Page 16 —
COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— April 20-May 3, 2016
Boulder County & U.S. 36 Corridor
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
An apartment community near
the University of Colorado cam-
pus in Boulder will get consider-
ably bigger without changing its
footprint.
Brickstone Partners, which
has redeveloped seven proper-
ties near campus, will add 96
beds and modernize the Cavalier
Apartments at 2898 and 2900 E.
AuroraAve. The community cur-
rently has 220 units, or 260 beds.
“With the development cli-
mate in Boulder being what it
is, becoming more and more
challenging to
find sites for
development,
we have tried
to find a way
to add density
within a sin-
gle complex,”
said Dan Otis,
B r i c k s t o n e
Partners prin-
cipal. “We’ve
figured out how to add almost
100 beds within the existing com-
munity.”
There are 84 large one-bedroom
apartments that will be convert-
ed to two-bedroom units and a
dozen two-bedroom units that
will be transformed into three-
bedroom apartments.
Brickstone Partners bought the
Cavalier Apartments for $43.1
million late last year in what was
one of the largest multifamily
property sales near CU in sev-
eral years. It will spend between
$10 million and $12 million on
the conversion and upgrades,
including turning the exist-
ing clubhouse into a “Colorado
chalet”-type amenity.
On a per-bed basis, apartments
currently rent for around $900
per month. After renovation,
rents are projected to increase
to $1,100 to $1,200 per bed, Otis
said.
While the apartments will con-
tinue to draw students because
of their location directly east of
the university, “We tend to try
to develop and redevelop these
assets so they appeal not only
to students but the market as a
whole,” said Otis, who is part
of the team that is developing
Google’s $100 million, 330,000-sf
campus at 30th and Pearl. Prox-
imity to Google was part of the
impetus for the project, which
is likely to draw some of those
employees, he said.
Built in 1969, the community
includes many of the original
interior finishes. Brickstone will
spend $20,000 to $60,000 per unit
on upgrades, depending on each
unit’s needs. The propertywill be
renamed and rebranded.
The apartments were essen-
tially full at the time of the sale.
Some occupancy will be main-
tained during construction. A
large number of “new” units will
be available in August.
Littleton-based Bristlecone
Construction Corp. is the general
contractor. Jeff Dawson of Boul-
der-based Studio Architecture is
the architect.
Noting that Boulder’s compre-
hensive plan calls for increased
density in the area east of CU,
Otis said the addition of beds at
Cavalier will be a win-win for
the city, the university – which
badly needs additional rentals
near campus – and the developer.
“We’re able to do it in a build-
ing that’s existing without
expanding the footprint or mak-
ing the buildings taller. It really is
a good way to create sustainable
development and provide qual-
ity housing,” he said.
With this latest redevelopment,
Brickstone Partners has com-
pleted multihousing projects in
Boulder with a market valuation
in excess of $200 million.
Other News
n
Boulder’s first
Housing
First
community for formerly
chronically homeless residents is
achieving the program’s goal of
helping provide secure housing
and supportive services, accord-
ing to a new report from
Boulder
Housing Partners
and the
Boul-
der Shelter for the Homeless.
The property at 1175 LeeHill, at
the corner of Lee Hill Drive and
North Broadway Street in north
Boulder, opened in November
2014 and provides housing for
31 formerly homeless men and
women.
“The first year has been very
successful,” said
Betsey Mar-
tens,
executive director of BHP.
“We wanted to demonstrate the
Housing First model locally. We
wanted to show how it yields
real benefits to individual resi-
dents as well as the greater com-
munity. We wanted to demon-
strate that Housing First can be
a good neighbor. And we wanted
to build something beautiful.
We’re achieving all four goals and
will continue to do so.”
TheHousingFirstmodelisbeing
implemented around the country
as a way to reduce chronic home-
lessness by providing people with
housing and supportive services
to help them achieve long-term
stability and self-reliance. The
chronically homeless often suffer
from disabilities and poor health,
which prompt heavy utilization
of public health and emergency
services. Research has shown that
the Housing First model signifi-
cantly reduces demand on hos-
pital emergency rooms, jails and
court systems as well as human
service agencies.
The report on 1175 Lee Hill
found:
• There were no calls to police
from the neighborhood related to
Lee Hill or its residents and BHP
received no complaints from the
neighborhood.
• Lee Hill residents called for
emergency services 49 times, with
82 percent of those calls for medi-
cal assistance.
• Residents now have easy
access to Medicaid/Medicare (25
residents), Supplemental Security
Income (11 residents), Aid to the
Needy and Disabled (seven resi-
dents) and Social Security Disabil-
ity Insurance (seven residents).
• A total of 13 partner agencies
provide a wide variety of pro-
grams, such as art classes, cook-
ing classes, mental health support
and food.
Additional research onprogram
performance will be completed
this year.
“We know that the Housing
First model works, and it’s great
to expand these programs to bet-
ter serve the homeless and the
community,” said
Greg Harms,
executive director of Boulder
Shelter for the Homeless, which
administers support services at
LeeHill. “Giving homeless people
a place to live saves lives and
saves the community money.”
A Denver study found each
chronically homeless person liv-
ing on the streets costs an aver-
age community about $43,300 per
year. By contrast, it costs about
$11,700 per year to provide hous-
ing and case management in a
Housing First setting.
s
Brickstone Partners will spend in excess of $10 million redeveloping the Cavalier Apartments, which will be renamed.
The Cavalier Apartments is just across 28th Street from the CU law school and easily accessible via the 28th
Street underpass.
Dan Otis
and will offer underground
parking exceeding downtown
ratios, on-site bicycle storage,
and mountain and river views.
The chance to buy the cov-
eted 66,320-sf site for $12 mil-
lion – or $180.94 per sf – came
about because Trammell Crow
provided a new location for
Empire Staple Co., something
that company’s owner had
been seeking for years.
Trammell Crow delivered
a 61,870-sf build-to-suit to
Empire Sta-
ple at Cross-
roads Com-
merce Park
in Denver for
$7.91 million
the same day
it bought the
Platte Street
site.
“ E v e r y
developer in
town was trying to get that
property,” Mosher said of the
Riverview site. “We just hap-
pened to win the replacement-
property lottery, I guess.
“We just love the location. We
really think that Platte Street is
part of downtown,” he said.
Riverview at 1700 Platte
will join a list of smaller office
developments completed or
planned in the Platte Street
neighborhood. The site shares
a property line with the 76,000-
sf Galvanize building. Goff
Capital Partners reportedly is
planning around 130,000 sf of
future office development at
the Natural Grocers site at 15th
and Platte, and Unico Proper-
ties has a site for around 80,000
sf of office, plus retail develop-
ment, just south of The Lab, a
new 77,500-sf office building at
2420 Platte.
The Riverview site has direct
access to two interchanges and
is within a short walk or bike
ride to light rail/commuter
rail/bus transportation at Den-
ver Union Station.
“This site is the best remain-
ing land parcel available for
development in the Central
Platte Valley, LoDo and LoHi
submarkets,” said Michael
Duffy, senior vice president of
asset management with Clarion
Partners. “We are excited to
partner with Trammell Crow
Co. on this opportunity.”
Tryba Architects is the proj-
ect architect for the building,
which will be built by Saunders
Construction. The CBRE team
of Chris Phenicie, Allison Berry
and Hilary Barnett will manage
leasing of the office space, and
Kelly Greene of Urban Legend
Retail will market and lease the
retail space.
s
Trammell Crow
Bill Mosher
