Colorado Real Estate Journal - December 2, 2015
It was if all of the real estate stars aligned on the recent $6.3 million sale of the Parkridge Plaza center in Lakewood. “Any deal in the Denver area market these days generates quite a bit of interest,” and this center was no exception, said Matt Ritter, a principal of Pinnacle Real Estate Advisors, who listed and sold the office and retail center with business partner Jeff Johnson. Ritter did not identify the buyer of the property, but records show Larry and Judith Chavez purchased it. “He was a really good buyer for this type of property,” Ritter said. He had sold an apartment building and was looking for a replacement property for a 1031 exchange to defer capital gains. “The benefit to him is that he probably sold his apartment building at a 5.5 cap and then bought this at probably a 7.5 or 7.75 cap,” Ritter said. The sale price equates to $101.89 per square foot for the 61,832-sf property. Parkridge sits on a four-acre site at 2009-2099 Wadsworth Blvd. and was built in 1979. The sellers, a group of local investors, purchased the property in 2013, when the property was 75 percent occupied. They invested some money on capital improvements and hired Pinnacle Real Estate Management, or PREM, to manage and lease the center, which is 79 percent retail and 21 percent office. PREM was able to drive the occupancy to about 94 percent when it sold, he said. “One thing that is really key to the success of these types of mom-and-pop centers is good management,” Ritter said. “The management team has to be very responsive,” Ritter said. “If you get a call from a tenant interested in 2,000 square feet, you say, ‘I’ll meet you there in an hour.’” While these types of centers are not as in demand as grocery-anchored centers, Ritter said Parkridge Plaza had more going for it than many centers of the same vintage. “Sometimes these older centers don’t have great visibility and locations, but Parkridge is very close to Wadsworth and (West) Colfax,” and is ghost anchored by big-box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot. The site also is near the Wadsworth Boulevard light-rail station and is about a seven-minute drive north of Belmar. Ritter said that there are groups like the sellers who buy these value-add deals, fix them up, improve the management and then sell them for a profit. “A lot of current owners of these little strip centers can make good money by selling in today’s market,” Ritter said. “But they look around where they would put their money if they sold and they don’t see many better opportunities out there,” Ritter said. The lack of assets for sale, in turn, drives up the price of properties that do hit the market, he concluded. Other News I Love Kickboxing leased 2,948 square feet in the Dransfeldt Business Center at 10140 Parkglenn Way, Units C and D, in Parker. The brokers in the transaction were Mitch Trevey and Nick Nickerson of Trevey Land and Commercial. Front Range Smiles, headed by Dr. Nathan Cejka, signed a 10-year lease for 2,395 sf at the Twenty Mile Mercantile center at 18551 E. Mainstreet in Parker. Trevey and Nickerson handled the transaction.