CREJ - page 1

by John Rebchook
When the call came, Chris
Phenicie was just putting
together a package to market
a prime piece of real estate
in the Interlocken Advanced
Technology Environment in
Broomfield about a year ago.
Robert Chase of Fuller
Real Estate asked Phenicie,
a broker with CBRE, if the
owner of the 11-acre site, JPI
Colorado LP, would be inter-
ested in selling the land at
355 Eldorado Boulevard.
The prospective buyer?
A.G. Spanos of Stockton,
California.
During the past 55 years,
the privately held company
has developed more than
120,000 apartment units, as
well as 2 million square feet
of office space and more than
400 other developments.
The Spanos family also
owns the San Diego Char-
gers.
Last year, A.G. Spanos
sold the 265-unit Element 47
apartment community that
it developed in Denver’s Jef-
ferson Park for $69 million.
“It was perfect timing”
to get the phone call from
Chase, Phenicie recalled.
“When you get a call from
a company of the stature of
A.G. Spanos, it’s a no-brain-
er,” Phenicie said.
“You deal exclusively with
Spanos, which is what we
did,” Phenicie said.
Spanos had hired Bob
Leino, also of Fuller Real
Estate, to find a site in Inter-
locken.
“I think they really like
Interlocken because it is a
terrific growth area with all
of these high-technology
companies,” Leino said.
“And they really are mak-
ing a community in Inter-
locken that is really slanted
toward the millennials,”
Leino said.
He said Chase is an
appraiser “who thought this
would be a great site for
Spanos and he knew that
Chris Phenicie at CBRE had
a management contract with
JPI,” Leino said.
JPI had owned the prop-
erty since the early days of
Interlocken, Phenicie said.
“At that time, everything
at Interlocken was going
to be for an office develop-
ment,” Phenicie said.
The site borders the south
side of the Omni Interlocken
Resort Golf Course and pro-
vides postcard perfect views
of the mountains.
“It really is Main and Main
in Interlocken,” Phenicie
said.
The site was under con-
tract for almost a year.
During that time, the
Spanos development team,
headed by Chris Grady of
A rendering of the apartment community in Interlocken by A.G. Spanos
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
Sonia Danielsen’s roots in
River North have grown in a
new direction, and countless
folks will be thankful for that.
Danielsen has reinvented
the Blake Street print shop
she inherited from her father
and grandfather as a many-
sided project called Bindery
on Blake. People can watch
beer and hard cider being
produced while taste testing
beverages with a meal. They
could rent an artist studio for
$500 a month, or they may
happen to work for one of
the companies that leased up
all the office space before the
project’s delivery this month.
“Twenty years ago, I had a
vision of what I wanted it to
look like when printing was
no longer,” said Danielsen,
who sold the printing busi-
ness in 2014 and kept the real
estate at 2875 and 2901 Blake.
Danielsen originally thought
she’d convert the building to
multitenant industrial space.
Instead it became all things
RiNo.
“The vision started in my
head, and not necessarily in
my husband’s head,” said
Danielsen, who developed
the Binderywithher husband,
Barry, whose background is in
commercial real estate. “I had
to prove to him that this was
the right thing to do,” she
said, sitting amidst reminders
of her earlier life, like pieces
of printing presses fashioned
into a long dining table inside
the Rackhouse Pub.
The Rackhouse is Bind-
ery on Blake’s restaurant, a
mezzanine-level venue sand-
wiched between Bierstadt
Lager and C Squared Cider.
From the Rackhouse, with its
imported copper brew ket-
tles, you can look below at
the production facilities and
C Squared’s office – a repur-
posed trailer home.
Danielsen’s
company,
Eastwood Printing, built the
21,000-square-foot building in
1997 because it needed more
room, and the 4,000-sf mez-
zanine has been added. The
building has been branded
The Juicebox. Loading docks
joined the building to the
original, 1927 printing plant,
which comprises 46,000 sf.
The buildings were separated
during redevelopment to cre-
ate a pathway to Coors Field
parking that the Bindery will
share.
Davis Partnership Archi-
tects will occupy the older
building, called The Sandbox.
Also in the building will be
advertising firm Motive; Met-
ropolitan Hardwood Floors;
Spazo Prego, an Italian kitch-
en and bath company that
will have a showroom on
Blake; Danielsen Investments;
and Centro Consulting.
The Sandbox also includes
13 200- to 250-sf artist studios,
“part of giving back to RiNo
and giving back to the artists
that have done so much to
put RiNo on the map,” said
Danielsen. “It’s giving them a
place to create. I didn’t want
to see them get pushed out
like they did in LoDo 20 years
ago.”
Sprung Construction was
the contractor, OZ Architec-
ture designed the core and
shell, and Davis Partnership
played a big role in the design.
Except for the artist stu-
dios, which will be leased
on a month-to-month basis,
“We’ve been completely
Office space and artist studios will be housed in The Sandbox at
2901 Blake St.
CONTENTS
4
12
15
16
18
CDE
20
28
29
30
32
33
42
Inside
1 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,...76
Powered by FlippingBook