Hines is considering expanding its T3 platform from office buildings to industrial and residential projects, as well. The product is a contributing factor toward the firm’s goal of reaching net-zero operational carbon across its building portfolio by 2040.

The post Hines JV Tops Out Denver Mass Timber Building appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Block A development. Image courtesy of JLL Capital Markets

Continuum Partners has secured $23 million in refinancing for a 60,000-square-foot component of A Block, a mixed-use development in Denver. A JLL Capital Markets team led by Senior Managing Director Eric Tupler arranged the loan through HTLF.

Completed in 2017, the Class A property is part of the A Block development, a $120 million hotel, office and retail complex. The property comprises a 47,047-square-foot office building, 12,551 square feet of retail and a 200-key hotel. The 12-story hotel was not part of the loan’s collateral.

The five-story building has a steel frame construction type and masonry exterior, and features two passenger elevators, a fitness center, controlled access and 197 subterranean parking spaces. The low-rise building is LEED Silver Certified.

The development is located at 1881 16th St., in the LoDo neighborhood, right next to Union Station. The transit-oriented property is also close to the intersection of Interstate 25 and Route 287.

Union Station redevelopment

Block A is part of the Union Station project, a multibillion-dollar redevelopment. The $500 million estimated project plans to transform approximately 19.5 acres of abandoned rail yard into an urban center featuring retail, residential and office developments.

Financing for the Denver Union Station project includes a series of public and private sources. The project features approximately $200 million of local, state, federal and private developer generated funds and $300 million of federal loans. Around $3.5 billion will be invested in private development projects, according to RTD Denver.

Continuum serves as master developer, the team also including Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, as well as AECOM, Kiewit Construction and Hargreaves Associates.

The post Continuum Partners Secures Refi for Denver TOD appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Image by Aron Yigin via Unsplash.com

McCarthy Building Cos. has signed a 13,000-square-foot office lease at a recently developed 250,402-square-foot Class A office property in Denver. The construction company will double its footprint in the area. JLL negotiated on behalf of the tenant while Newmark represented the landlord, Shorenstein Properties.

The landlord, in a joint venture with Nichols Partnership, developed the office and retail project on the last remaining development site in the Central Platte Valley. U.S. Bank provided construction financing in the amount of $79.5 million, CommercialEdge data shows.

Located at 1701 Platte St., One Platte is a five-story concrete building that includes 11,591 square feet of retail space, 60,000-square-foot floor plates, three passenger elevators and 299 parking spots, according to the data provider mentioned above. Common-area amenities include a rooftop deck with panoramic views, a fitness center, outdoor spaces, an event center, a common-area lobby, bike storage and an amenity bar.

Newmark Executive Managing Director Jamie Gard and Jeff Castleton negotiated on behalf of the landlord and are also marketing the property for lease. JLL Executive Vice President Scott Wetzel, Vice President David Shirazi and Senior Associate Janessa Biller represented McCarthy.

Committed to Denver’s downtown

Situated within Denver’s Highland submarket, on a nearly 1.5-acre lot, the office building is close to interstates 25 and 70, to multiple bus, train and light rail stations and within 19 miles of Denver International Airport.

The new tenant was looking to relocate in Denver, and One Platte presented a good opportunity to maintain a downtown location while also continuing to focus on expanding the construction company’s presence in the state, noted McCarthy Senior Vice President Joe Brunsman in a prepared statement.

Another significant leasing deal closed in Denver earlier this month: Sherman & Howard signed an expansion at Block 162, a 596,295-square-foot office tower, with landlords Patrinely Group and USAA Real Estate. The law firm expanded its initial 60,000-square-foot commitment by 12,049 square feet.

Earlier this year, Shorenstein, together with ATCO Properties & Management, inked a 24,600-square-foot lease at Gama Goat Building, a 140,000-square-foot office property in Charlotte, N.C. Engineering and planning company Bolton & Menk will relocate its Southeast headquarters at the building, that is part of a 76-acre adaptive reuse campus.

The post Shorenstein Inks Office Lease in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Cherry Creek West. Rendering courtesy of East West Partners

Developer East West Partners has tapped Cushman & Wakefield as the office leasing broker at Cherry Creek West, an upcoming mixed-use transformative redevelopment project in Denver. Vice Chairmen Nicholas Pavlakovich and Michael Pavlakovich, along with Executive Managing Director Matthew Gautreau, will spearhead the leasing efforts.

Cherry Creek West will rise on 13 acres near Cherry Creek Shopping Center, formerly occupied by a parking lot. With construction slated to commence in late 2024, the materialization of this development is expected to take about 10 years. Project partners include Taubman Realty Group and the Buell Foundation, while Design Workshop and Gensler are in charge of the design.

The community is set to encompass seven buildings—ranging from eight to 13 stories—which will feature 750,000 square feet of office space and 90,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space, along with 600 residential units. Cherry Creek West will cover the area from University Boulevard to Clayton Lane and from the 1st Avenue to the Cherry Creek waterway.

With a focus on sustainability, the project will create pedestrian-friendly outdoor areas. The buildings will be constructed using sustainable materials, aiming to attract tenants which prioritize employee well-being and a people-centric approach.

Navigating the Denver market

According to Cushman & Wakefield’s research, by the end of 2022 office vacancy in metro Denver reached 21.8 percent, marking a 70 basis-point increase quarter-over-quarter and up 190 basis points compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. Leasing activity in the metro rebounded in the fourth quarter of 2022, with over 1.2 million square feet of commitments signed, following a slowdown in the third quarter. Leasing volume increased by nearly 68.1 percent quarter-over-quarter and brought the total leasing activity for 2022 to approximately 7.1 million square feet.

Cushman & Wakefield also reported that during the fourth quarter of 2022, new construction activity in Denver was limited, with no new buildings breaking ground or being delivered. As a result, the under-construction pipeline remained at just over 2.1 million square feet.

With construction activity concentrated in the urban core, Cherry Creek was the only suburban submarket that continued to have an active construction pipeline, likely due to the area’s low vacancy rate and limited supply. The rising cost of capital has made it challenging to obtain debt financing, indicating that the office construction pipeline in Denver may remain lean in the near future.

The post Cushman & Wakefield Tapped to Lease Major Denver Redevelopment appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

200 Josephine St. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

Unico Properties has sold a four-building office and retail portfolio in Denver’s Cherry Creek submarket, for $54 million, according to Denver County public records.

Totaling 101,203 square feet of space, the property collection last traded in 2015, for $42 million, and now Altus Properties is the new owner, according to the same source.

This marks Altus Properties’ first acquisition in Denver, and the second one in the state. CBRE‘s Senior Vice Presidents Jenny Knowlton, Charles Will and Chad Flynn, together with Vice Chairman Timothy Richey brokered the deal. With the signing of two recent leasing deals, the portfolio is 100 percent occupied, according to the Denver Business Journal.

The property collection consists of a six-story office building, a two-story office and retail building, as well as a three-story office and retail building, and a one-story retail structure located at 2401 E. Second Ave., 220 Josephine St., 201 Columbine St. and 2415 E. Second Ave. The four buildings were originally constructed in 1969, completely renovated in 2004, and feature 11,787-square-foot floorplates, passenger elevators and 265 parking spots, according to CommercialEdge.

Situated on a 1.4-acre lot, close to Interstate 25, the portfolio is 3.6 miles from downtown Denver, 8 miles from Aurora, Colo., and within 20 miles of Denver International Airport. Tenants include Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Guardian Title Agency, Coldwell Banker Realty, Edison Interactive and USPS, among others, CommercialEdge data shows.

Other high-profile office deals in the Denver area include North Beacon Capital’s acquisition of Cole Center, a 155,610-square-foot building in Lakewood, Colo. Bancroft Capital and Viking Partners sold the asset for $32.7 million in September 2022. Last summer, Menashe Properties Inc. paid $50 million for a 370,000-square-foot Denver Class A office property. The 17-story building had last traded in 2007.

The post Altus Properties Pays $54M for Denver Portfolio appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

104th Commerce Park, Phase 1. Image courtesy of Trammell Crow Co.

Trammell Crow Co. and joint venture partner Clarion Partners LLC have completed the 571,000-square-foot first phase of their 104th Commerce Park, a Class A industrial park in Commerce City, Colo., in metro Denver.

The 89.6-acre property is on 104th Avenue, just east of the intersection of State Highway 85 and I-76.

Phase 1 consists of two industrial buildings, of 272,700 and 298,300 square feet, with features including 32- to 36-foot clear heights, multiple truck docks, and on-site parking for vehicles, trailers and outside storage.

Ground was broken in September 2021. The full project plan calls for five Class A buildings totaling 1.2 million square feet.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Emerging Industrial Markets

The park’s second phase is expected to begin as soon as this fall. Plans include three industrial buildings of 262,600, 193,400 and 132,400 square feet, as well as a yard area available for lease. The developers report that the park’s zoning allows for a wide range of industrial and e-commerce uses, including outside yard capability and substantial trailer storage.

The development team includes general contractor Murray & Stafford, architect Ware Malcomb and Langan Engineering.

The CBRE industrial team of Tyler Carner, Jeremy Ballenger and Daniel Close is handling the park’s marketing and leasing.

Surging rents

In a prepared statement, Erik Hagevik, principal with Trammell Crow and head of the firm’s Denver office, said, “The northeast I-76 corridor has continued to see strong demand for industrial space.”

Average industrial space rent in metro Denver jumped by 16.7 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, to $9.25 per square foot, triple net, according to a report from CBRE. That surge was driven in part by a 7.2 percent availability, resulting in turn from 11.2 million square feet of leasing in 2022.

Earlier this month, a joint venture of Opus Group and Principal Real Estate Investors began construction on Sun Empire, a 3.9 million-square-foot industrial park in Aurora, Colo. The two-building first phase of the 316-acre project is scheduled for completion early next year.

The post Trammell Crow, Clarion Finish Phase 1 of Metro Denver Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Block 162. Image courtesy of Patrinely Group

Sherman & Howard has expanded its commitment at Block 162, a 30-story office tower in Denver developed by Patrinely Group and USAA Real Estate. The law firm, which was the first major tenant at the speculative Class A tower, expanded its initial 60,000-square-foot lease by 12,049 square feet roughly 15 months since its initial occupancy.

Completed in the second quarter of 2021, Block 162 is a 596,295-square-foot high-rise in Denver’s Central Business District. The property is LEED Gold Core and Shell certified. The tenant roster includes Matillion, Bain & Co., Moss Adams and Brownstein, CommercialEdge data shows. Cushman & Wakefield’s Vice Chairman Todd Wheeler and Executive Managing Director Douglas Wulf are the appointed as leasing brokers of the building.

READ ALSO: Top 10 States for LEED-Certified Office Properties in 2022

The property’s office space is spread across floors 11th to 30th, while the amenity area on the 11th floor includes a fitness center, a common-area lounge, conference spaces, an outdoor terrace and a rooftop garden. The tower features 12 passenger elevators, 29,636-square-foot floor plates, 10,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor and 956 parking spots.

Situated at at 675 15th St., the building is close to multiple railway stations and Interstate 25. The property is 4 miles from Cherry Creek Shopping Center, 16 miles from Aurora, Colo., and within 21 miles of Denver International Airport. 

Office vacancy widens in Western U.S.

According to a recent CommercialEdge report, the national vacancy rate reached 16.6 percent in January, while remote work and tech layoffs continue to affect the office market. Denver registered a 18.3 percent rate that month, marking a 200-basis-point increase year-over-year and up 370 basis points over the last two years. San Francisco had the highest vacancy rate across western markets, hitting 18.8 percent.

Earlier in 2022, Patrinely and USAA Real Estate wrapped construction on a 10-story, Class A office tower in Salt Lake City. EnerBank was the first tenant to sign a lease at the 332,000-square-foot property. Designed by HOK, the building is LEED Gold certified.

The post Patrinely JV Inks Lease Expansion at Denver Tower appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Sun Empire. Image courtesy of Dark Roast Media via CBRE

The Opus Group, in partnership with Principal Real Estate Investors, has started construction on Sun Empire, a 3.9 million-square-foot industrial project in Aurora, Colo. The developers purchased the 316-acre land in July 2022, for $49.7 million, with the assistance of CBRE.

The first phase of the development will consist of two buildings of 624,535 square feet and 204,496 square feet. CBRE’s Senior Vice Presidents Todd Witty and Daniel Close, the same team that oversaw the land acquisition, will be marketing the industrial park for lease, sale and build-to-suit development.

