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COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— March 16-April 5, 2016
being proposed.
Also, an approximately
17-acre commercial develop-
ment at Vista Ridge is being
marketed by David Hicks Lam-
pert. It will include room for a
retail anchor and inline space,
as well as pad sites.
Erie’s residential growth,
demographics and location
between Boulder and North-
ern Colorado are playing into
demand for new retail, said
Paula Mehle, economic devel-
opment coordinator for the
town of Erie.
“We are getting a lot of resi-
dential development. Our
downtown is exploding,” said
Mehle, who said Erie residents
who used to leave the commu-
nity to do their shopping will
have more opportunity to keep
their sales tax dollars within
their community.
With a population of approxi-
mately 23,000, Erie added 1,200
residents last year, she said.
Average annual household
income is $109,000, 57 percent
of those 25 and older have col-
lege or advanced degrees, and
average housing prices are
$300,000 and up. The town also
is at a crossroads for people
commuting between Boulder
and the Interstate 25 corridor.
“We are central to everything,”
Mehle said.
“When you’re dealing with
retailers, they have to see roof-
tops. They don’t believe in the
rumor mill or what we say
will happen,” said Phil Irwin
of Irwin & Hendrick, who is
involved with Coal Creek Cen-
ter. “We’re getting all these
new homes going up. They’re
finally believing that this mar-
ket is going to be an extremely
strong market,” he said.
Coal Creek Center – and
Erie itself, for that matter – is
surrounded by housing, and
prices are reasonable relative to
nearby Boulder. “You can sell
your house in Boulder and buy
a house and a half here in Erie,
and it’s brand-new.
“It’s a really neat little area
that I think people are finally
finding out about,” Irwin said.
South of Walgreens, 12,000 sf
of inline retail is being planned,
and plans also are in the works
for a 12,000-sf Class A specula-
tive office building.
“If you want to look for
an office space out here, you
would find that there’s zero,”
Irwin said. “We just feel there
is a pretty strong market build-
ing for office.”
Carlson of Evergreen Devco
said three primary factors
drove it to seek a partnership
with the town to develop Nine
Mile Corner.
“The town of Erie staff and
board of trustees are very busi-
ness-friendly,” he said. “Being
welcomed into the communi-
ty is always really important,
especially when you beginning
a really large project like this,”
he said, adding a partnership
is vital given project complexi-
ties.
Second, “It’s just good real
estate,” he said, noting both
Highway 287 and Arapahoe
are important commuter cor-
ridors.
Third, “We do see a need in
the market for a different type
of neighborhood shopping cen-
ter. Right now the retail that is
in the Erie trade area is fairly
traditional. We’d like to do
something different,” he said,
adding the goal is to create a
project that is “uniquely Erie,”
reflecting the community’s his-
tory and character.
Evergreen Devco is finaliz-
ing its contract agreement with
the town and will be market-
ing Nine Mile Corner at the
International Council of Shop-
ping Centers convention in
Las Vegas in May. It hopes to
complete key details, including
securing an anchor, rezoning
the property and finalizing a
public-private financial pack-
age this year, which could lead
to construction in early 2017.
The 125,000-sf King Soopers
store at Vista Ridge Market-
place will include a fuel sta-
tion, along with approximately
7,100 sf of inline retail space and
three pads that Crosbie Real
Estate Group is marketing on
behalf of the grocery chain. The
store will offer King Soopers’
ClickList option, which allows
customers to order online and
have groceries brought to their
car when they arrive.
Mehle said Erie residents
are enthusiastic about hav-
ing a second grocery store in
the community, which sits in
Boulder County on the west
and Weld County on the east,
where much of the new devel-
opment is taking place. “They
are so excited to have another
opportunity for grocery shop-
ping, to be able to contribute to
their own sales tax within their
own community,” she said.
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Erie
ket, which seems like a lot. But
if every millennial living in their
parents’ basement decided to
rent an apartment, the demand
would overwhelm the supply,
according to Andrews.
While the sexy, high-profile
sales often make the headlines,
there is a much larger invest-
ment appetite for older, value-
add deals.
“Investors are not solely
focused on new properties,”
Hunt said.
“Many investors are buying
and selling apartments built in
the 1970s and ‘80s,” Hunt said.
