Colorado Real Estate Journal - November 4, 2015
A landmark office tower on the Colorado Boulevard corridor sold to a local buyer that is repositioning the asset. An entity led by Westside Investment Partners purchased Mountain Towers for $25.25 million. The 19-story, 209,813-square foot building at 4100 E. Mississippi Ave. in Glendale, just west of Infinity Park, has been renamed Infinity Tower. Westside Investment Partners will redo the lobby and common areas inside and out, add a fitness center and showers, and create a large, modern conference room that’s conducive for training and other presentations. “We felt like it was a good opportunity to reposition the asset,” said Andrew Klein, Westside Investment Partners principal. The building was 72 percent occupied when it sold, while office occupancy along Colorado Boulevard – which is benefiting from escalating prices in Cherry Creek – is around 90 percent, he said. “There are a lot of people moving into that area from the Cherry Creek area, where the prices have gotten significantly higher,” Klein said. Investor interest in the building was “ phenomenal,” according to James Brady of Cushman & Wakefield. “It’s an iconic asset with a true value-add story with the lease-up of the vacancy and drafting off increasing rents in Cherry Creek,” said Brady. With lease rates in Cherry Creek skyrocketing, he said, rents also are improving along Colorado Boulevard. Brady represented seller Northridge Capital, a Washington, D.C.-based asset manager, with Cushman & Wakefield’s R.C. Myles and Stockton Baker. Infinity Tower’s largest tenant is the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which occupies 30 percent of the building. The VA has a dozen different divisions in the tower, each with their own lease expiration dates. Klein believes the asset will do well under Westside Investment Partners’ repositioning strategy, and local ownership and management. One thing unlikely to change is the Hyatt Place signage on the tower, which is 100 percent office space but is next door to the hotel. “A lot of people think it’s a hotel because it was originally intended as the Loews Giorgio and now says Hyatt Place,” said Klein. The original developer planned to put the hotel in the tower and develop a smaller, office building next door. The buildings were switched, however, because the hospitality market was struggling when the project got underway in the early 1980s. The 19-story office tower was completed in 1984 and has carried signage for the 15-story hotel since that building was completed two years later.