Both Class A buildings in the initial phase will be available for lease in early 2024, and will feature drive-in loading and dock-level doors, over 140 trailer parking spots and 660 vehicle parking spots. Building 1A will have a cross-dock design that will feature up to 156,133 square feet floorplates, 110 dock doors and 32-foot clear heights, while the rear-load designed Building 1B will feature floorplates of 51,124 square feet, with 38 dock doors and 40-foot clear heights. With amenities and office capabilities included, both buildings can be leased to a single tenant.

Various rental proposals

Phase I is underway at the northwest corner of the development site. Depending on tenant preference, future phases can accommodate building sizes between 200,000 and 1 million square feet. Each new development can be a build-to-suit if the completed buildings don’t meet a future tenant’s needs, noted Close.

The project will offer as much as 3.9 million square feet of speculative industrial space available for lease, build-to-suit for lease or sale, as well as user-land sale. Sun Empire is situated close to interstate 70 and 225, within 29 miles of downtown Denver, while providing easy access to Denver International Airport.

Denver’s availability of industrial space has dropped by 30 basis points on a year-over-year basis, closing 2022 at 7.2 percent, according to research from CBRE. A steady demand and strong leasing activity are expected to further compress availability in the coming quarters.

In December 2022, the partnership broke ground on a three-building speculative industrial development in Phoenix. With Opus serving as developer, architect and designer, the 365,000-square-foot project is expected to be completed in late 2023. Earlier this month, Agilent Technologies Inc. moved forward with its $725 million expansion project in Denver area. The company commenced construction on a 200,000-square-foot building in Frederick, Colo., increasing its manufacturing capacity.

The post Opus JV Moves Forward With 3.9 MSF Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Agilent Expansion, Frederick, Colo. Image courtesy of Agilent Technologies Inc.

Agilent Technologies Inc. has just broken ground on an expansion project at its Denver-area facility in Frederick, Colo. With a $725 million investment, the life science company will enlarge its footprint with the addition of an approximately 200,000-square-foot building, allowing for a 100 percent increase in its capacity to manufacture nucleic acids therapeutics.

The new facility will support two additional manufacturing lines, or Train C and Train D. “We have a large and diversified customer base, so we have good line of sight to demand even out to ’26 and ’27. So it’s not like we’re trying to build something and go look for the business,” Mike McMullen, president & CEO of Agilent Technologies Inc., said during the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on January 10, 2023. “So, we know the business is going to be there.”

READ ALSO: Top 5 Emerging Industrial Markets

Agilent’s expansion endeavor will take shape at the company’s existing site at 7051 Eagle Blvd. in Eagle Business Park, near the Interstate 25/Highway 52 interchange. The project will include the addition of approximately 64,400 square feet of manufacturing space, 86,400 square feet for mechanical rooms and 26,800 square feet of office space, as noted in a January 2023 traffic impact study of the project.

The proposal also calls for a 1,100-square-foot increase in drum storage as well as a proposed 7,000-square-foot tank farm. Additionally, to help accommodate the approximately 160 new employees that will be hired as part of the expansion, Agilent will develop a surface parking lot on a separate parcel at 7400 Eagle Blvd.

Turner Construction Co. is serving as general contractor for Agilent’s project, while Fluor Corp., in conjunction with CRB, is providing architecture, engineering and procurement services. The team will incorporate cutting-edge engineering enhancements in the development process, including advanced automation and solvent capturing, in an effort to expedite completion.

Hub status on the rise

Agilent’s ability to expand at its Frederick hub puts the company in a superior position to most tenants that are seeking life sciences space in the Denver-Boulder area. Over the last few years, barriers to entry in the U.S. top life sciences markets have rendered the Denver-Boulder area, which is known for its pool of highly educated talent, a magnet for businesses seeking to expand or relocate.

As a result, the Denver-Boulder market has maintained 1 million-plus square feet of active life sciences requirements for the last two years and is experiencing a substantial supply/demand imbalance, according to a fourth quarter 2022 report by CBRE.

For its part, Agilent owns the majority of its space. As of the close of Fiscal Year 2022, the company owned 4.7 million square feet of the total 6.7 million square feet it occupies around the world. If all goes as planned, the company’s newly expanded site in Frederick will reach completion in 2026.

The post Agilent Breaks Ground on $725M Denver-Area Life Science Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

8560 Upland Drive. Image courtesy of Stream Realty Partners

Charter Communications, which brands its services as Spectrum, has renewed and expanded its lease at Compark Business Park in Englewood, Colo., with an additional 58,487 square feet. The expansion brings the tenant’s commitment to 122,000 square feet. The industrial facility is owned by CWCapital and Kenai Capital Advisors.

Stream Realty Partners Executive Managing Director Tyler Reed, Managing Director Peter Beugg and Executive Vice President Dominic DiOrio represented the landlord. CBRE assisted the tenant.

The Charter expansion became possible as the adjacent space became available. The other tenant occupying the remainder of the building is AVI-SPL, a provider of collaboration and audio-video technologies.

Denver industrial: A very dynamic market

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the leasing volume in metro Denver reached more than 2 million square feet, with an annual volume of 11.2 million square feet, a CBRE report shows. Due to steady tenant demand, the average achieved rate increased 16.7 percent year-over-year.

Just this week, Invesco, in a joint venture with Confluent Development, inked two leases totaling 57,055 square feet at Building 1 of Central Park Business Center in Denver. Earlier this year, a larger lease transaction took place, as Hyde Development and Morten Properties Inc. landed a tenant at High Point Elevated, a 5.5 million-square-foot industrial park under construction in Aurora, Colo. PrimeSource Building Products signed a 170,300-square-foot lease.

A Class A facility southeast of Denver

Compark Business Park last traded in 2020, when Kenai Capital acquired the asset for $23.2 million from Hendricks Commercial Properties, according to CommercialEdge data. The facility became subject to A $26.5 million loan with a maturity date set for 2030, originated by H.I.G. Capital, the same data provider shows.

The single-story Class A flex building came online in 2001, encompasses 149,143 square feet and sits on 8.4 acres. The property offers accommodating ingress and egress options, dock-high loading doors, drive-in doors, ESFR fire sprinklers, dock levelers and bumpers and features 24-foot clear height. The facility includes 327 parking spaces.

Compark Business Park is located at 8560 Upland Drive, 21 miles southeast of downtown Denver and has access to Interstate 25. Companies in the surrounding area include Amazon, FedEx and UPS.

The post Charter Communications Scales Up to 122 KSF in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Building 1. Image by Virtuance, courtesy of CBRE

The duo ownership between Confluent Development, project developer and co-owner, and Invesco Real Estate has signed two leases totaling 57,055 square feet at Building 1 of Central Park Business Center, a Class A, two-building industrial park in Denver.

Trimark is set to occupy 34,255 square feet at the property, while Lifetime Windows expanded its presence at the campus with an additional 22,800 square feet. The CBRE team comprising Senior Vice President Todd Witty, First Vice President Murray Platt and Vice Chairman Jim Bolt is overseeing leasing activity at the industrial park. The recently signed leases brought Building 1 to full occupancy.

READ ALSO: Industrial Sector to Maintain Winning Streak in 2023

Located at 9525 E. 40th Ave. and 9575 E. 40th Ave., the 246,631-square-foot Central Park Business Center came online last year. Both buildings incorporate front park/rear loads, shared truck courts, four drive-in doors, as well as 29 dock-high doors and more than 140 auto parking spaces on each site. The properties also feature 28-foot clear heights.

Shifting industrial leasing trends in Denver

Situated in the Airport submarket of Denver, the industrial park sits in an infill location, at the junction of Central Park Boulevard and East 40th Avenue, with a frontage along Interstate 70, being exposed to a daily traffic of 190,000 vehicles.

The property offers connectivity to Interstate 25, downtown Denver and Denver International Airport. The park is also within walking distance of the Central Park light rail station, as well as a variety of nearby retailers, restaurants, coffee shops and a daycare center.

CBRE reports that net absorption in Denver reached the fourth-highest level on record last year, with a positive absorption of approximately 5.1 million square feet. In contrast to 2021 absorption, which was primarily driven by large build-to-suit developments, last year’s activity was propelled by smaller tenants occupying spaces in speculative projects, such as Central Park Business Center.

The majority of activity in 2022 took place in the Denver Airport submarket, which recorded a substantial 3 million square feet of positive net absorption, more than half the metro’s total.

The post Invesco JV Scores 57 KSF in Leases at Denver Campus appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Agilent Expansion, Frederick, Colo. Image courtesy of Agilent Technologies Inc.

Agilent Technologies Inc. is in growth mode, investing $725 million for the expansion of its life science facility in Frederick, Colo. The project, whose price tag includes both the new development and equipment, will allow Agilent to double its manufacturing capacity at the suburban Denver property.

The inventory of life science real estate in the U.S. continues to swell with new developments and any number of expansions. Agilent is among the latest to add square footage to accommodate the booming industry.

READ ALSO: How Makeovers Can Meet Life Science Demand

“The expansion will provide an additional 198,000 square feet of space at the Frederick site,” a spokesperson with Agilent Technologies Inc., told Commercial Property Executive. News of plans for an addition at the Frederick campus at Eagle Business Park comes on the heels of Agilent’s site selection process, which involved a national search that commenced in the first quarter of 2022. The project will entail the addition of two new manufacturing lines that will allow the company to help meet the growing demand for therapeutic nucleic acids.

The construction undertaking will yield a manufacturing and office facility in the form of two buildings linked by a breezeway, as well as outdoor ancillary structures and additional parking accommodations. Agilent brought engineering and construction firm Fluor Corp. aboard to serve as consulting architect/engineer for the facility, which will incorporate state-of-the-art automation and engineering features, including recycling and water reduction and solvent capturing. Turner Construction is serving as the general contractor for the expansion endeavor.

Mutual commitment

It was in 2006 when Agilent first established a presence in Colorado with the opening of a manufacturing facility in the Boulder area. Ten years later, in 2016, the company settled on Frederick for the location of a new production center following a national site selection search. That project reached completion in 2019, with Agilent having invested $185 million to bring the 135,000-square-foot campus to fruition. In 2020, Agilent revealed that it would enhance the size of the Frederick facility with a 25,000-square-foot addition, marking a $150 million investment.

Agilent moves forward with its latest Frederick expansion with widespread support in the form of incentives from local agencies, the state of Colorado and Weld County. In December 2022, the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County agreed by unanimous vote to provide Agilent with approximately $6.2 million in tax incentives over a 10-year period.

Agilent will reportedly break ground on the Frederick expansion later in January of this year. If all goes as planned, the project will reach completion in 2026.

The post Agilent Plans $725M Expansion at Denver-Area Manufacturing Site appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Building 1 at HighPoint Elevated. Image by Kyle Bianchi, courtesy of CBRE

Hyde Development and Mortenson Properties Inc. have landed a new tenant at HighPoint Elevated, a 5.5 million-square-foot industrial park under construction in Aurora, Colo. PrimeSource Building Products has signed a 170,300-square-foot lease and will relocate from its current Denver location to Building 1 of the development.

Construction of Building 1 at HighPoint Elevated began in 2021 as a 542,000-square-foot speculative warehouse. The structure came online in August of last year and is now 70 percent leased, with only 170,294 square feet remaining.

READ ALSO: Trends That Will Shape Industrial Real Estate in 2023

Over the past 12 months, three other tenants committed to HighPoint Elevated, such as Hawthorne Hydroponics which preleased 37 percent of the space at Building 1. Back in August 2022, Dollar General purchased 75 acres at HighPoint, with the development team slated to build a 919,000-square-foot Class A distribution facility for Dollar General. According to Mile High CRE, Xcel Energy also purchased 10 acres at the industrial park for the construction of a 40,000-square-foot, built-to-suit facility.

A CBRE report for last year’s third quarter showed that the total leasing volume transacted in the metro surpassed 3.9 million square feet, marking a 23.7 percent increase from the third quarter of 2021.

A Class A master-planned industrial park

HighPoint Elevated offers a variety of options, including space for lease, speculative construction or lease, built-to-suit and land-site purchase. Building 1 features 36-foot clear heights, 50 by 54 feet column spacing, an ESFR sprinkler system, dock-high and drive-in loading, and trailer parking. Additional buildings within the park will range from 64,000 square feet to 1 million square feet and are slated to include cold storage facilities, as well. Outdoor storage is available throughout the park.