“We are seeing record sale pric-
es and record rents in the older
assets,” Hunt said.
“Amajority of our buyers, over
85 percent, are looking for value-
add opportunities, and they are
finding a lot of these opportuni-
ties in older assets,” he said.
There were 109 properties built
between 1970 and 1990 that sold
in 2015.
One area experiencing signifi-
cant appreciation is Capitol Hill.
The popularity of downtown
Denver and the eclectic nature of
older assets in Capitol Hill have
drawn not only renters but also
investors, according to Andy
Hellman. Hellman, along with
Justin Hunt and Robert Bratley
of ARANewmark, sold 46 prop-
erties in the last 15 months, Of
those, 23 are in the Capitol Hill
submarket.
“It used to be all local, pri-
vate owners in this submar-
ket,” Hunt said.
“Now we are seeing larger
investment groups, out-of-state
investors and even institutional
investors” interested in those
properties, he said.
RedPeak Properties, in addi-
tion to renovating the old 1600
Glenarm tower in downtown
Denver and developing the
One City Block community in
Uptown and the Seasons of
Cherry Creek, also has been an
aggressive buyer of older prop-
erties.
During the past five years, it
has acquired 850 units in central
Denver neighborhoods, such as
Capitol Hill.
Whether developing or buy-
ing, RedPeak’s strategy is the
same.
“Our strategy has been to get
in front of the demand. Cherry
Creek, downtown, Uptown and
Capitol Hill,” Zoellner said.
“Those areas are highly walk-
able and where we believe the
people want to be,” Zoellner
said.
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Newmark
CBRE’s world headquarters in Los
Angeles as well as offices including
Chicago and Mexico City already have
gone that route, and Schippits said
more than 90 percent of the employ-
ees in those offices have stated they
wouldn’t go back to their previous
work environments.
The design is based on how CBRE
employees work and is not a formula to
be replicated by its clients. Rather, what
CBRE’s in-house Workplace Strategy
group does is study how an individual
company operates and its employees
needs, and creates a workplace strategy
around that. A strategy for a law firm,
for instance, would look quite different.
“Our Workplace Strategy team
includes some of the brightest minds
in the country when it comes to under-
standing how a work environment
impacts culture, productivity and tal-
ent retention,” Schippits said. “In our
Denver office, we are practicing what
we preach and creating space that
embraces the new way people work
today, including a strong emphasis on
employee choice and flexibility.
“We were our own client, if you will,”
said Schippits, explaining Workplace
Strategies found no group of CBRE
employees in their seats more than
half of the time. The result can be like
an empty parking lot: unused, lifeless
space. “What we’re looking for in a
workplace is an activated sense of com-
munity,” he said.
Money the company saves on doing
away with assigned desks will be put
toward amenities. The “heart” of the
offices will be a hotel lobby-type space
with soft seating and a café where
employees can meet with clients, work
on their computers or take a break
without having to walk down the street
to a coffee shop. “We really think we’re
going to find people in the office more
now,” said Schippits.
There will be shared neighborhoods
where complementary teams, such
as occupier services and project man-
agement, are grouped together. Each
neighborhood will have its own desk
areas, huddle rooms, etc.
Collaborative areas will replace cor-
ner offices and will account for 80 per-
cent of the west-facing space. “We want
some of the most attractive areas of the
space to be used by the most number of
people,” Schippits said.
Employees are providing input for
functionality of the new office. Not
everyone has embraced the coming
change, but Schippits said buy-in at
other CBRE offices has been “virtually
immediate.”
“They actually have this attachment
to the workspace,” he said, noting
employees are apt to show their space
off not only to clients, but also to
friends and family.
Gensler, which designed more than
two dozen Workplace360 offices for
CBRE around the world in partner-
ship with the CBRE Workplace Strat-
egy group, is designing the Denver
space. “We’ve designed it to very much
reflect a Colorado/Denver look and
feel,” Schippits said. The new office is
slated to open in April. The company’s
Greenwood Village offices also will be
redesigned when its lease there expires
a couple of years from now.
CBRE signed a lease for the down-
town space in January. Doug Bakke,
Sam DePizzol, Greg Holm, Hannah
Jacobus and Ira Wellen, all of CBRE’s
Occupier Advisory & Transaction Ser-
vices unit, represented the company in
the transaction.
s
Office
