CREJ - Journal

1 / 100

JANUARY 7-JANUARY 20, 2015
by John Rebchook
FirstBank has arranged a
$29.8 million construction
loan for what will be the
largest apartment commu-
nity ever built in Greeley.
It also represents a mile-
stone for FirstBank.
“This is the largest loan
FirstBank has ever made in
Northern Colorado,” said
Kevin Minner, a senior vice
president at the bank. “This
isn’t the largest loan ever for
FirstBank, of course.”
The bank has had a pres-
ence in Northern Colorado
for 21 years, he said.
The loan was made to
Creekview Investments LLC
for the 348-unit Creekview
Apartments at 8200 W. 20th
St.
The limited liability com-
pany was created by J&J
Construction of Northern
Colorado/Journey Homes,
which is the developer.
The first building in the
community will open in
February, said Darrell McAl-
lister, chief financial officer
for the builder.
When completed, the com-
munity will have 16 three-
story buildings, each with
21 to 24 buildings.
Each building will have
approximately 25,000 square
feet.
The project also will
include 200 separate garages
and a clubhouse of about
4,000 sf with a workout
facility and meeting rooms.
Monthly rents are antici-
pated to range from $850 to
$1,500, McAllister said.
The architect is Kephart.
It will be the largest apart-
ment community in Greeley,
when completed, he said.
That is absolutely the
case, Minner said. He said
Creekview will be construct-
ed in three phases.
“We really like this because
it addresses the much-need-
ed economic need for rental
housing in Greeley,” Minner
said.
It is so big, in fact, that it
is extremely unlikely others
of the same size will be con-
structed, he said.
“This is going to present
a bit of a barrier of entry to
other new apartment proj-
ects of this size,” Minner
said.
He said he is talking to
several other developers
about financing new apart-
ment communities, but
nothing of the magnitude of
Creekview.
“The market can’t absorb
another apartment project of
this size,” Minner said.
There is a huge need for
rental units in Greeley, he
said.
“The apartment vacancy
rate in Greeley is only 2 or
3 percent,” Minner said.
“When this is completed,
I think it will temporarily
raise the vacancy rate a bit,
probably to 4 percent.”
McAllister said the
demand for rental hous-
ing is a result of Greeley’s
robust economy.
“I think a certain amount
of it is just because of the
rebounding economy,”
McAllister said.
FirstBank inks its largest loan in NoCo
A rendering of what will be the largest apartment community in
Greeley
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
Developers knew they
had a hit when they assem-
bled 4.33 acres that Google
picked for its new $100 mil-
lion Boulder campus.
The property at the south-
west corner of 30th and
Pearl streets sits catty-corner
from the city’s transit vil-
lage, across the street from a
popular Whole Foods mar-
ket and within a short walk
of shops and restaurants at
Twenty Ninth Street.
“That was really the
impetus in putting the deal
together originally. It was
an expen-
sive site to
assemble,
but the
f u n d a -
m e n t a l
economics
and loca-
tion speak
for them-
s e l v e s , ”
said Dan
Otis, principal of Brickstone
Partners.
Otis and Darren Fisk of
Forum Real Estate Group,
through a partnership called
Pearl Place Associates, will
develop the approximately
300,000-square-foot build-
to-suit campus for Google.
There will be two 200,000-sf
buildings in the first phase,
projected to break ground in
the third quarter and open
in the first quarter of 2017.
Google has about 300
employees in Boulder. The
campus will allow it to grow
over time to as many as
1,500 employees.
Otis and Fisk knewGoogle
was in the market when
they began assembling the
site in mid-2011. They didn’t
know where Google would
land, but they knew there
was a need for large-block
office space for tech compa-
nies, and they created vari-
ous development scenarios,
including one with a hotel.
The location has housed
well-known tenants HB
Woodsongs Music Store and
D&K Printing, as well as a
retail strip center with “doz-
ens of tenants.” Assembling
it was time-consuming and
costly – to the tune of $12.15
million.
“There were a lot of mov-
ing parts,” said Otis. “There
was a great deal of logistics
involved in managing not
only the economics of the
deal, but also the flow of
tenants in and out of the
project,” he said, adding site
challenges also include bed-
rock and having to work
with multiple ditch compa-
nies.
Although Google looked
outside Boulder, its goal was
to remain in the city, where
opportunities for big compa-
ny expansions are few and
far between. Local commer-
cial real estate expert Becky
Callan Gamble of Dean Cal-
lan & Co. said there aren’t
a lot of viable, ready-to-go
options for companies as
large as Google, either in
terms of development sites
or empty buildings. Some-
one could create that oppor-
Google’s $100 million campus will sit at the southwest corner of 30th and Pearl streets, across from
the transit center.
Dan Otis
CONTENTS
The owner of a greenhouse leased
to a marijuana grower trades into
two apartment communities
An apartment owner that’s
fond of Fort Collins pays $58
million for a multifamily portfolio
that caters to students
A ‘great mix’ of tenants in
the energy and health care industries
drives investor interest in a
Highlands Ranch office park
Phoenix Realty Group
pays $53.3 million for an apartment
community on nearly 50 acres of land
Inside