The industrial property is within three economic benefit zones: a federal opportunity zone, an Adams County Enterprise Zone and a Limon Foreign Trade Zone. The park is located at the southeast corner of East 64th Avenue and E-470, 23 miles from Denver, and 8 miles from Denver International Airport. The surrounding area is home to companies such as Costco, Kärcher North America and FedEx.

The post Hyde Development Inks 170 KSF Lease at Denver Facility appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

The Shops at Walnut Creek. Image courtesy of Business Wire

Westwood Financial has acquired The Shops at Walnut Creek, a 225,224-square-foot, grocery-anchored retail center in Westminster, Colo.

CBRE Executive Vice President Brad Lyons brokered the transaction on behalf of the seller, InvenTrust Properties. According to CommercialEdge data, the company picked up the asset back in 2015 for $57.1 million.

Shadow-anchored by a Super Target store, The Shops at Walnut Creek was 94 percent leased at the time of the acquisition. The property’s tenant roster includes TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, PetSmart and Dollar Tree, among many others. In a prepared statement, Westwood Financial CEO Mark Bratt said that the shopping center’s mix of tenants place it among the dominant retail centers in the northwest Denver metro.

READ ALSO: Sizing Up Retail Real Estate’s Prospects at ICSC

The Shops at Walnut Creek occupies more than 25 acres at 10449 Town Center Drive, adjacent to the intersection of Denver Boulder Turnpike and Highway 22. The property is roughly 14 miles northwest of downtown Denver and some 16 miles south of downtown Boulder, in an area where car traffic reaches more than 94,000 vehicles per day.

According to retail traffic data firm Placer.ai, the shopping center is exposed to approximately 60,000 visits per week, serving an area where population growth is expected to increase by 2 percent per year over the next four years.

Recent PwC insights show that, in the year to come, retail transactions are expected to focus on higher-quality assets, targeting good locations that have experiential retail offerings. Flight to quality will be playing a significant role in future retail investor interest.

The post Westwood Acquires Denver-Area Retail Center appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

250 Clayton. Image courtesy of Broe Real Estate

Broe Real Estate Group, the commercial real estate arm of The Broe Group, announced it will begin construction on 250 Clayton, an eight story mixed use-project located at 250 Clayton St. in Denver’s Cherry Creek Hill district, in the fourth quarter of 2023. The project will be the second phase of the firm’s development in the area. Following its topping out, the fully-leased 76,000-square-foot 200 Clayton is scheduled to open next year.

250 Clayton was designed by The Beck Group. The property will feature 175,000 square feet of office and retail space, with floorplates up to 27,000 square feet in size.  Situated in one of Denver’s most affluent neighborhoods, the two-building development is within walking distance of numerous high-end retail and dining offerings and within three miles of the city’s central business district.

Denver and the flight to quality

A recent uptick in vacancies and a drop in average rents give Denver’s office sector a muddy report card, despite a transaction volume of $3.03 billion year-to-date as of November and 2.47 million square feet of space in its pipeline, according to data from a November 2022 CommercialEdge report.

The city is one of many gateway metros to experience a rapid and persistent flight to quality in office sector. A third quarter report from JLL found older assets in Denver posted vacancy rates of 26.2 percent and newer assets were responsible for 42.7 percent of all new leases despite making up less than a third of the city’s available inventory.

Recently, 210 University, a 140,000 square foot office and retail building also in Cherry Hill, that had undergone a gut renovation in 2009, sold for $67.7 million. Elsewhere in the city, Menashe Properties Inc. acquired Stanford Place III, a 370,000-square-foot Class A tower, for $50 million.

The post Broe to Develop Phase 2 of Denver Mixed-Use Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

11777 E. 55th Ave. Image courtesy of CBRE

TA Realty has acquired The Airport Central Portfolio, a 340,960-square-foot industrial portfolio in Denver. The two-building property collection traded for $33 million, according to Denver County public records. CBRE negotiated the deal on behalf of the seller, a group of institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan.

CBRE’s Executive Vice Presidents Jeremy Ballenger and Tyler Carner, Vice Chairman Jim Bolt and Director Jessica Ostermick worked on behalf of J.P. Morgan.

Situated in Denver’s Airport submarket, The Airport Central Portfolio is an attractive investment due to its infill location and upside potential of reaching full occupancy and higher rents, Carner said in prepared statements.

Located at 11777 E. 55th Ave. and 11475 E. 53rd Ave., the two one-story, concrete buildings feature ESFR sprinklers, climate control systems, rail served doors, as well as dock high and drive-in loading. The first building, completed in 1986, has 112 parking spots, while the second facility, completed in 1985, includes 143 parking spots, according to CommercialEdge.

Situated across from each other on nearly 15 acres, the industrial buildings are close to Interstates 70 and 225, about 7 miles from Aurora, Colo., 12 miles from downtown Denver and 17 miles from Denver International Airport. The portfolio is 93 percent leased to seven tenants including PSA, Manufacturers Warehousing and Silvercote, the same data provider shows.

Strong Western industrial markets

In September, TA Realty purchased another industrial asset in the Western U.S. The company paid $90.5 million for Green Valley Corporate Park, a 415,107-square-foot industrial asset in Fairfield, Calif. Recent CommercialEdge data shows that six of the most expensive industrial markets are situated in the Western U.S. Nationally, $71.9 billion in industrial sales closed in the first 10 month of 2022. Among 29 major markets, Denver ranked around the middle, with $1.6 billion in total sales volume, followed by Tampa, Fla., and Seattle.

The post TA Realty Buys Denver Industrial Portfolio appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

162 N Adams St. Image courtesy of BH3 Management

South Florida and New York-based real estate investment and development firm BH3 Management has expanded its operations to Denver. The company signed a three-year office lease at 162 N. Adams St., with Hudson Cramer and Unique Properties brokering the 1,012-square-foot lease signing.

Chief Operating Officer Michelle Guber will lead BH3’s Denver team. The office space is located in the city’s Cherry Creek North mixed-use neighborhood, offering access to the area’s array of locally owned stores and fashion boutiques, restaurants, art galleries and fitness centers.

In a prepared statement, BH3 Management Co-CEO Daniel Lebensohn mentioned that the company chose Denver due to the city’s fast-growing economy, strong talent base and potential real estate prospects.

According to research from the U.S. Census Bureau, about 70 percent of the millennials who lived in Denver at age 16 decided to stay or return to the metro. The city’s population boom and overall retention of natives and young workers was another aspect that BH3 Management took into consideration when expanding its business operations in Denver.

Year-to-date through October, the metro’s office vacancy stood at a 18.5 percent, second only to San Francisco (19.5 percent) across all western markets, a recent CommercialEdge report reveals. The city’s total office sales volume reached $3.03 billion during that timeframe, at an average price of $314 per square foot.

The post BH3 Management Heads West With Opening of Denver Office appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Image by Aviavlad from Pixaby

Schnitzer West, in a partnership with Brue Baukol Capital Partners, has secured the site for an eight-story mixed-use development in Denver. The project’s available office space has been fully preleased to a local company. The 140,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed in 2025.

The development site is located at 201 Fillmore St. Plans call for 130,000 square feet of Class A office space and 8,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The building will offer nearly five levels of below-grade parking for more than 240 cars and 19 bicycles. Schnitzer West’s project will serve as the new headquarters for its future tenant.

201 Fillmore is located at the intersection of Fillmore Street and 2nd Avenue, in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood, close to Interstate 25, across Cherry Creek Shopping Center and 4.1 miles from downtown Denver. The project is close to Schnitzer West’s Civica Cherry Creek, a 111,842-square-foot, seven-story office property sold in 2021 for $108 million, according to CommercialEdge data.

Schnitzer West’s growing office footprint

The company is focusing on delivering efficient, functional buildings with high-end amenities and Denver’s Cherry Creek submarket continues to show strong office preleasing activity, Schnitzer West’s Senior Development and Investment Manager Kyle Flippen, said in a prepared statement. Designed by Goettsch Partners, 201 Fillmore marks the developer’s third ground-up office project in Denver.

Earlier this year, Cushman & Wakefield arranged a $196 million refinancing for Schnitzer West’s Fiddler’s Green Portfolio, located in Greenwood Village, Colo. The portfolio, situated some 15 miles south of Denver’s business district, consists of three office assets totaling nearly 740,000 square feet of space. In May, the company announced its plans to add a 19-story, 458,000-square-foot office project in downtown Bellevue, Wash., that will also include some 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The high-rise project is expected to be delivered in 2025.

The post Schnitzer West JV Launches Denver Mixed-Use Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Prologis Park 70. Image courtesy of CBRE

Prologis Park 70, in Aurora, Colo., which already totals 5.7 million square feet of industrial space, will soon add new space. Prologis has acquired a further 55 acres that will enable the future development of approximately 1 million square feet, CBRE announced.

Prologis acquired the land from US Foods, a current tenant at the park. A dollar figure was not disclosed.

The park is at I-70 and E-470, about 10 minutes south of Denver International Airport. The additional acreage is at the southeast corner of Picadilly Road and Smith Road, contiguous with the previous western boundary of Park 70, a Prologis spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive.

Prologis reportedly plans to break ground in the second quarter of 2023 and begin development speculatively, with build-to-suit options available. The first buildings are anticipated to be completed in early 2024.

Current plans include two options. The first would consist of four buildings: two of 325,000 square feet each and two of 150,000 square feet each. The second option is for one building of 700,000 square feet and two of 150,000 square feet each.

CBRE Vice Chairman Jim Bolt and Executive VP Mike Camp are marketing the new space for lease, sale or build-to-suit development on Prologis’s behalf.

The new buildings will have either a front park/rear load or a cross-dock design with dock-high and drive-in loading, trailer parking, ESFR sprinklers and 36-foot minimum clear heights.

Prologis Park 70 is a Class A industrial park focused on bulk distribution space. Built between 2005 and 2019, it’s currently home to 12 buildings (two owned jointly by Prologis and Prudential) and is fully leased.

Taking flight

The Airport submarket is the region’s largest industrial submarket and continues to lead in net absorption, CBRE stated, citing data showing more than 1 million square feet of positive net absorption in the third quarter. Year to date, industrial space absorption in the Airport corridor has totaled 2.3 million square feet.

Just this past month, two new players entered the metro Denver industrial space market, one by buying and the other by building.

Lovett Industrial broke ground on Lovett 76 Logistics Center, a 613,758-square-foot project in Brighton, Colo., the company’s first industrial development in the Denver area.

The post Prologis to Add 1 MSF at Denver-Area Industrial Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Harvest Junction. Image courtesy of JLL Capital Markets

Pine Tree, in a joint venture with Wafra, has acquired Harvest Junction, a 364,000-square-foot retail center in Longmont, Colo.

JLL Capital Markets brokered the $73.8 million transaction on behalf of the seller, a joint venture between Walton Street Capital and a regional operating partner.

JLL also secured $36.9 million in acquisition financing for the metro Boulder asset. The seven-year, interest only, fixed-rate loan was provided by a JLL correspondent life insurance company. According to CommercialEdge, the property is subject to another $45 million Resolution Life loan, which carries a 2026 maturity date.

The 12-building shopping center came online in 2006, covering roughly 40 acres. The tenant roster of the 97 percent leased property includes Lowes, Ross, Marshall’s, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Michael’s, Petco and Staples, among others.

Located at 210 Ken Pratt Blvd., Harvest Junction is a highly-transited shopping destination—with more than 3.5 million visits per year. Situated along Highway 119, in an area where the daily car traffic reaches approximately 74,000 vehicles, the retail center serves residents living in the Longmont, Loveland, Greeley, Boulder and Fort Collins communities.

Senior Managing Director Barry Brown and Managing Directors Bryan Ley and Jason Schmidt led the Investment Sales and Advisory team representing the seller. The financing was arranged by a Debt Advisory team led by Senior Managing Director Eric Tupler and Director Will Haass.

Earlier this month, Brown was part of the JLL team arranging the sale of Southpark Meadows I & II, a 938,103-square-foot shopping center in Austin, Texas.

The post Boulder-Area Retail Center Commands $74M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

400 Burbank St.

Lightstone has completed its $72 million purchase of the Commander Industrial Portfolio, an 11-building, 512,000-square-foot multi-tenant industrial park in Broomfield, Colo. The seller was Westcore Properties, according to CommercialEdge data. A JLL Capital Markets team represented the buyer in obtaining $40 million in acquisition financing, provided by Wintrust Financial.

The purchase represents Lightstone’s foray in the metro Denver industrial market. The firm’s portfolio currently totals more than 7.5 million square feet across 16 U.S. markets.

The JLL team that secured the financing was led by Managing Directors Peter Rotchford and Mark Root.

