Colorado Real Estate Journal - February 4, 2015
The $177 million St. Anthony North Health Campus will be the most prominent new development on the north Interstate 25 corridor when it opens next month, and more growth – including a hotel and new retail – will follow. The 350,000-square-foot facility just west of I-25 on West 144th Avenue will be a centerpiece of Centura Health’s new “health neighborhood” approach, offering inpatient and outpatient care in a single location with an emphasis on preventive health, wellness and health education. “Centura Health has served the communities of Westminster, Thornton and Northglenn for more than 40 years and the new St. Anthony North Health Campus allows us to expand our care to Broomfield, Brighton and Erie,” said Carole Peet, CEO of the new campus. “St. Anthony North Health Campus was built to meet the immediate and future needs of our neighbors in the growing north metro Denver area with a focus on delivering the best health care available, with unparalleled service and convenience.” The campus will officially open March 3, employing 1,355 people. Designed by Earl Swennson Associates Inc. and built by GE Johnson, it will include 92 inpatient beds, a Level III trauma center, and integrated primary care physician and specialist offices, along with outpatient diagnostics and treatment, a Women’s Center and more. The St. Anthony North campus sits on a portion of an approximately 60-acre site that Mesa, Arizona-based Arizona Gold Properties acquired in 2005, when plans were being made for a new interchange at 144th Avenue for the more than-1 million-sf Orchard Town Center to the north. After selling approximately 35 acres to Centura Health, Mesa Gold has approximately 20 remaining acres remaining immediately to the west, across Orchard Parkway, where it will develop Orchard Park Place. The first phase will include new retail space at 144th Avenue and Orchard Parkway and a neighboring hotel at 144th and Huron Street. Development would have occurred without St. Anthony North, but the medical campus certainly helps, according to Rob Friend, a partner in Mesa Gold Properties. There is “a lot of excitement and new energy” in the vicinity with the hospital and residential growth that’s occurring and planned, including McWhinney 935-acre North Park development to the north of Orchard Town Center in Broomfield. McWhinney will start building luxury apartments at North Park this year. Directly east of the St. Anthony North Health Campus on the east side of I-25 in Thornton, The Staenberg Group continues to add retailers at The Grove, anchored by Cabela’s. An outlet mall also is being proposed at East 136th Avenue. “This area is quickly becoming the place to be in Denver north metro,” said Friend. Mesa Gold Properties is in the final stages of official development plan review with the city of Westminster for the first phase of its development, which will include a four-story, 100- room Courtyard by Marriott hotel and two 12,000-sf multitenant retail buildings. It has letters of intent from Noodles & Co., Einstein Bros Bagels and a concept new to Colorado, Bricks Wood Fired Pizza. It also has a couple of pad sites for casual sitdown and fast-food restaurants. The company hopes to start grading and infrastructure work in April and have the retail buildings ready for tenant improvements by the end of the year. Construction of the hotel is expected to start in late summer to early fall and take a year to complete. “The trade area, we’ve found, is in desperate need of retail development, especially the smaller-format retail that we’re developing,” said Friend. There also is a need for hotel rooms, he said, noting the nearest hotels, around 120th Avenue and I-25, “have been around for awhile.” “If you look at the motel market along the I-25 corridor, really there’s nothing north of 120th and I-25, so a new brand like a Courtyard by Marriott, we feel, would do very well.” Mesa Gold is considering a couple of options for development of the second phase of Orchard Park Place. “Option 1 is four or five retail junior anchors like soft, goods, sporting goods. Another option would be office that complements the hospital and all the residential growth that is taking place in that area,” said Friend, who added he company is evaluating whether there are potential development partners for that phase of the project.