October 15-November 4, 2014 —
COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— Page 19
above that amount,” Wood-
ward said.
“Everybody
was
very
happy with this deal; Spanos
was happy, GID was happy,”
Woodward said.
The appeal of a presale acqui-
sition to the seller, of course, is it
removes the lease-up risk.
The Element 47 sale was a bit
atypical in that respect
GID placed it under contract
in October 2013, a year ago.
“Because of construction
delays, like everyone has been
experiencing,” largely because
of labor shortages, the final occu-
pancy permit for the community
was not issued until late August
or early September, Woodward
said.
By that time of the sale, the
community, which opened in
phases, was 85 percent leased.
Typically, a presale building
would be mostly empty when
the deal closed.
“It has such high visibility and
a great location that at times they
were signing 15 leases a week,”
Woodward said.
“They were just killing it,” he
said.
Not only were leases signed
at lightning speed, but also Ele-
ment 47 has been achieving
higher rents than anticipated.
“I think they are averaging
around $2.10 per square foot,”
Woodward said.
The building sold at a 5.5 per-
cent cap rate.
“I think if we were taking it
to the market today, it would
probably sell at a 5 percent cap,”
Woodward said.
“I do think we could have
gotten a higher price if we had
taken it to the market, but like I
said, both sides were very happy
with the deal,” he said.
“Spanos sees the pipeline of
units coming on line and they
were a bit more risk averse than
others,” he said.
Thousands of cars drive by
it on I-25 each day, giving it an
unbelievable visibility to poten-
tial renters, Woodward said.
“You see it for maybe 10 sec-
onds when you are in traffic on
I-25, but when you get up there
and look at the views, they are
just unbelievable,” Woodward
said.
“Some people may consider
the area pioneering, but GID
really understood the area,”
Woodward said.
“It’s very close to downtown
and neighborhoods like West
Highland; it is an area that is
only going to get better,” he said.
Spanos also built an attractive
community with high-end fin-
ishes, Woodward said.
Amenities include: an Internet
café; business center and confer-
ence center; media room; great
room; a gymwith a separate aer-
obics/yoga room; club room; a
rooftop deck overlooking down-
town; and an outdoor pool.
Spanos has been involved in
the deal for almost a decade.
In 2005, it unveiled plans to
build a 357-unit project on the
site, which had been the site of
the Baby Doe’s Matchless Mines
restaurant and a Chili Pepper
restaurant.
The restaurants closed in the
mid-2000s.
If the initial plan had gotten off
the ground, Spanos would have
delivered the first Class A apart-
ment community in northwest
Denver.
The original development,
called Pinnacle Station, was
delayed under protests from the
Jefferson Park Neighborhood
Association, which felt it would
bring too many rental units to
the neighborhood.
Spanos agreed to scale back
the project, but construction was
delayed by the Great Recession.
When the market began to
show signs of life again, Spanos
rebranded the project as Ele-
ment 47, which is the 47th ele-
ment on the periodic table, a nod
to Colorado’s mining heritage
and Elizabeth “Baby” Doe, who
in 1880 married Horace Tabor,
who made a fortune in silver
mining and was the richest man
in Colorado at the time. Tabor
later lost his fortune in the silver
crash of 1893.
Spanos tapped Kephart to
design Element 47.
This is how Kephart described
it on its website:
“Nestled in the established and
esteemed Jefferson Park neigh-
borhood, Element 47 is located
in a vibrant, up-and-coming
area of Denver. Located just
west of downtown and near
the banks of the Platte River,
Element 47 is the epitome of
used as a residence.
n
Gary Roberts,
who is
affiliated with the oil indus-
try, paid $2 million cash for a
15,300-square-foot industrial
property at 208 Gateway Drive
in Berthoud.
Swofford Proper-
ties LLC
was the seller.
Craig C. Hau
of
Sperry Van
Ness/The Group Commercial
handled both sides of the trans-
action.
n
OPM Holdings
bought an
eight-bay car wash and 48-unit
storage complex at 1657 N. Col-
lege Ave. in Fort Collins for
$1.49 million.
Cole Herk
of
Cassidy Turley
represented the seller,
North
College Carwash and Stor-
age LLC. Chad Hirschfield
of
Hirschfield Real Estate Group
represented the buyer.
n
A retail user paid $672,448
for Lots 11, 13 and 15 in the
Crossroads-Northwest PUD in
Larimer County. The lots com-
prise 1.27, 1.21 and 1.15 acres.
Red Dog Dean Inc.
sold the
property to
Drake Larimer Part-
ners LLC
in a cash deal.
Craig C. Hau
of
Sperry Van
Ness/The Group Commercial
was the listing broker.
David
Spriggs
of
Miller Frishman
Group
represented the buyer.
n
Midtown Homes
at Mari-
ana Butte
acquired 681,714 sf
of land at 1220 Rossum Drive
in Loveland from
Mariana
Meadows LLC.