An industrial campus near Denver

Formerly known as Atlas Industrial Park, the asset previously traded in 2020, when Westcore bought it for $48 million from Commander Leasing LLC. Located at 400 Burbank St. and 2300-2400 W. Midway Blvd., the campus came online in 1971 on 35 acres, CommercialEdge shows. Extensively renovated during the last two years, the property was fully leased at the time of sale to 17 tenants including The Oasis, MacPac and Encore.

The industrial campus is just northwest of the junction of the Denver/Boulder Turnpike and U.S. Highway 287. Downtown Denver is some 17 miles southeast, while Boulder is 13 miles northwest.

Denver’s industrial durability

Denver’s industrial market remains a solid construction and investment opportunity. The area has seen substantial investment and development activity from numerous brands and corporations such as Pepsi, Whole Foods and Dollar General, according to a third quarter 2022 report from JLL.

CommercialEdge data shows that the metro has experienced more than $1.3 billion in sales year-to-date as of October, in addition to having 12.8 million square feet of space in its pipeline. Notable recent industrial headlines include Lovett Industrial’s groundbreaking on a 613,758-square-foot facility in Brighton, Colo., as well as Target’s leasing of a 140,000-square-foot Prologis facility.

The post Lightstone Enters Denver Market With $72M Buy appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Lovett 76 Logistics Center. Image courtesy of Lovett Industrial

Lovett Industrial has broken ground on Lovett 76 Logistics Center, a 613,758-square-foot industrial project in Brighton, Colo., the firm’s first industrial development in the Denver metro area. First National Bank of Omaha provided the developer with a $39.6 million construction loan, according to Adams County records.

The development team includes Brinkmann Constructors as general contractor, Powers Brown Architecture as lead architect, while the project’s civil engineer is Kimley-Horn. Completion is slated for July 2023.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Markets for Industrial Construction Activity

Lovett 76 Logistics Center is taking shape on 41.8 acres within the 420-acre Bromley Business Park. Upon completion, the Class A facility will feature 36-foot clear heights, 224 dock-high doors, 180-foot truck courts, 121 trailers stalls and 329 car parking places. Lee & Associates Principals Kirk Vanino and Ron Webert, alongside Associate Matthew Nora, will market the property and oversee its leasing.

The development site is 25 miles from downtown Denver at 6196 E. Bridge St., having direct access to Interstate 76. Denver International Airport is 18.3 miles away. The surrounding area is home to several important companies such as Sears, Costco, Americold, Walmart and Outrider, among others.

Growing its industrial footprint

Lovett Industrial is currently active in seven markets across the U.S. The developer has four active projects in the West region, totaling 4 million square feet, while another 1.1 million square feet pertain to future developments. One of these projects, a two-building, 1.7 million-square-foot industrial campus, will come online in Glendale, Ariz.

Lovett is also present in Eastern U.S. and Texas, where it recently started the construction of Nexus North Logistics Park, a 567,140-square-foot industrial facility in Houston. The project is slated for a May 2023 completion.

The post Lovett Industrial Enters Denver Market appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Park Meadows Medical Center. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Healthcare Realty Trust has acquired Park Meadows Medical Center, a 34,685-square-foot medical office building in Lone Tree, Colo. Gulftech International sold the property in an off-market transaction for $14.8 million.

According to CommercialEdge data, the asset last changed hands in 2008, when the previous owner paid $13.2 million for the building.

William Lucas, Stuart Thomas and Doug Wulf of Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller in the transaction.

The three-story building was completed in 2002 and hosts a surgery center. The property features two passenger elevators, has controlled access and offers 111 parking spots at a ratio of 3.2 spaces per 1,000 square feet. At the time of the transaction, the building was fully leased to a variety of medical users and practitioners.

Park Meadows Medical Center is located at 9218 Kimmer Drive, approximately 19 miles south of downtown Denver and has a strategic position near the Interstate 25 and E-470. Other medical facilities in the surrounding area include Reunion Rehabilitation Hospital Inverness, Mountain Medical and Willow Creek Dental, with Sky Ridge Medical Center 2.4 miles away.

CommercialEdge data shows that Healthcare Realty Trust owns another medical center in Lone Tree, less than one mile from Park Meadows Medical Center, which was acquired in 2021, for $7.7 million.

In July, Healthcare Realty Trust partnered with CBRE Investment Management for the purchase of a medical office portfolio in Mission Viejo, Calif., for which the joint venture paid $134.8 million.

The post Healthcare Realty Trust Buys Denver Metro MOB appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Cole Center. Image courtesy of JLL

Bancroft Capital and Viking Partners have sold Cole Center, a recently renovated office building in metro Denver for $32.7 million. North Beacon Capital LLC is the new owner of the 155,610-square-foot asset.

JLL Capital Markets negotiated the deal for the sellers. The property last traded in 2019, when the previous owner purchased it from Gemini Rosemont for $18.9 million, according to CommercialEdge. At the time of the current sale, the property was 88 percent leased.

Cole Center is a four-story office building located at 1687–1707 Cole Blvd. in Lakewood, Colo., within the Denver West submarket, and dates back to 1981. The property’s last overhaul in 2021 included improvements to the lobby and renovated building features. Common-area amenities include a new fitness center equipped with showers and lockers, an outdoor plaza, on-site bike storage and 201 underground parking spots.

The 5.7-acre lot sits at the intersection of Interstate 70 and Denver West Parkway, roughly 7 miles from central Lakewood and some 11 miles from downtown Denver. The tenant roster at Cole Center includes SCL Health, BOK Financial, New West Physicians and Colorado Department of Revenue, CommercialEdge data shows.

Some of the recent high-profile office transactions in Denver include Menashe Properties Inc.’s $50 million acquisition of Stanford Place III, a 370,000-square-foot class A property, as well as Drawbridge Realty’s $106 million purchase of Arrow Buildings at Dry Creek Station, Arrow Electronics’ long-term headquarters.

The post Bancroft Capital, Viking Partners Sell Denver Asset for $33M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

210 University Blvd.

A joint venture between Corum Real Estate Group and Koch Real Estate Investments has closed their $67.7 million acquisition of 210 University, a nine-story, 140,000-square-foot office and retail building located at 210 University Blvd. in Denver, Colo.

A JLL Capital Markets team marketed the property on behalf of the seller and building’s previous owner, KBS Realty Advisors. JLL also assisted the buyers in obtaining a five-year, interest-only fixed-rate loan for the asset’s financing.

The JLL team representing the seller was led by Senior Managing Director Mark Katz, Senior Director Hilary Barnett and Director Peter Merrion. A separate team from JLL that represented the buyers was led by Senior Director Kristian Lichtenfels, Senior Managing Director Leon McBroom and Director William Haass.

210 University was constructed in 1979 and underwent a complete renovation in 2009, CommercialEdge data shows. The building is home to a mix of Class A office and retail space, and operates at a vacancy rate of 10.6 percent. Tenants of the office space include Baird, Private Capital Management, U.S. Bank, United Capital and Cherry Creek Imaging. The building’s retail tenants are Little Ollie’s and Paradise Cleaners. The entire complex also includes an elevated parking garage. 210 University’s location in Denver’s Cherry Creek North district places it within 2.5 miles of the city’s downtown and central business districts, and its facing of University Blvd. and 3rd Ave. is within walking distance of many the neighborhood’s popular cultural, recreational and retail attractions.

Denver’s office sector slowly stabilizes

Denver ranks among the nation’s more stable markets for office construction and leasing, as the sector slowly adapts to and recovers from pandemic-related woes. The city has 2.2 million square feet of space in its pipeline and a listing rate of $30.33, according to an August 2022 report from CommercialEdge. The city’s vacancy rate is evening out as well, with the rate up 130 basis points year-over-year, a significant improvement compared to the 510-basis point surge the market had recorded during the prior 12-month interval, a second quarter 2022 report from Cushman & Wakefield shows.

READ ALSO: Office Conversions Off to a Slow Start

Other recent high-profile office transactions in the Denver area include Menashe Properties Inc.’s $50 million purchase of Stanford Place III, a 370,000-square-foot Class A office asset, as well as Schnitzer West LLC’s $196 million refinancing of its 740,000-square-foot Fiddler’s Green office portfolio.

The post Denver Mixed-Use Asset Sells for $68M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Coal Creek Innovation Park. Image courtesy of PMB

The $280 million Coal Creek Innovation Park, the first speculative purpose-built life science project in Boulder County, Colo., will be built in downtown Superior, Colo., following local approval this week of the 365,000-square-foot development.

PMB, a national health-care real estate developer, and commercial real estate investment firm Montgomery Street Partners expect to break ground in the second quarter of 2023 and complete development in the third quarter of 2024.

Phase one will include an owner-furnished, 27,000-square-foot spec suite space to enable quick occupancy for growing companies in need of high-quality lab space. Other plans call for three office and lab buildings ranging in size from 85,000 square feet to 150,000 square feet and a fourth building with ground-floor retail and structured parking at the site.

READ ALSO: Build-to-Suit or Adaptive Reuse? Meeting Lab Space Demand

The buildings will have efficient floorplates, 16-foot floor-to-floor heights and flexible infrastructure to accommodate a variety of office, lab and R&D uses. Shared lab services will be available to all tenants, including RODI water, dedicated laboratory water, compressed air, glass wash and a lab waste system.

Coal Creek Innovation Park will be 10 minutes from Boulder and 25 minutes from Denver. The RTD’s Flatiron Flyer rapid transit bus service and US 36 Bike Trail provide multi-modal transportation options between Boulder and Denver. It is one of the last infill sites in Boulder County south of Boulder, with visibility from the U.S. 36 highway and one of the last available commercial sites in downtown Superior.

CBRE has been hired to market the life science development. Perkins & Will will handle architecture and design. Other team members include Affiliated Engineers Inc. to provide MEP engineering and BNBuilders to provide preconstruction services.

Tight life science market

Ben Rosenfeld, senior vice president of development at PMB, said in a prepared statement there is significant unmet need for institutional-quality space in Boulder County. He noted the existing inventory largely consists of assets of less than 60,000 square feet that are converted single-story flex properties and offer limited expansion opportunities for high-growth and more mature life science companies. In addition to providing nearly 400,000 square feet of R&D specified lab space, Rosenfeld said the project will also offer a generous tenant improvement allowance and up to 50,000 square feet of speculative lab space.

Erik Abrahamson, senior vice president, CBRE, said in prepared remarks life science companies are looking to locate and expand their operations in the Boulder/Denver area. While they are attracted to the region’s highly educated and skilled workforce and ecosystem of educational and research institutions, Abrahamson said it has been difficult to find available lab space in Boulder County.

Vacancy at Boulder life science properties was just 0.3 percent at the end of the second quarter, according to CBRE research. On the demand side, the market has maintained more than 1 million square feet of active life science tenant requirements for nearly two years. Earlier this year, CBRE conducted an analysis of top U.S. markets for life science talent and the Denver/Boulder region was named the 11th best market overall with the number of life science researchers increasing 20 percent from 2015 to 2020.

The Newmark 2022 Mid-Year Life Science Overview & Market Clusters report notes the market is transitioning from mostly as-is deals to investors funding lab-ready spaces and speculative developments to meet the demand in the market. Newmark estimates the size of the Denver/Boulder life science market at 3.5 million square feet but states real estate investment volume year-to-date has already outpaced 2021’s total of $491 million. The report noted that limited large blocks have led some firms to relocate along the U.S. 36 corridor.

There are big players already active in the Boulder area. A joint venture of Tishman Speyer and Bellco Capital known as Breakthrough Properties acquired a four-building asset in Boulder last month, with the intention of creating a 9-acre campus featuring office, lab and flex space. Breakthrough Properties raised $3 billion in capital and co-investments for a fund to scale life science companies.

In April, BioMed Realty, a Blackstone-owned company, acquired Flatiron Park, a 1 million-square-foot, 22-building life science and office campus in Boulder for just over $600 million from a joint venture of Crescent Real Estate, Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s Real Estate Business and Lionstone Investments. The campus is about 90 percent leased to a mix of life science and technology firms.

The post PMB, Montgomery Street Plan $280M Life Science Park Near Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Distribution building. Image courtesy of marcinjozwiak via pixabay

Prologis leased its Broadway Distribution Center, a 141,524-square-foot industrial development in Denver, to Target Corp. Steve Hager, Matt Trone and Joey Trinkle with Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord, along with Prologis Vice President & Market Officer Keiffer Garton.

