Colorado Real Estate Journal - November 4, 2015
A $190 million building with anchor tenant DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc. will be among the last office buildings to be built in the Denver Union Station neighborhood. It also will be one of the tallest buildings in the Central Platte Valley at 250 feet, rivaling 1900 Sixteenth St. and the Glass House. DaVita will occupy 265,000 square feet, or all but four floors of the 19-story building, which will be across the street from the health care company’s headquarters. Starwood Capital Group and East West Partners will break ground on the project, called 16 Chestnut, in July. DaVita is scheduled to move into the building, which will allow for up to 1,200 additional teammates, in August 2018. “DaVita believed in our vision for the Union Station neighborhood long before it came to fruition. We are honored that they are entrusting us in making a second home for their teammates,” said Chris Frampton, managing partner at East West Partners. DaVita will have signage atop the building, which will have frontage on both 16th and 17th streets. An earlier design was altered to accommodate the health care company. “As the lead tenant and as a company that cares very much about their teammates and culture, we were able to make a series of changes that give them the presence they deserve. Those changes will also create a seamless headquarters environment for DaVita without sacrificing the experience of the rest of the building’s tenants,” said Frampton. There will be a separate lobby and elevator bank for tenants of the available floors – Floors 6 through 9 – which will be marketed starting in January. The building will have 40,000- sf floor plates. Targeted for LEED Platinum certification, 16 Chestnut will make extensive use of glass, allowing for striking views of the city and mountains. Gensler is the architect. BuildMark will provide construction management. A general contractor hasn’t been named. East West Partners and Starwood Capital Group developed two other buildings in the neighborhood: One Union Station, which sold for a record $602 per sf in 2014, and the recently completed Triangle Building, whose tenants will include Liberty Global and WeWork. Only a handful of sites in the Denver Union Station neighborhood have yet to be developed. East West and Amstar are working on plans for B Block, while three other sites are planned for apartments and a hotel.