by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
A Class A office build-
ing in downtown Castle
Rock flew off the market at
$4 million, or $258.09 per
square foot.
Stone Holdings LLC
purchased the two-story,
15,498-sf building at 18 S.
Wilcox St. from 18 Wilcox
LLC, which developed
the property in 2005. The
building was 100 percent
leased, with a law firm,
Folkestad Fazekas Barrick
& Patoile, occupying most
of the second floor.
“We were under contract
within two weeks of going
to market,” said Matt Call
of NavPoint Real Estate,
who handled the transac-
tion with NavPoint’s John
Witt. Call said the invest-
ment market is so tight
they knew the asset would
r e c e i v e
plenty of
activity.
“ I t ’ s
one of
the few
Class A
o f f i c e
b u i l d -
ings in
C a s t l e
R o c k , ”
said Call, who added that
there are “very few other
investment-grade assets on
the market for sale in Cas-
tle Rock right now.”
At the same time, inves-
tors are willing to consid-
er investing in the Castle
Rock market because of
major infrastructure invest-
ments the town has made
and the new Promenade at
Castle Rock development,
for instance, he said.
“I think it’s indicative of
more investors looking at
by John Rebchook
It wasn’t a huge apartment deal
in terms of the sales price.
But the recent sale of the 58-unit
VillageWest inArvadawas signifi-
cant for two reasons.
First, it illustrated the attractive-
ness of value-add deals for inves-
tors. It also is an example of how
Arvada is increasinglyon the radar
screen of investors.
A company headquartered in
San Francisco and Chicago, 29th
Street Management LLC, paid
$7.95 million, or $137,069 per unit,
for VillageWest.
The sales price represented a
record for a nonrenovated apart-
ment community built in the 1970s
inArvada.
“This was an interesting deal,”
saidAndy Hellman, who handled
the deal with fellow ARA New-
mark broker JustinHunt.
“It was part of a portfolio Justin
and I are selling for an investor out
of LosAngeles,” Hellman said.
Thebuyerwasdebatingwhether
it would be better to sell the apart-
ment communities as one portfolio
or separately.
Hellman and Hunt advised the
seller to list themseparately, as they
were geographically dispersed.
For example, they sold one
apartment community in Dillon,
in Summit County, for $10 million.
“We did have offers to take
down the whole portfolio, but we
thought it made more sense to sell
them separately,” Hellman said.
The various communities have a
total 620 units.
“They are mainly C Class prop-
erties aimed at blue-collar renters,”
Hellman said.
“But locationwise, they were
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
JimMcGrath only repre-
sents tenants, but he doesn’t
consider himself to be a ten-
ant rep broker. He’s a tenant
advocate.
“I think what makes our
practice different is that we are
intimately involved in every
step of the process, from needs
analysis to market analysis,
due diligence and through
lease or purchase contract
negotiations. We advocate for
our client's best interests and
provide a level of consulting
that makes a significant dif-
ference in the final outcome,”
said McGrath, executive man-
aging director at Newmark
Grubb Knight Frank.
“Tenants now are looking at
the way space impacts their
business – their people, their
culture, their clients, how they
can utilize real estate to help
their business really flourish
and profit. I like the aspect
of being a consultant to help
them figure that out and then
be able to help them negotiate
the best transaction.”
McGrath and partner Tom
Pappas, both veterans of Den-
ver’s commercial real estate
market, recently moved their
team to NGKF because they
saw opportunity there amidst
the changing commercial real
estate landscape.
“The commercial real estate
industry has gone through a
tremendous consolidation in
the last five years, and compa-
nies are getting bigger. They’re
offering more and more ser-
vices. Newmark wanted to
grow their tenant representa-
tion platform, and I thought it
was an opportunity for me to
potentially offer more services
to our clients, to collaborate
more with other professionals
in our office and really help
everybody grow their busi-
ness.”
Among McGrath’s list of
national and international
companies are Kutak Rock,
National CineMedia, Rio Tinto
and Red Robin. It’s a diverse
mix of industries – something
McGrath has appreciated
since starting his professional
career as an auditor at PwC
after college.
“We get to work with a lot
of different kinds of compa-
nies. I enjoy working with an
industry that I may not have
that much knowledge about,
and we can learn about that
pretty quickly.”
While his accounting
degree from the University of
Delaware and his work as an
auditor have paid dividends
in commercial real estate, a
career as a controller or chief
financial officer didn’t reso-
nate with McGrath. A friend
extolled the merits of com-
mercial real estate, which led
McGrath to a job with Cush-
man &Wakefield in his home-
town of Philadelphia. He
did landlord representation
and land sales, and found his
niche in representing tenants.
He was working at Studley
when he and his wife, Susie,
chose to move to Colorado.
“It was just one of those
moves that it felt like I had
to make. There’s an incred-
ible combination of lifestyle,
people – and by people, I
mean just attitudes of people,
and openness – and there are
all these recreational opportu-
nities. People seem to combine
all that. They work hard and
they play hard, and that’s
always been attractive to me.”
Since there was no Stud-
ley office in Denver at that
time, he joined the “de-facto”
affiliate in Denver, Liberty
Partners, later moving to The
Staubach Co. and, eventually,
Savills Studley.
He and his team completed
a 200,000-square-foot build-
to-suit for CSG Systems in
Omaha – a project he said the
company initially didn’t think
it could afford – and, more
recently, a 66,000-sf build-
to-suit, vs. a lease renewal,
for Mikron in Dove Valley
Business Park in Centennial.
“It was obvious to me when
I walked into their building
they needed to do something.
So to help them go through
the process, convince their
board, provide all the due
diligence that enabled them to
make that decision and then
to go into their facility when
it was done and see how
happy and proud they are,
and how that’s dramatically
affected them – those are real-
ly rewarding assignments,”
McGrath said.
Teambuilding is a huge part
of the business, both external-
ly and internally. “It’s never
been about me. It’s been about
the team and having people
who have multiple skill sets to
support what we’re trying to
do,” he said.
Besides the incredibly com-
petitive nature of the business,
McGrath’s biggest challenge
is convincing clients to take
time to consider real estate
strategies long before deci-
sions have to be made. “Most
tenants underestimate the
time it takes to do this. When
you have time, time is your
ally. You can put your foot on
the gas and you can take your
foot off the gas. You’re in com-
plete control. When you run
out of time, time is now your
Jim McGrath
SECTION AA
Village West recently sold in Arvada.
Matt Call
‘I think it’s
indicative of
more investors
looking at
Castle Rock as
a very viable
place to invest
in the Front
Range with all
the growth that’s
going on.’
– Matt Call,
NavPoint Real Estate