Target will use the upcoming warehouse as a sortation center to facilitate quicker orders and reduce shipping costs, according to Bisnow. The retail giant plans to open two other such centers in the Chicago area.

Prologis Broadway Distribution Center is coming online at 6300 N. Broadway in Central Denver, close to interstates 25, 70 and 270. The location is some 1.5 miles from BNSF Railway Intermodal and less than 4 miles from Union Pacific Intermodal.

READ ALSO: Why the Single-Tenant Net Lease Sector Could Be Past Its Peak

Steve Hager, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield, said in prepared remarks that the building was fully preleased before completion. Designed by Powers Brown Architects to achieve LEED certification, the facility is set to feature a 32-foot clear height, ESFR sprinklers and LED lighting, as well as ample trailer and auto parking.

CommercialEdge data shows the Denver industrial market had some 13.4 million square feet under construction as of August. The metro’s planned and prospective projects added up to nearly 41.6 million square feet.

Prologis portfolio expansion

According to the same data provider, Prologis’ current Denver footprint totals nearly 11 million square feet of industrial space across completed and under construction projects.

However, the REIT’s national footprint is always growing. In June, Prologis announced plans for the development of a 1 million-square-foot business park in Plano, Texas. The industrial campus would come online on a 64.4-acre site that was acquired last December from GI Partners.

At a bigger scale, Prologis is massively expanding its U.S. footprint with the purchase of Duke Realty. The deal is valued at $26 billion and adds 153 million square feet of industrial space to its portfolio. The acquisition has sparked many expert conversations, reflecting on what the marriage of two industrial REITs means for the industrial sector at large.

The post Target Leases Prologis Facility in Denver appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Stanford Place III. Image courtesy of Menashe Properties Inc.

Menashe Properties Inc. is keen on industrial, retail and office, and has just expanded its holdings in the latter sector with the acquisition of Stanford Place III, an approximately 370,000-square-foot property in Denver. The Portland-based family office acquired the Class A asset for approximately $50 million, according to Denver County property records.

“In this middle market, institutional-size range where I like to play, the $20 million to $100 million office assets, there are a lot of opportunities,” Jordan Menashe, CEO & principal, Menashe Properties Inc., told Commercial Property Executive. “We closed without financing and have already secured term financing for the property through an insurance company.”

It could be said that Menashe Properties acquired the asset below replacement cost. The 17-story office tower’s fee simple interest last changed hands in 2007, when SteelWave acquired the property for $73.1 million. Steelwave recapitalized the asset in 2016, selling a portion of the building to Angelo Gordon in a transaction valued at nearly $39.3 million.

Sited on nearly 7 acres at 4582 S. Ulster St. in the Denver Tech Center, Stanford Place III welcomed its first tenants in the mid-1980s and has maintained its luster over the years through renovations, the most recent of which took place in 2017. In addition to offering a key location near main thoroughfares and light rail, the building features a host of amenities, including a fitness center, an updated conference facility, a tenant lounge and a Starbucks and deli.

Embracing the upside

Today, Stanford Place III is home to a vast array of tenants, such as staffing agency Randstad, design firms, insurance companies and a handful of real estate companies, including Aimco and Apartment Income REIT Corp. The property is approximately 70 percent occupied, which places it firmly in the below-average range for the area, as the vacancy rate in metropolitan Denver was 20 percent in the second quarter of 2022, according to a report by CBRE. Menashe, however, couldn’t be happier.

“Seventy percent occupancy is music to my ears,” Menashe said. “I’m cash-flow driven, so this is my thesis: I want to be the best value—not the cheapest—I want to be, for what a tenant receives and what a tenant pays, the best value in the state, city, market or submarket that I’m in, anywhere. Period.”

For Stanford Place III’s new life under Menashe Properties’ ownership, with Robert Whittelsey and Abby Pattillo of Colliers aboard to spearhead marketing and leasing, the application of the “best value” gameplan may involve any number of strategies. “Tenants want to feel like they’re getting a good value,” Menashe added. “So, when I see 70 percent occupied, for me, that’s only upside. I’m going to improve the vacancies.”

Despite the Denver office market’s difficulty in regaining its pre-pandemic vacancy-rate stamina, there are tenants looking for space. Leasing activity was reassuring in the second quarter at 1 million square feet, marking the fifth consecutive quarter that deal volume met or exceeded 1 million square feet, per the CBRE report. Additionally, occupiers in Denver continue the flight to quality, eager to set up shop in a space with coveted amenities in an effort to lure employees back to the office.

With the closing of the Stanford Place III acquisition, Menashe Properties’ metropolitan Denver portfolio now totals approximately 1 million square feet.

The post Menashe Expands in Denver With $50M Office Buy appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Rendering of PepsiCo’s Denver High Point facility. Image courtesy of PepsiCo

PepsiCo Beverages North America has acquired nearly 152 acres of land in the Denver High Point development area, where the company will soon begin building a 1.2 million-square-foot manufacturing facility.

The project, to be built on a greenfield site near the intersection of East 72nd Avenue and Argonne Street, just outside Denver International Airport, will have three times the capacity of the current Denver facility and will be PBNA’s largest U.S. plant location. It’s scheduled to open in the summer of 2023.

READ ALSO: Why Large Industrial Sales Are Gaining Steam

The new facility is intended to be PepsiCo’s most sustainable domestic manufacturing facility, and as such it will aim to achieve 100 percent renewable electricity, best-in-class water efficiency and reduced virgin-plastic use, the company stated.

A dollar figure on the project was not disclosed.

The High Point facility will produce multiple PepsiCo products, including Pepsi, Pepsi Zero, Gatorade, Bubly, Rockstar, Propel and Muscle Milk.

The general contractor is Gray Construction, Lexington, Ky., a PepsiCo spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive.

The land acquisition reportedly followed a lengthy four-state site selection process. The choice of Denver builds on PepsiCo’s long history in Colorado, according to the company.

In a prepared statement, Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock noted that PepsiCo has been a significant presence in the city for nearly 75 years.

Too much distribution space in Denver?

On the distribution side of metro Denver’s industrial space market, interestingly, build-to-suit properties comprised a sizable majority of the move-ins so far this year, according to a first-quarter report from JLL. Spec construction, on the other hand, appears to be outpacing recent figures for absorption, causing some concern.

Specifically on the manufacturing space side, the metro has a tight 2.8 percent total availability, versus 10.9 percent for warehouse/distribution space. Better yet for landlords, only 197,000 square feet has been completed so far this year, and no space is currently under construction, also according to JLL.

Despite potential overbuilding, the Denver warehouse/distribution sector remains active. In April, Everwest Real Estate Partners and Invesco Real Estate secured $101.3 million to refinance and finish construction on a multi-phase industrial complex in Thornton, Colo. The project will total more than 900,000 square feet and nine buildings when it’s completed.

The post PepsiCo Eyes Largest US Plant appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

9151 E. Panorama Circle. Image courtesy of Drawbridge Realy

Drawbridge Realty has purchased one of the Arrow Buildings at Dry Creek Station in Englewood, Colo., for $106 million. The 223,177-square-foot Class A development serves as Arrow Electronics’ long-term headquarters. The seller was Warba Bank, according to CommercialEdge.

The seller purchased the eight-story property in 2017, subsequently to the development’s completion earlier that year, for $87 million. The building features an on-site cafe and fitness center, and a parking ratio of 6 spaces per 1,000 square feet, CommercialEdge data shows. The asset was also constructed to meet LEED Silver standards.

Located at 9151 E. Panorama Circle, the office building is some 16 miles southeast of downtown Denver via Interstate 25. Dry Creek light rail station is less than half a mile east of the office building, while Centennial Airport is some 3 miles in the same direction. Neighboring office buildings currently have tenants such as Comcast, Centura Health, ULA and Travelport. 

In January, Drawbridge Realty completed a $149 million refinancing secured by four fully leased office properties in Southern California and Austin, Texas. The refinancing gave the company additional capital for acquisitions such as 9151 E. Panorama Circle.

The post Drawbridge Realty Buys $106M Denver-Area Office Building appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

1125 17th St. Image courtesy of JLL Capital Markets

A joint venture including Hines, Pearlmark and an undisclosed LP has secured a $135.7 million loan for the refinancing of 1125 17th St., a 494,689-square-foot office building in downtown Denver. JLL Capital Markets arranged the five-year, floating-rate bridge loan, while Deutsche Bank provided the financing.

According to Chris Crawford, Hines’ senior managing director, the owner will renovate the property. He added in prepared remarks that plans include a new front door arrival, rejuvenated lobby with concierge, ground-floor restaurant, conference center and rooftop terrace.

Built in 1982, the 25-story property offers floor plates ranging between 18,000 and 22,000 square feet, according to CommercialEdge data. A total of 445 parking spaces are available at a 0.9 spaces per 1,000 square feet parking ratio, according to the same data provider.

The LEED Silver certified property also has 12,000 square feet for retail. Current amenities include a basketball court, fitness club, juice bar and conference space. With an occupancy rate above 80 percent according to JLL, the property’s tenant roster includes Xactly, SRK Consulting, Chase and Halliburton, among others.

An office asset in the middle of it all

The asset is half a mile southeast of Denver Union Station and has several RTD light rail stops within walking distance. Due to its downtown Denver location, the property offers many retail, dining and entertainment options within a 1-mile radius. Access to Interstate 25 via Auraria Parkway is less than two miles west, while Civic Center Park is less than 1 mile southeast.

Senior Managing Director Eric Tupler and Managing Director Chris McColpin led the JLL Capital Markets Team that represented the borrower.

Last month, JLL Capital Markets arranged the sale of First Avenue Plaza, a two-building office development in Denver’s Cherry Creek submarket, for $104.8 million. Peter Merrion, managing director with JLL Capital Markets, said the company is bullish about the Denver market, as they are seeing continued tenant and investor demand to either grow or move in Denver.

The post Hines JV Scores $136M Refi for Denver Tower appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

First Avenue Plaza. Image courtesy of JLL Capital Markets

Acting on behalf of a fund managed by a subsidiary of Ares Management Corp., JLL Capital Markets has orchestrated the sale of First Avenue Plaza, a two-building office complex in Denver.

The 264,000-square-foot asset fetched $104.8 million, according to records from Denver’s Office of the Clerk and Recorder. JLL pulled double duty on the deal, as the firm’s Debt Advisory team arranged financing for the buyer, Granite Properties.

Sited in Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek area, an established luxury lifestyle district, First Avenue Plaza consists of the 127,000-square-foot 44 Cook and the 137,000-square-foot 55 Madison towers. Along with a shared 752-space parking facility, the mid-rise buildings grace a full block of the coveted neighborhood and stand within easy reach of best-in-class amenities and executive housing.

The investment community was nothing short of taken with First Avenue Plaza. “The interest was substantial, as Cherry Creek is one of the best performing submarkets in Denver,” Peter Merrion, managing director with JLL Capital Markets, told Commercial Property Executive. “We received numerous bids for the assets and saw a lot of competitive buyers.” JLL Capital Markets’ Mark Katz and Hilary Barnett joined Merrion in representing the seller and procuring the buyer.

READ ALSO: Why Flex Office Space Is Flourishing Again

The lending community proved equally eager to capitalize on the First Avenue Plaza opportunity, attracted to the property for the very same reason, Merrion added. Ultimately the JLL Debt Advisory team of Eric Tupler and Leon McBroom secured a five-year, floating-rate loan on Granite’s behalf through a national bank.

With 44 Cook and 55 Madison having opened in 1984 and 1982, respectively, Fist Avenue Plaza has been a mainstay in Cherry Creek for decades; however, the property has been spruced up to better serve today’s users. Beginning in 2019, the seller commenced an improvement strategy that included upgrades such as a new tenant amenity lounge and outdoor patio as part of an effort to help companies attract and retain talent. The current lease level of 88 percent is evidence of the program’s success.

Investment sales tell a positive tale

While the overall office sector in the U.S. pales in comparison to the likes of the industrial sector in terms of the current favorite among commercial real estate investors, the office market in Denver is performing well enough for sellers like Ares to turn a nice profit on a transaction. First Avenue Plaza last traded in 2014, when Dividend Capital Diversified Property Fund Inc.—later known as Black Creek Diversified Property Fund Inc., which Ares acquired in July 2021—purchased the complex for $75 million.

And although uncertainty continues to hover over Denver’s office market as net absorption remains in the negative and the vacancy rate closed 2021 at 20 percent, according to a JLL report, sales and sale prices indicate a robust interest in office product among investors. Investment sales volume outpaced 2020 levels in 2021, according to the report, and pricing exceeded pandemic-era lows by notable margins. The forecast for the Denver office market is bright all around.