The price was
$650,000.
Larry Melton
of
Realtec-
Loveland
was the listing bro-
ker.
Nathan Klein
of
Loveland
Commercial
represented the
buyer.
n
Mark Wojciechowski
paid
$730,000 for a four-plex at 206
Remington St. in Fort Collins.
Edward K. Russell
was the sell-
er.
Jeff Doran
of
Realtec Com-
mercial Real Estate Services
was the listing broker.
Kirk Wit-
tig
of
Boulder County Realty
represented the buyer.
n
A former liquor store at
4130 Clydesdale Parkway in
Loveland will be converted to
office space for an environmen-
tal testing company,
eAnalyt-
ics.
The company is relocating
within Loveland.
Advantage Bank
sold the
4,845-sf property, which is locat-
ed in Crossroads Business Park,
for $635,000.
Mike Eyer, Julius
Tabert, Kyle Lundy
and
Jon
Rue
of
CBRE
were the listing
brokers.
Annah Moore
of
Realtec
Commercial Real Estate Ser-
vices
represented the buyer.
n
Users leased two 4,500-sf
industrial units at 2840 F St. in
Greeley.
Strad Oilfield Services Inc.
signed a five-year lease for Unit
C.
Elizabeth Morgan
of
The
Morgan Firm
represented the
tenant.
Liberty Lift Solutions LLC
leased Unit B.
Justin Dodd
of
Mages Group LLC
represented
Liberty Lift.
Steve Kawulok
and
Dan
Leuschen
of
Sperry Van Ness/
The Group Commercial
repre-
sented the landlord,
Thissen II
LLC,
in both transactions.
s
has helped convince other
developers to construct bou-
tique, infill properties.
“We are going to see more
of these little gems of prop-
erties developed,” Hunt
said.
“The problem is that while
their profit margins are
strong, their actual dollar
profits are relatively small,”
Hunt said.
“It takes a special kind
of developer who wants to
do these smaller communi-
ties,” Hunt said.
“We often see families do
them, although in this case,
it was a larger developer
that just fell in love with the
property.”
Ozment said the neighbor-
hood is going to continue
to get better, increasing the
value of the Logan in the
years to come.
“The Logan is the kind
of property I would love
to own myself for 20 or 30
years,” Ozment said.
s
Park-n-Ride.
The seller, Pearl Parkway Cen-
tre, acquired the vacant land for
$1.75 million in 2007. That group,
led by Neil Littmann andW. Scott
Reichenberg of The Colorado
Group Inc., entitled the property
for development of Pearl Parkway
Centre, a three-story commercial
building.
“The property was purchased
just prior to the economic reces-
sion in 2008. Although we spent
a considerable amount of time
and money to entitle the site, we
are pleased with the sale to one
of Boulder’s most respected real
estate developers,” said Littmann.
“It was rewarding to finally real-
ize a successful sale of the prop-
erty after several years of a down
economy. We know the Reynolds
Cos. will make this a great addi-
tion to the Boulder office market,”
he said.
W.W. Reynolds views the prop-
erty as an opportunity to expand
the neighboring 430,000-sf Pearl
East Business Park.
“There are not many develop-
able properties in town. This is
certainly one of those,” said Jeff
Wingert, a partner in the company.
The building will accommo-
date technology tenants like those
within Pearl East and also has
zoning
for
uses including
small retail,
restaurant and
medical offices
on the ground
floor. Boulder-
based PEH
A r c h i t e c t s
designed it.
Wingert said
there is a lot of
activity in the market from larger
users, but W.W. Reynolds will be
looking to prelease a portion of the
building before breaking ground.
“We need to sit tight until we
make sure we have users to go in
there,” he said.
s
Jeff Wingert
ment potential in an emerg-
ing market, the property was
highly sought after.
“We had over 10 offers on
this property,” said R.C. Myles,
principal and managing direc-
tor in Cassidy Turley’s Capi-
tal Markets group in Denver.
“That whole River North area
is just emerging as a dynamic
market,” he said. Transform-
ing from an industrial area
to a mixed-use corridor with
res ident i a l ,
retail
and
office uses,
“The area is
attracting a
ton of atten-
tion,” said
Myles.
“We
see
2901 Broad-
way as a
l o n g - t e r m
hold. There’s an existing lease
in place, so that makes it even
more attractive because we
have cash flow while we’re
holding the property,” said
Parkhill.
“We love the location. We
love being right there, looking
out over downtown,” he said.
Myles represented the seller,
Canado Properties, with Cassi-
dy Turley Vice President James
Brady and Craig Myles, senior
vice president and principal.
Parkhill and his partners also
own a four-acre property at
3325 Delgany St. in River North
that they acquired in May.
s
AMR leases the property at 2901 Broadway in River North.
R.C. Myles
‘It has such
high visibility
and a great
location that at
times they were
signing 15
leases a week,”
Woodward said.’
– Dan Woodward, CBRE
Investment Properties
