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May 6-May 19, 2015 — COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL — Page 5AA
Multifamily
by John Rebchook
A fast and fierce hailstorm
ripped through southDenver last
September.
“Probably the hardest-hit
building in last year’s hailstorm
was the PeakView Place” apart-
ment community, said Terrance
Hunt, a principal of the Denver
office of ARANewmark.
“It looked like a war zone,”
Hunt said.
Siding was ripped off and win-
dows were broken.
“Therewas significant damage;
I believe it was over $1 million,”
Hunt said.
While dealing with an insur-
ance company is never anyone’s
idea of a good time, what added
another dimension to the damage
done to this 296-unit apartment
community at 9959 E. Peakview
Ave. in Englewood is that Hunt
and fellow ARA Newmark team
members – Jeff Hawks, Doug
Andrews, Shane Ozment, Anna
Stevens andAmandaMeldrum−
recently sold it, post-storm.
The sales price wasn’t released,
but records indicate it sold for
$45.5 million.
It was acquired by the San
Diego-based ConAm Group.
That sales price equates to
$153,716 per unit.
The storm damage did nothing
to dampen investor interest in the
community, which was built in
1979 and has been owned since
1982 by Greenwood Village-
based AIMCO.
“We had 20 offers,” Hunt said.
AIMCOallocated the insurance
proceeds to ConAm, he said.
Indeed, ConAm plans to invest
$5.5 million into a renovation.
The renovation will include con-
structing a new leasing office,
new exterior siding, interior
upgrades and enhancing com-
mon area and landscaping.
“The level of improvement is
justified, given that it has this
great DTC location,” Hunt said.
PeakView, if not the first apart-
ment community in the tech cen-
ter, was one of the earliest in the
DTC, he said.
ConAm and the other bidders
loved its southeast location and
that it is a true value-add prop-
erty, Hunt said. It also didn’t hurt
that the insurance company is
picking up the tab for a portion of
the renovations, he said.
“It has this great location in
what we call the Denver Tech
Center submarket, which really
runs from Meridian on the south
and includes Inverness and all of
the office properties and retailers
from there all the way to I-225,”
Hunt said.
The DTC corridor has more
than 40 million square feet of
office space and 423,000 workers,
according to ARA Newmark’s
research.
Within a three-mile radius,
83.1 percent of the adult popu-
lation has a college degree and
the average household income
is $103,623, according to ARA
Newmark’s research.
PeakView Place also is in the
Cherry Creek School District.
At PeakView Place, 62 per-
cent of the units have two or
three bedrooms, making it well-
positioned for young families,
according to Hunt.
PeakView Place also is within
walking distance of the Arapa-
hoe at Village Center light-rail
station.
The apartment community also
is minutes away from just about
any retail or restaurant you could
imagine, including Safeway, Tar-
get, Home Depot, Sprouts Farm-
ers Market, Office Depot and
a United Artists theater, just to
mention a handful.
It is about a five-minute drive
from the Park Meadows Mall
and the IKEA store, the ARA
team pointed out in its market-
ing package.
Rob Singh, ConAm’s presi-
dent and chief investment officer,
agreed that Peakview Place has a
great location.
“The property is located within
one-half mile of a light-rail sta-
tion and one mile of Interstate 25,
which provides easy access to all
employment centers, including
downtown Denver,” Singh said.
“We are pleased to acquire this
attractive value-add opportuni-
ty in one of the strongest rental
growth markets in the country,”
Singh said.
With this purchase, ConAm
now owns 5,500 units in Colo-
rado.
Hunt said that ARA had listed
the property seven years ago for
AIMCO, but took it off the mar-
ket.
At that time, the property had
a government-backed loan that
needed to be assumed, which
limited the pool of buyers.
AIMCO decided to wait until
the loan assumption had expired
before putting it back on the mar-
ket.
“It could not have worked out
better for them, given how much
stronger today the market is than
was seven years ago,” Hunt said.
And while in today’s strong
market there are buyers willing
to assume a loan or pay what can
be a prepayment penalty, given
how low interest rates are, there
are always more parties interest-
ed in a property when they can
get their own financing, he said.
Also, the seller almost always
will command a higher sales
price if the buyer doesn’t have to
assume a loan, he said.
Other News
n An unidentified local buyer
paid $4.35 million, or $320.87 per
square foot and $217,500 per unit,
for a 20-unit apartment building
at 195 Jackson St. in Denver.
Built in 1947, the property has
13,557 rentable sf and is one of
the few remaining vintage, multi-
family properties in the Cherry
Creek neighborhood.
It sold for $350,000 above list
price.
Robert Lawson, a senior
adviser at Pinnacle Real Estate
Advisors, represented the buyer
in the transaction.
n An unidentified buyer paid a
total of $2.08 million for an apart-
ment building in Lakewood and
another in Denver.
The 17-unit Lakewood prop-
erty is at 1363 Pierce St.
PeakView Place recently sold.
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Beartrax is a general contractor with specific focus
on interior and exterior re-development of
multi-family properties.
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