“We are seeing continued tenant and investor demand to either grow in Denver or move here, so we are bullish,” Merrion said. “The in-migration and population growth fundamentals coupled with good governance and desirable lifestyle attributes are helping Denver out-compete other cities.”

The post Denver Campus Commands $105M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Paradigm River North. Image courtesy of Rockefeller Group and Jordon Perlmutter & Co.

Construction is expected to start later this month on Paradigm River North, an eight-story, 200,000-square-foot mixed-use office property in Denver’s River North Art District. Also known as 3400 Walnut St., the project is being developed by a joint venture of Jordon Perlmutter & Co. and Rockefeller Group. Completion is scheduled for early 2024.

The two real estate companies announced the new joint venture this week. Terms were not disclosed but the agreement is the result of partnership discussions between the firms over several months. It is the first joint venture between Jordon Perlmutter & Co. and Rockefeller Group, which have been involved in commercial real estate development for more than 70 and 90 years, respectively.

READ ALSO: RXR, Hudson Realty Capital Launch Joint Lending Operation

Much of Rockeller’s recent commercial real estate investments and developments in recent months have been industrial properties and multifamily assets. Last month, Rockefeller Group announced a joint venture partnership with Summit Capital Venture Group to acquire a lot at 1158 Delaware St. in Denver’s Golden Triangle Neighborhood, where they will develop a 250-unit multifamily property with 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The project is anticipated to break ground in April and be completed in early 2024.

Project details

Paradigm River North will have approximately 188,000 square feet of office space and 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. Designed by Denver-based Tryba Architects, the property will hint at the neighborhood’s industrial past with a brick façade and large factory-style windows. It will also have open-air balconies on every floor and high ceilings. Open and customizable floorplans will offer flexibility and efficiency. Other features include an eighth-floor veranda, winter garden, extensive outdoor patios, bike storage with lockers and showers, and EV car charging stations.

Located in the heart of the RiNo Art District, the building is near transit that connects to downtown Denver, Union Station and Denver International Airport. The property will be a 5-minute drive to Interstate-70.

Leasing for the project is being handled by Newmark Executive Managing Directors Jamie Gard and Jeff Castleton.

RiNo popularity

Known as RiNo, River North is one of the most vibrant urban areas in the country. Its appeal has risen in recent years along with Denver’s population growth. In addition to hotels and new residential offerings, the neighborhood is considered one of the city’s top entertainment and cultural hubs, with some of Denver’s best restaurants, breweries, galleries, shops, bars and music venues.

In November, Hines and partners McCaffery and Ivanhoé Cambridge began construction of T3 RiNo, one of Hines’ signature T3—timber, transit and technology—office concepts, in the RiNo neighborhood. The six-story wood building will be located at 3500 Blake St. and have 240,000 square feet of office space and about 17,000 square feet of retail space. Delivery is expected by fall 2023.

A month later, Shorenstein Properties acquired Rev360, a brand-new transit-oriented property totaling 170,000 square feet, for $72 million, according to Denver County records. Haselden Development and development partners Tributary Real Estate, Keystone Equities and Avenue Property Group delivered the five-story building in 2020. Located at 3600 Brighton Blvd., the building has 140,000 square feet of office space and 30,000 square feet of retail space.

The post Rockefeller Group JV to Develop Denver Office Property appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

1800 Latimer St. in Denver. Image courtesy of Beacon Capital Partners

An entity affiliated with Invesco Advisors Inc. has sold the 22-story Class A office tower at 1800 Larimer St. in downtown Denver to an affiliate of Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners for $291 million, the Denver Business Journal reported Friday.

The tower totals 490,500 rentable square feet and is certified LEED Platinum, according to information provided to Commercial Property Executive by CommercialEdge.

Tenants include Xcel Energy, Citywide Banks and McKinsey & Co.

The building’s amenities include a 17,000-square-foot outdoor terrace, a 3,000-square-foot fitness center, on-site cafe and bank, a hotel-style conference facility, and a common area boardroom, according to the building’s website.

Completed in 2009, the building was sold by the developer, Westfield Development Partners, in February 2011 to the Invesco-affiliated entity.

The DBJ reported that when 1800 Larimer was completed, “it was downtown Denver’s first new office high-rise in 25 years.”

Beacon Capital Partners is a significant player in the Denver market, having purchased The Circa Building for $60 million in June 2021 and other assets in the past few years.

Mile-high vacancy

Uncertainty about the long-anticipated “return to the office” lingers in metro Denver, especially with respect to downtown properties, according to a fourth-quarter report from Marcus & Millichap. The report notes, “Vacancy in Denver’s CBD has steadily increased since the onset of the pandemic, topping 26 percent in June.”

Metrowide, employment continues to increase, which might soften the sting of office deliveries hitting a three-year high—including the opening of the 606,000-square-foot Block 162 Tower—even as office availability rises to its highest level in 15 years.

Despite all this, office investment remains active, with more office properties changing hands in the second quarter than in any quarter since the start of the pandemic. Further, M&M reported, “The average sale price inched up 1 percent year over year to $220 per square foot in June, while the mean cap rate stayed the same at 6.7 percent.”

The post Beacon Capital Buys Denver Office Tower for $291M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Pecos Logistics Park. Image courtesy of CBRE

Institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Global Alternatives acquired Pecos Logistics Park, a newly built 1.2 million-square-foot Class A industrial development in Denver from Westfield Co. for more than $300 million.

Westfield, a Denver-based real estate firm, developed the 66-acre park in central Denver in two phases. The first phase was completed in September and totals 675,100 square feet across four buildings. It was 68 percent leased at the time of the sale. PepsiCo Beverages North America leases the largest building, a 283,500-square-foot warehouse, according to the Denver Business Journal. Phase II, which will comprise three buildings totaling 471,000 square feet, will deliver in the second quarter of 2022.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Industrial Markets for Construction Activity

Park features include 28- to 32-foot clear heights, shared amenity space for tenants, Union Pacific rail access, trailer parking and at least 3,000 amps of power per building. The site is also near the Pecos Junction light rail stop.

Central location

Nick Firth, executive director, Real Estate Americas, at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said in a prepared statement the industrial park was attractive to investors because it is a modern, state-of-the-art warehouse located in a prime, supply-constrained location easily accessible to Denver’s growing population. Firth said the firm’s national industrial holdings total 75.9 million square feet, including 2.8 million square feet in the Denver market.

The property is located at 5675-5725 Pecos St. in Denver’s Central submarket near the interchange of I-25, I-70 and I-76. New developments in the Central submarket are rare. The submarket has more than 60 million square feet of industrial space and only 3.1 million square feet has been added since 2000, according to CBRE, which arranged the sale. All of the new space has been either preleased or leased immediately upon completion. The submarket is regularly among the lowest in the metro area for industrial vacancy.

CBRE Executive Vice President Tyler Carner said in prepared remarks the location is one of the best in Denver for last-mile e-commerce activities because of the highway access. He noted two-thirds of the population is accessible within a 15-mile radius of the site.

Carner and his colleagues Jeremy Ballenger, Jessica Ostermick and Jim Bolt with CBRE’s Capital Markets in Denver represented Westfield in the sale. Citing Adams County property records, the Denver Business Journal reported the disposition was made in three separate sales with Lot 1 at 5675 Pecos St. selling for $103.8 million; Lot 2 at 5725 Pecos St. selling for $123.2 million and Lot 3, 5716 Pecos St. selling for $91 million.

The CBRE team, including Carner, Ballenger, Ostermick and Daniel Close, is handling marketing for another Denver area industrial site that recently broke ground. Trammell Crow Co. and its capital partner Clarion Partners LLC started construction of 104th Commerce Park, a 1.2 million-square-foot industrial development at 104th Avenue just east of I-76 and State Highway 85, in September. When completed, the development will have five Class A buildings on an 89.6-acre site.

The post Westfield Co. Sells Industrial Park for $318M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Elevation25. Image courtesy of Silver Point Development

Silver Point Development has partnered with an affiliate of Walker & Dunlop Investment Partners to acquire 37 acres of land for the construction of five warehouse properties in Mead, Colo. Avison Young’s Dawn McCombs and Kevin Hann represented the partnership, which acquired the parcel of land for an undisclosed price.

Silver Point will use the site to develop the first phase of Elevation25, an industrial project that’s expected to total 1 million square feet at full build-out. The first phase of the project will include five buildings totaling 578,240 square feet.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Industrial Markets for Construction Activity

Silver Point is expecting to break ground on the first two buildings of the first phase later this month, with an expected completion for the fall of 2022. Building 1 of the first phase will total 94,076 square feet and is already 40 percent preleased to Premier Manufacturing, while the 109,676-square-foot Building 2 is fully available.

Elevation25 is located near the intersection of Weld County Road 9 ½ and Highway 66, putting the Colorado warehouse project equidistant from the region’s three major markets of Denver, Boulder and Loveland/Fort Collins. Hann said in prepared remarks that Elevation25’s location allows companies to recruit from the nearby markets to help address the ongoing labor shortage.

Second phase to bring Elevation25 to 1 MSF

Beyond the first phase of Elevation25, the developer will acquire an adjacent 36-acre land parcel within the next three years, which will be used for the project’s second phase. The second phase will include four buildings totaling 422,000 square feet and would bring Elevation25 to 1 million square feet of warehouse space.

McCombs said in prepared remarks that Denver’s industrial market is performing very well and is expected to continue doing well in the future. McCombs added in her prepared statement that industrial land opportunities are scarce in the Denver market, leading developers and investors to look toward secondary markets like Mead.

The market has already attracted major companies for distribution and logistics purposes, including Amazon, Home Depot, UPS and FedEx. Other developers have also responded to the demand in suburban Denver, including Hines, which has partnered with L.C. Fulenwider Inc. to develop a 3 million-square-foot industrial complex in Aurora, Colo.

The post Silver Point JV Plans Denver-Area Warehouse Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Rev360. Image of courtesy of Shorenstein Properties Inc.

Shorenstein Properties LLC has increased its office footprint in the Denver market with the acquisition of Rev360, a brand-new transit-oriented property totaling 170,000 square feet, for $72 million, according to Denver County records.

Haselden Development—along with development partners Tributary Real Estate, Keystone Equities and Avenue Property Group—delivered the five-story building in the city’s River North Art District in 2020, having spent $44 million on construction.

The purchase of Rev360 marks the achievement of a long-held goal for Shorenstein.

“We have been tracking RiNo for several years and have evaluated multiple investment opportunities there,” John Boynton, managing director with Shorenstein Properties LLC, told Commercial Property Executive. “New office buildings in LoDo and the Central Platte Valley have been very successful from both a leasing and investment standpoint. We think new office buildings in RiNo are poised to achieve similar success.”

READ ALSO: Why Office Absorption Will Turn Around in 2022

Designed by Anderson Mason Dale Architects, the LEED Silver-certified Rev360 carries the address of 3600 Brighton Blvd. and features 140,000 square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of retail space and a host of amenities, including outdoor terraces and a fitness facility.

Additionally, the property’s adjacent 500-car parking facility holds the distinction of being the largest parking garage in RiNo. While the workplace destination still awaits its first tenants, Shorenstein believes it is primed for employers who are eager to welcome employees back with all the comforts they can’t get at home in the pandemic-era return-to-work climate.

Working it out in Denver

Denver’s office market has continued to struggle from the ramifications of the COVID-19 health crisis with the appearance of the Delta variant, which delayed return-to-work plans; however, even in the face of those challenges, signs of recovery have begun to emerge. In the third quarter, leasing activity flourished in the central business district, including the RiNo, LoDo and Platte submarkets, with deal volume doubling to 600,000 square feet, according to a report by Savills.

“Denver’s diverse industry base will continue to drive demand for office space. Growth will likely come from existing technology companies already located in the metro, of which there are many, as well as tenant in-migration from other markets,” Boynton said. “Newly constructed office buildings have captured a disproportionate share of demand both pre- and post-pandemic. We expect this trend to continue as users seek out the best possible workplace experience for their employees.”

With the acquisition of Rev360, Shorenstein’s office presence in the Greater Denver area now totals 420,000 square feet. Earlier this year, Shorenstein and joint venture partner Nichols Partnership Inc. broke ground on One Platte, a 250,000-square-foot mixed-use office project in the Central Platte Valley district.

And there’s more to come. “We will continue to look for opportunities in Denver next year,” Boynton added.

