DECEMBER 16, 2015-JANUARY 5, 2016
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
A large, high-quality flex
development in Denver’s
southeast industrial sub-
market sold for $27.75 mil-
lion, or $113.72 per square
foot.
MIG Real Estate pur-
chased Dry Creek Business
Park, a 244,028-sf property
at 7300-7348 S. Alton Way in
Centennial, from Greenfield
Partners. The park consists
of 15 buildings that are 93
percent leased to roughly 90
tenants.
“We’ve been involved
with that project since 1999.
Through-
out
the
years, we
have been
contacted
repeatedly
by inves-
tors want-
ing to buy
that site,”
said Col-
liers Inter-
national principal T.J. Smith.
Smith said Colliers took
the property to market, but
already had received pre-
emptory offers. “We had
many offers, but MIG’s offer
was strong enough to go
right to contract with them,”
he said.
“It’s a unique property
in an A-plus location right
off I-25. I think it’s the pre-
mier incubator flex project
in southeast Denver.”
Located between Arapa-
hoe and Dry Creek roads,
Dry Creek Business Park
has frontage on Interstate
25. It caters to tenants from
562 to 10,193 sf, none of
which occupies more than
4 percent of the property.
Astrodyne International, an
aviation repair firm, is the
largest company in the park.
Historically, the park has
outperformed competitors
and continues to garner
increasing lease rates.
Smith handled the sale
with Colliers International’s
Brad Calbert and Matt Key-
erleber.
Dry Creek Business Park
is MIG Real Estate’s second
recent acquisition in the
Denver area. It purchased
Iliff Business Park in Denver
last summer.
The company also owns
I-225 Plaza in Aurora, as
well as hospitality and mul-
tifamily properties.
s
Dry Creek Business Park is 93 percent leased to approximately 90 tenants.
by John Rebchook
In April 2014, California-
based TruAmerica made its
first apartment community
acquisition in Denver by
paying $55 million for the
564-unit Tamarac apartment
community.
Recently, TruAmerica sold
the community on a 25.16-
acre site at 3300 S. Tamarac
Drive to another California
company, Gelt Inc., for $74
million.
It also was Gelt’s first pur-
chase in Denver.
The sale price represented
a 34.5 percent increase in the
price that TruAmerica paid
less than two years ago.
Gelt, based in Los Ange-
les, paid $131,206 per unit,
while TruAmerica paid
$97,516 per unit for Tama-
rac, which was built in 1977.
“I think TruAmerica made
a good buy and I think it
was a good deal for Gelt,
too,” said Pamela Koster,
who listed the property with
fellow Moran & Co. broker
David Martin.
“We exit Tamarac after
meeting our five-year
investment objectives in just
18 months,” said TruAmeri-
ca President and CEO Rob-
ert E. Hart.
“It is a large, well-located
asset that still offers addi-
tional upside for an experi-
enced operator like Gelt,”
Hart added.
Gelt had been looking to
get a foothold in the Denver-
area market for the past two
years.
“They had been aggres-
sively bidding for a number
of properties for the past
couple of years and they
finally had the winning bid
with Tamarac,” Koster said.
There was a lot of interest
from prospective buyers for
this value-add property, she
said.
“I would say half of the
prospective buyers were
local investors and about
half were coming from out
of town,” Koster said.
“Interestingly, about four
of the guys, including Gelt,
had never been in Denver
before,” Koster said.
She said the sale is a good
microcosm of what is hap-
pening in the Denver-area
market on a number of lev-
els.
“What this sale tells you is
that Denver is still a really
strong market,” Koster said.
“With interest rates still
low and you combine that
with our rent growth, Den-
ver remains one of the stron-
gest apartment markets in
the country,” Koster said.
She said many national
pundits who think the Den-
ver multifamily market is
becoming overbuilt don't
truly understand the local
market.
“I was just putting a chart
together today, looking at
the last three years,” Koster
said in early December. “If
you look at the empirical
data, our market is not in
danger of overbuilding and
I see no slowdown as far
as investor interest in our
market.”
While much has been
made about all of the units
under construction or in the
pipeline, it is nothing new,
she said.
“For the last three years,
we have had 20,000 units in
some stage of planning each
year,” Koster said.
“Yet our vacancy rate is
still 4 percent and our net
rents are growing by double
digits,” she said.
“What that tells me is that
we need these units under
construction as well as the
older, workforce housing
like Tamarac,” Koster said.
Gelt recently paid $74 million for the Tamarac.
T.J. Smith
Inside
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