Colorado Real Estate Journal - January 6, 2016
When the call came, Chris Phenicie was just putting together a package to market a prime piece of real estate in the Interlocken Advanced Technology Environment in Broomfield about a year ago.
Robert Chase of Fuller Real Estate asked Phenicie, a broker with CBRE, if the owner of the 11-acre site, JPI Colorado LP, would be interested in selling the land at 355 Eldorado Boulevard. The prospective buyer? A.G. Spanos of Stockton, California. During the past 55 years, the privately held company has developed more than 120,000 apartment units, as well as 2 million square feet of office space and more than 400 other developments. The Spanos family also owns the San Diego Chargers. Last year, A.G. Spanos sold the 265-unit Element 47 apartment community that it developed in Denver’s Jefferson Park for $69 million. “It was perfect timing” to get the phone call from Chase, Phenicie recalled. “When you get a call from a company of the stature of A.G. Spanos, it’s a no-brainer,” Phenicie said. “You deal exclusively with Spanos, which is what we did,” Phenicie said. Spanos had hired Bob Leino, also of Fuller Real Estate, to find a site in Interlocken. “I think they really like Interlocken because it is a terrific growth area with all of these high-technology companies,” Leino said. “And they really are making a community in Interlocken that is really slanted toward the millennials,” Leino said. He said Chase is an appraiser “who thought this would be a great site for Spanos and he knew that Chris Phenicie at CBRE had a management contract with JPI,” Leino said. JPI had owned the property since the early days of Interlocken, Phenicie said. “At that time, everything at Interlocken was going to be for an office development,” Phenicie said. The site borders the south side of the Omni Interlocken Resort Golf Course and provides postcard perfect views of the mountains. “It really is Main and Main in Interlocken,” Phenicie said. The site was under contract for almost a year. During that time, the Spanos development team, headed by Chris Grady of the Kephart architectural firm, worked closely with the city of Broomfield to obtain the necessary entitlements for a Class A apartment community. Spanos recently bought the property for $7 million. Spanos plans to develop the 311-unit Eldorado Interlocken Apartments on the site. The community will include 265 traditional apartment units and 46 townhome-style rental units. The sale price equates to $14.58 per square foot and $22,508 per buildable unit. The site is zoned for 28.5 units per acre. Eldorado Interlocken Apartments will have three connected four-story buildings, according to John Winslow, principal of Winslow Property Consultants. Winslow was not involved in the transaction, but has researched it. The main apartment building will have 93 studios, with three floor plans, ranging from 448 sf to 599 sf, with an average of 524 sf, according to Winslow. There will be 104, one-bedroom units, ranging from 675 sf to 913 sf, with an average size of 771 sf. Eldorado Interlocken also will include 64 two-bedroom/ two-bathroom units, ranging in size from 1,024 to 1,340 sf and an average size of 1,144 sf, according to Winslow. For those seeking more space, it will provide four three-bedroom/two-bathroom units of 1,325 sf each. The townhome units will be even larger, ranging from 1,499 to 1,603 sf. Amenities will include a “yoga lawn,” a swimming pool, a community garden and a dog park. It also will include 433 parking spaces, according to Winslow’s research. There are 433 parking spaces in the main building, according to Winslow. The townhome development contains 46 twocar garages (92 parking spaces) 20 driveway parking spaces and 27 open-site parking stalls, totaling 141 parking spaces. A.G. Spanos will bring much needed high-quality rental units to Interlocken, according to Leino. “They started from scratch on this project and they are just going to develop a wonderful building on a fantastic site,” Leino said