The post Shorenstein Grabs Denver Asset for $72M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Mountain West Portfolio, 2140 S. 7th Ave., Phoenix. Image courtesy of Westcore

Westcore continues to expand its holdings with the addition of the Mountain West Portfolio, a group of seven properties that increases the industrial real estate investment company’s presence in Phoenix and Denver. The fully leased portfolio totals approximately 684,400 square feet.

Westcore isn’t disclosing the identity of the seller. However, Mountain West Portfolio includes a roughly 460,200-square-foot collection of four industrial facilities in Phoenix that last changed hands in 2019, when Blackstone acquired it for approximately $60.7 million as part of a larger 68-property portfolio purchase from TA Realty. The predominantly multi-tenant Phoenix assets, featuring nine flex buildings built between 1996 and 2002, include 2110-2140 S. 7th Ave., 4401- 4409 E. Baseline Road, 3710 E. University Drive and 2501 W. Phelps Road. TA Realty had purchased the four Phoenix properties in a transaction in 2015 for $42.2 million.

READ ALSO: While Supply Chain Slows, Logistics Real Estate Moves Fast: Report

In Denver, Westcore’s acquisition of Mountain West Portfolio provided the company with three assets totaling approximately 224,200 square feet. Like the Phoenix facilities, the three single-tenant buildings in the Mile High City are sited in infill locations and offer upside potential via lease rollover in a market with meaningful rent growth. Many of the assets in the Mountain West Portfolio will undergo renovations under Westcore’s ownership.

Good locations

The industrial markets in both Phoenix and Denver, like those in most major metros across the U.S., are thriving. “The Phoenix industrial market is on pace to outperform last year’s record level of construction, net absorption and vacancy with no sign of slowing down heading into the final quarter of 2021,” according to a third quarter 2021 report by Lee & Associates. Buoyed by strong demand, the quarterly vacancy rate dropped to an all-time low of 5.5 percent and the 12-month positive net absorption reached nearly 16 million square feet, a figure that is nearly twice the 10-year average.

Denver saw its quarter-over-quarter-vacancy rate drop to 6.4 percent and its 12-month positive net absorption skyrocket to nearly 3.5 million square feet. “The Denver industrial market continues to fire on all cylinders,” according to the Lee & Associates report. “With steadily increasing lease rates, strong absorption and construction at historical highs, the Denver market is poised to see strong metrics in the coming years.”

While Westcore represented itself in the Mountain West Portfolio transaction, the company turned to Jeff Conrad of Lee & Associates, Jackie Orcutt of CBRE’s Phoenix office and Drew McManus of Cushman & Wakefield’s Denver office for local market expertise. Cushman & Wakefield’s Will Strong and Greer Oliver provided representation for the seller.

Fuel for growth

The Mountain West Portfolio acquisition follows a long list of Westcore purchases in 2021. The company kicked off the year with a major addition to its holdings, a 17-property, 4.1 million-square-foot national portfolio purchased from USAA Real Estate in January.

Westcore’s transaction goals benefited from a big boost in June when the company landed a supplemental $500 million equity capital commitment from the Arizona State Retirement System. The added investment, coupled with ASRS’s previous investment and capital commitments from two other life insurance entities, left Westcore with an aggregate $1.3 billion in institutional equity capital commitments to support its expansion endeavors.

The post Westcore Grows in the West appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Gateway Centre. Image courtesy of JLL

An affiliate of Equus Capital Partners Ltd. has sold Gateway Centre, a four-building, 299,600-square-foot Class A office campus in northeast metro Denver, to local firm Flywheel Capital for $66.9 million. JLL Capital Markets represented the seller and helped secure the purchase financing.

Gateway Centre totals 19.3 acres at 3950, 3800 and 3855 Lewiston St. in Aurora and 4400 Kittredge St. in northeastern Denver. The location is adjacent to I-70 and Peña Boulevard, about 12 miles northeast of downtown Denver and within walking distance of the Gateway Park light rail station.

READ ALSO: Pre-Pandemic Confidence Returns to CRE: NAIOP

The property, completed between 1997 and 2000, was recently renovated and offers amenities that include a fitness center with locker rooms and showers, tenant lounge, Wi-Fi–enabled patio with fire pit, and a covered garage for executive parking.

Gateway Centre is fully leased to 24 tenants, including Primoris, Billtrust, Leidos and Boeing. Equus reportedly has completed more than 62,000 square feet of leasing since the start of the pandemic.

JLL worked on behalf of the buyer to secure the $43.7 million financing, a five-year, fixed-rate acquisition loan with Independent Financial, which operates in major markets throughout Colorado and Texas.

The JLL Capital Markets team representing the seller was led by Senior Managing Director Mark Katz and Senior Director Peter Merrion.

Financing efforts were led by JLL Capital Market’s Senior Managing Director Eric Tupler and Director Rob Bova.

Ben Hrouda, Managing Partner at Flywheel referred to Gateway Centre as a perfect fit for the firm and its investors. “With our experience in assets like Gateway Centre, especially with regard to defense contractor tenancy, we knew the type of opportunity the asset provided,” Hrouda added in prepared remarks.

In a prepared statement, John Fefley, senior director at Flywheel, said the current Gateway tenants “prefer this location over others within the city due to a combination of proximity to the northeast labor force, Denver International Airport or Buckley Space Force Base…. Many tenants within the park continued to utilize their office during the height of COVID due to the nature of their government contract work and their utilization of SCIF (Secured Compartmentalized Information Facility) space within their suites.”

Ongoing uncertainty

In April, Flywheel Capital received a $34 million first mortgage floating-rate bridge loan to refinance two properties in Colorado Springs, Colo. Flywheel had purchased the 288,000-square-foot Class B office-plus-industrial Interquest Office Campus in late 2018.

To a large extent, the Denver office market remains mired in uncertainty, with many tenants having to change their return-to-the-office plans because of the Delta variant, according to a third-quarter report from Newmark. Still, the report notes, “Class A space in all submarkets continues to be in high demand as tenants look to upgrade, even as some are also looking to downsize.”

Across all classes, the Aurora submarket is seeing a 17.5 percent vacancy, on an inventory of 4.5 million square feet. Both year-to-date and third-quarter absorption figures are slightly negative, which is typical of the metro office market as a whole, Newmark reports.

The post Denver Office Campus Commands $67M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Denver skyline. Image courtesy of Hines

Hines and partner EnviroFinance Group have acquired a 60-acre site in central Denver, where they will build Quantum 56, a Class A industrial and logistics park with approximately 860,000 square feet of space across six buildings.

READ ALSO: Mapletree Spends $3B Boosting Logistics Portfolio

Construction will begin on Phase One in the first quarter of 2023 when they will break ground on the initial three buildings totaling 581,250 square feet of warehouse space. The buildings will have both cross dock and rear load configurations.

Timing for construction of the final phase, which will also have three buildings, will be driven by market demand, according to Hines. The project will be the newest large, modern-format park in the Central submarket of Denver. It will accommodate tenants seeking a range of uses, from 20,000-square-foot configurations for office warehouse and showroom space to larger areas of up to 350,000 square feet for firms seeking infill, last-mile delivery locations.

Site details

The property near the northwest corner of 56th Avenue and Interstate-25 was purchased from Koppers Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based Koppers Holdings Inc. Located near Denver’s central business district, the site is also in close proximity to the Denver International Airport. Koppers operated a wood treatment facility at the site where it treated crossties and utility poles with creosote from 1923 until August 2020. Koppers Holdings closed the plant as part of a consolidation and moved Denver production activities to a facility in North Little Rock, Ark.

Koppers Inc. announced the closing of the sale Wednesday to an affiliate of Hines and EnviroFinance Group, a Denver-based brownfield redeveloper. Koppers said it had completed cleaning, decommissioning and demolishing the wood-treating operations in early 2021. While the company did not release full details on the sale, a company official noted Koppers had achieved estimated cash proceeds of $30 million.

Hines declined to release a price tag for the acquisition and redevelopment. The international real estate firm also would not address any environmental cleanup questions about the site or whether the partners would need local, state or federal approvals to build there.

Cameron Bertron, senior vice president at EnviroFinance Group, said in a prepared statement the company’s development partnership with Hines “creates an ideal match to transform this site into a top tier development in a one-of-a-kind location.”

Hines Director Courtney Schneider said in prepared remarks Quantum 56 will be an ideal complement to the Hines Denver footprint and will be a new benchmark of quality for infill, core logistics development.

In May, Hines established a strategic partnership with L.C. Fulenwider Inc. to develop Denali Logistics Park at Box Elder, a 3 million-square-foot industrial complex in Denver’s Airport submarket in Aurora, Colo. Denali Logistics Park will occupy 216 acres at the intersection of Denali Street and 64th Avenue within Box Elder, Fulenwider’s larger mixed-used development. The industrial park will have buildings of various sizes and configurations, including build-to-suit opportunities. Schneider told Commercial Property Executive in May that strong demand for premier industrial space in the Denver market was expected to continue beyond the pandemic.

Hines has selected Mitch Zatz, Jason White and Carmon Hicks of JLL to serve as leasing agents for Quantum 56.

The post Hines, EnviroFinance Team Up on Logistics Park appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

1755 Blake St. Image courtesy of ASB Real Estate Investments

Unico Properties, a Seattle-based private equity real estate investment firm, has increased its Denver holdings with the purchase of two LoDo office buildings totaling 170,472 square feet from ASB Real Estate Investments for $85.5 million.

ASB, a division of real estate investment management firm ASB Capital Management, completed the disposition on behalf of its Allegiance Real Estate Fund, a $7.4 billion core investment vehicle.

ASB had acquired the assets—1755 Blake St. and 1515-1527 Wazee St.—in 2013 for $69.8 million. Both buildings are located a short distance from Union Station, Denver’s transport hub, and are in the center of the city’s popular restaurant and entertainment district.

READ ALSO: Anchor Lease Sparks Start of $216M Trophy Tower in DC

JLL marketed the properties on behalf of ASB. The JLL Capital Markets Investment Sales and Advisory team was led by Senior Managing Director Mark Katz and Senior Director Peter Merrion.

The sale was part of ASB’s portfolio strategy to selectively reduce office exposure and increase investments in industrial and apartment assets coming out of the pandemic. In September, ASB and partner Lincoln Property Co. sold Two Financial Center, a 220,000-square-foot, 12-story Class A office building in Boston to Nan Fung Life Science Group for $120 million. The firm also sold 64 New York Ave., a 355,034-square-foot, five-story building in Washington, D.C., for $201.8 million to Boyd Watterson Asset Management in April.

Denver Details

ASB continues to own Colorado Center, a 1 million-square-foot office complex located between downtown and the Denver Tech Center at 2000 South Colorado Blvd., in a joint venture with Lincoln Property Co.

Hardware Block at 1515-1527 Wazee St. Image courtesy of ASB Real Estate Investments

The LoDo buildings purchased by Unico include 1755 Blake St., a LEED Silver-certified five-story brick building constructed in 2008 that sold for $61.2 million, according to CommercialEdge data. The multi-tenant property has 112,943 square feet, including 13,282 square feet of retail space. The asset also features a fitness center and 120 parking spaces.

The second office property at 1515-1527 Wazee St. sold for about $24.3 million, CommercialEdge reported. It was constructed in 1895 and is known as the Hardware Block. Also a multi-tenant property, the four-story building was converted to office use in 2001. The asset has 52,191 square feet, including 7,220 square feet of retail and 36 parking spaces, according to CommercialEdge.

Unico Moves

Unico’s portfolio includes office, mixed-use and multifamily properties that it owns, manages or is developing across the U.S. in markets including Denver, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, Austin and Nashville. The firm is currently co-invested in and managing a portfolio valued at more than $4.3 billion.

Unico continues to manage 1600 Lincoln, a 28-story, 284,600-square-foot Class A office building in downtown Denver that it sold to Westport Capital Partners for $67.2 million in March 2018. In June, Unico sold office space in Denver and in Boulder, Colo., to Beacon Capital Partners, according to the Denver Post. The firm still has numerous holdings in LoDo such as 1430 Wynkoop St. and 1875 Lawrence St. and other parts of Denver. It has assets in more Colorado markets including Boulder, Englewood, Lakewood and Colorado Springs.

In August, Unico expanded its metro Seattle portfolio with the acquisition of 100 Atrium, a seven-story, 235,500-square-foot Class A building in Bellevue, Wash., purchased from ScanlanKemperBard Cos. for a reported $143.2 million. A month earlier, Unico acquired a two-building Class A office property totaling about 203,000 square feet from Shorenstein in Lake Oswego, Ore., a Portland suburb.

