November 4-November 17, 2015 —
COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— Page 15
Colorado Springs/So. Front Range
by Jennifer Hayes
A Class C apartment prop-
erty in Colorado Springs sold
to a buyer keen on the commu-
nity’s upside.
Creek View LLC paid $1.2
million for Fountain Hills, a
24-unit community at 2330 E.
Fountain Blvd., situated in a
thriving apartment market that
has seen an upside in rents,
including a 6 percent rent
growth year-over-year during
the second quarter of 2015.
“There is a lot of room to
push rents at Fountain Hills,”
Saul Levy of ARA Newmark
said of the community. “Effec-
tive rents at nearby properties
were $100 to
$250 higher
at the time
of the sale.
The
buyer
has a great
opportunity
to increase
rents to align
with market
standards as
leases begin
to expire.”
Additionally, the buyer was
attracted to the property’s
unique features not typical of a
1960s asset.
“All of the units at Fountain
Hills have their own individual
furnaces and central air condi-
tioning. It is rare to find cen-
tral air conditioning in 1960s
product in Colorado Springs.
In addition, several of the fur-
naces and air conditioning con-
densers were recently replaced
and double-pane vinyl win-
dows were installed through-
out the property,” added Levy.
Levy, along with ARA New-
mark’s Kevin McKenna, rep-
resented seller Fountain Hills
LLC.
At the time of the sale, Foun-
tain Hills was 96 percent occu-
pied.
Situated in the south central
submarket, Fountain Hills has
immediate access to Highway
24 and Interstate 25, and near
Sierra Nevada Corp.’s planned
$88 million facility, which will
hire 2,100 new employees in
the coming years, and FedEx’s
new $20 million distribution
center.
Other News
n
Home Advisor
recent-
ly leased 21,965 square feet
of office space in Colorado
Springs.
It leased the space at 9910
Federal Drive from
Karlin Fed-
eral Drive LLC.
Michael Palmer
of
Quantum
Commercial Group Inc.
was
the listing broker. The coop-
erating brokers were
Matt
Anderson
and
Tom Lepry
of
JLL.
n
Transwestern
released
its Colorado Springs Market
Watch Reports for September
in which it noted that office
rates rose to $17.24 per sf gross
while direct vacancy fell 11.31
percent from the previous
month.
Within the central business
district’s Class A submarket,
a direct vacancy rate of 8.79
percent was reported with an
direct asking rate of $25.47 per
sf, per CoStar, while the Class
A northeast submarket posted
the lowest direct vacancy rate
of 6.4 percent.
Within the industrial market,
Transwestern noted that lease
rates rose to $6.19 per sf triple
net while direct vacancy fell
to 8.84 percent. In the sector’s
largest submarket, the south-
east submarket with 13.04 mil-
lion sf in 604 buildings, a direct
vacancy rate of 8.52 percent
and a direct asking rate, per
CoStar, of $6.33 per sf triple net
were posted in September. The
highest direct asking rate was
seen in the northeast market
with $8.23 per sf triple net.
Transwestern’s retail report
noted that the Colorado
Springs retail market experi-
enced both a rise in rates and
direct vacancy in September.
Rental rates rose to $11.28
per sf triple net while over-
all direct vacancy rose to 5.44
percent. The northeast submar-
ket, Colorado Springs’s largest
submarket with 12.22 million
sf, saw a direct vacancy rate
of 4.18 percent with an asking
direct rate of $13.86 per sf triple
net.
s
Upside drew the buyer to the 24-unit Fountain Hills apartment community.
Saul Levy