The post ASB Pockets $90M for Denver Office Buildings appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

READ ALSO: Trammell Crow, CBRE Global to Build Major Industrial Project

Phase 1 includes two industrial buildings with 272,600 square feet and 298,300 square feet. Space will be available from 20,000 to 298,300 square feet. Delivery is planned for the second quarter of 2022. The second phase will begin after the first phase is completed and will comprise three buildings of 262,600 square feet, 193,000 square feet and 132,000 square feet.

The buildings will have clearance ranging from 28 feet to 36 feet, multiple truck docks and on-site parking for vehicles and trailers. Yard area will also be available for lease. The park’s zoning will allow a wide range of industrial and e-commerce uses including outside yard capability and substantial trailer storage.

104th Commerce Park. Image courtesy of Ware Malcomb and Trammell Crow Co.

Ann Sperling, senior director of TCC’s Denver Business Unit, said in a prepared statement the park’s features will provide flexible opportunities at competitive lease rates for industrial tenants in the market.

Located at 104th Avenue, just east of the intersection of State Highway 85 and Interstate-76, the prime interstate access offers highway visibility and flexibility for industrial users expanding in the northeast Denver area. Noting the site is 6.5 minutes from the North Central submarket, TCC Senior Managing Direct Bill Mosher said in prepared remarks access to 104th Commerce Park will reduce drive times for transportation networks.

Murray & Stafford is the general contractor on the project and is teaming with architect Ware Malcomb and Langan Engineering. CBRE’s industrial team of Tyler Carner, Jeremy Ballenger, Jessica Ostermick and Daniel Close are marketing the space.

Aerial view of the Building 1 site at 104th Commerce Park. Image courtesy of Trammell Crow Co.

With this project, TCC continues to invest in Colorado’s Front Range. The global development and investment firm has developed more than $3 billion in industrial, office, residential, health-care and public-private projects over the past decade in the region.

Earlier industrial projects

TCC has teamed with Clarion Partners for many years on industrial projects. In June, the two firms continued their joint venture partnership in Riverside County, Calif., with the development of another big-box industrial project. The partners broke ground on Knox Logistics VII, a speculative Class A, 1.1 million-square-foot project on a 73-acre site along the I-215 Corridor in the Inland Empire. The partners previously developed the $80 million I-215 Logistics Center.

TCC recently announced plans to begin construction of the second phase of its Park Aldea industrial development in Phoenix in the fourth quarter. The second phase will add four Class A buildings totaling 570,600 square feet to the existing four-building, 356,000-square-acre Park Aldea campus in the West Valley submarket along West Loop 101 freeway. The initial phase of Park Aldea was completed in 2020. Phase 2 is expected to be finished in the third quarter of 2022.

In late June, TCC and Washington Capital Management, which was acting on behalf of a client, began the second phase of Golden Triangle Logistics Center, a 127-acre industrial development off I-15 in North Las Vegas. The second phase will feature an approximately 652,000-square-foot speculative building that will bring the park’s size to about 1.7 million square feet. The first phase was completed in late 2020.

The post Trammell Crow, Clarion Partners Break Ground on 1.2 MSF Project appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Granite Tower. Image courtesy of KBS

After more than a decade of ownership of the Granite Tower in Denver, KBS has traded the premier office building for $203.5 million, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. KBS sold the approximately 593,500-square-foot high-rise, which had been part of the KBS Real Estate Investment Trust II Inc., to a joint venture of CP Group and Related Fund Management in an off-market transaction.

READ ALSO: Suburban Denver E-commerce Facility Commands $114M

KBS had owned Granite Tower, located at 1099 18th St. at the entrance of LoDo, or Lower Downtown, in the heart of city’s central business district, since 2010, when KBS REIT II acquired the 31-story building for $149 million.

“Denver has undergone tremendous growth over the last several years. We initially acquired the property in 2010, recognizing that the market was primed for ongoing expansion. This proved to be true as both companies and talent have continued to migrate to the region,” Tim Helgeson, senior vice president with KBS, told Commercial Property Executive. “Now was the perfect time to sell as it allowed us to bring the asset full cycle and to capitalize on the region’s growth over the years, which ultimately created value for our investors.”

KBS recently concluded an $11 million renovation program at Granite Tower, which first opened its doors in 1983 and has been known as Stellar Plaza and Plaza Tower. The series of upgrades included the construction of a new three-story glass lobby, as well as an open deck offering indoor/outdoor collaboration space for tenants, a new conference room, tenant lounge area and fitness facility, to say nothing of infrastructure upgrades such as new HVAC units.

The LEED Gold-certified office destination also features a 774-space, three-level parking structure and provides direct access to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

The investment community responded well to the asset. “We received quite a bit of interest on the property,” Helgeson said. “It’s no secret that Denver has changed a lot over the last decade and continues to attract both institutional and private investors. Our foresight to recognize this early on, entering the market over 10 years ago was instrumental in this success.”

Changing of the guard

For its part, CP Group makes its entrée into the Denver market with the joint venture acquisition of Granite Tower, marking the achievement of a long-held goal. The new ownership plans to continue to take the Class A Granite Tower to a new level with additional enhancements to the property’s amenities offerings in an effort to capitalize on the market’s growth. Denver is still in recovery mode, but the outlook is positive.

“The Denver office market displayed strengthening fundamentals in the second quarter of 2021 off the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Absorption and sublease availability levels have started to correct themselves as occupiers reignite conversations on their office footprint,” according to a second quarter report by CBRE. “Denver continues to attract large technology, life science and financial service users. Out-of-state interest from occupiers remains heavily persistent as Denver looks to rebound quicker than most due to its highly educated workforce, favorable pricing, diverse industry pool and quality of life.”

CBRE’s Tim Richey, Jenny Knowlton, Chad Flynn, Charley Will and Alex Mulvihill represented KBS in the Granite Tower transaction. CP Group and RFM have tapped Jamie Roupp of JLL to spearhead leasing at the property.

The post KBS Sells Denver Tower for $204M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

875 W. 64th Ave., North Washington, Colo.

A joint venture of Karis Capital—as developer—and AEW—as capital partner—has sold a newly developed Class A warehouse/distribution building in north suburban Denver for $114 million. Cushman & Wakefield advised the sellers.

The buyer of the approximately 147,000-square-foot property was not disclosed, only described as a national real estate investment, development and management firm.

The property, completed this year, is fully leased to an unidentified global Fortune 100 e-commerce company.

Its location, at 875 W. 64th Ave., puts the development in the unincorporated village of North Washington, in Adams County, just north of I-76 and just west of I-25, only a few miles west of Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Area.

The overall site is 37.3 acres, a Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive, which seems to raise the possibility of further development there in the future.

READ ALSO: The Industrial Subset That’s Even ‘Stickier’ Than Traditional Warehouses

Cushman & Wakefield Executive Managing Director Will Strong, Vice Chairmen Jeff Chiate and Jeffrey Cole, Director Mike Adey, Associate Greer Oliver, and Analyst Connor Nebeker-Hay, all of the National Industrial Advisory Group, represented Karis Capital and AEW in the transaction. The firm’s Matt Trone, Steve Hager, Drew McManus, Ryan Searle and Joey Trinkle also provided market leasing advisory.

Strong said in a prepared statement that the property was “an exceptional investment asset with a superior tenant and a premier location defined by its excellent access to major freeways and the entire Denver Metro.” He added that “Denver is poised for continued growth and sustainability, with a strong population growth rate that has far outpaced the national average the past decade … coupled with steady employment.”

Back to normal?

The metro Denver industrial real estate market could be heading into better supply-demand balance, with a more diverse group of tenants absorbing somewhat more modest spaces, versus a spate of 1 million-square-foot build-to-suits seen earlier this year, according to a second-quarter report from JLL.

Currently, there’s 9.9 million square feet of industrial space in the pipeline, and while total vacancy (at 6.7 percent) is a post-2011 peak, asking rents are—at least for now—holding fairly steady, with stable concessions.

Last February, AEW sold the two-building, 235,400-square-foot Lanark Distribution Center in San Antonio to Albany Road Real Estate Partners for an undisclosed amount.

The post Suburban Denver E-commerce Facility Commands $114M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Peakview Tower in Greenwood Village, Colo. Image courtesy of KBS

KBS has found a new owner for its Peakview Tower in Greenwood Village, Colo. The commercial real estate investor sold the 264,149-square-foot suburban Denver office asset to a joint venture headed by Vanderbilt Office Properties in a $66 million deal. KBS had owned the Class A property since purchasing it in August 2012 for $54 million.

Located on a 6.5-acre site at 6465 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., roughly 15 miles south of downtown Denver in the city’s Southeast market, Peakview sprouted up in 2001 within the now-coveted Fiddler’s Green Circle suburban micro-market, where occupancy rates tend to hover on the high side.

READ ALSO: High-Quality Office Product Generates Heightened Investor Interest

When KBS acquired Peakview nearly a decade ago, Denver was considered an emerging market. However, the 10-story building was just over 92 percent leased, and for the last five years, the LEED Silver-certified property has maintained a stronger than average occupancy rate.

KBS turns Peakview over to its new owner with Denver having moved into the position of premier secondary market primed for additional growth, and with the building having emerged from a series of capital improvements, including the addition of a cutting-edge fitness facility and a tenant lounge.

JLL’s Mark Katz and Peter Merrion negotiated the deal on behalf of the seller.

Still active in the Mile High City

Following the disposition of Peakview, KBS continues to maintain a presence in the recovering metropolitan Denver office sector.

The city’s long-term prognosis is good. “Denver’s economic recovery is now on pace with the U.S. at large and should accelerate from here, bouncing back sooner than most other metros,” according to a second quarter 2021 report by JLL. Despite the pandemic-induced challenges, the city continues to benefit from highly educated workforce comprised of prime-age talent and a diverse mix of industries, the report said.

KBS’ remaining office footprint in Denver includes downtown’s iconic, 31-story Granite Tower, where the company completed $11 million in renovations in January 2021. Two months later, in March, KBS continued upgrades at the property, with the nearly 600,000-square-foot high-rise becoming the first CBD building in Denver to have its aging HVAC system replaced via heavy lift helicopter, whittling the traditionally lengthy process down to a mere 75 minutes.

The post Denver-Area Office High Rise Commands $66M appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.

Denali Logistics Park at Box Elder. Image courtesy of Hines

In response to demand for Class A industrial accommodations in suburban Denver, Hines has established a strategic partnership with L. C. Fulenwider Inc. for the development of Denali Logistics Park at Box Elder, a 3 million-square-foot industrial complex in the Mile High City’s Airport submarket in Aurora, Colo.

READ ALSO: Inside the Dallas Industrial Boom

“The introduction to Fulenwider and resulting partnership was a unique opportunity for us and one we couldn’t let pass us by,” Courtney Schneider, director with Hines told Commercial Property Executive. “This, coupled with the demand from users looking to grow their presence in Denver to serve our growing population make it the right time for this project.”

Part of an Enterprise Zone, Opportunity Zone and Foreign Trade Zone, Denali Logistics will occupy 216 acres at the intersection of Denali St. and 64th Ave. within Box Elder, Fulenwider’s sprawling mixed-use development. The Class A park will feature state-of-the-art industrial space in buildings of various sizes and configurations to meet the needs of users of any size range, including build-to-suit opportunities.

Demand for premier industrial square footage continues unabated in the Denver area, as evidenced by the ongoing upswing in rents to record highs, as noted in a report by JLL, which is spearheading leasing of Denali Logistics. JLL adds that even an overall vacancy rate, 6.8 percent, that rests at its highest level since 2012 has not curbed the appetite for new product. And Hines expects the trend to continue. “We believe the demand will absolutely remain strong post-pandemic, as the pandemic has helped users better understand how to optimize their supply chain and service their customer base,” Schneider said.

Designer industrial

Hines and Fulenwider tapped architectural firm Ware Malcomb to mastermind the aesthetics of Denali Logistics. The result will be a campus with a modern industrial design of sleek buildings and a bevy of coveted amenities more often seen in office parks, including covered outdoor seating, access to trails along Second Creek and connection to the mixed-use offerings of Box Elder.

“We take pride in the buildings we design and construct and want our buildings to stand the test of time,” noted Schneider. “Our design and thoughtful amenities, including outdoor seating and sport courts, offer greater workforce satisfaction and tenant interest and overall retention.”

The post Hines, Fulenwider Plan 3 MSF Denver-Area Industrial Campus appeared first on Commercial Property Executive.