MAY 18-MAY 31, 2016
by John Rebchook
SteelWave, a new company
with a long history, is making
its multifamily development
debut in the Denver area with
a $100 million apartment
community in Aurora.
SteelWave, formerly Lega-
cy Partners Commercial, has
purchased 15 acres adjacent
to the Iliff light-rail station,
where it plans a 424-unit
apartment community. It
paid $6.75 million, or $10.22
per square foot, for the land,
sold by Fashion Bar Associ-
ates.
The company’s equity part-
ner is Junius Real Estate Part-
ners, a JPMorgan subsidiary.
The light-rail station opens
later this year.
The community is a true
transit-oriented develop-
ment, said
B a r r y
DiRaimon-
do, CEO of
SteelWave,
based in
Foster City,
California.
“It truly
is,” DiRai-
m o n d o
said
in
a phone interview with the
Colorado Real Estate Journal.
“It is truly not even a 5-iron
shot from the station,” DiRai-
mondo said.
The three- and four-story
community will have high-
end finishes and all of the
amenities that residents
expect, but it will not be like
the luxurious apartments
being built around down-
town Denver, he said.
“This is working-bee hous-
ing,” DiRaimondo said.
“This is for the midlevel
executive who might work at
the Denver Tech Center or the
research people and young
physicians at the Fitzsimons
medical campus,” he said.
“We also will draw from
Buckley,” he added.
About 137,000 people work
in the tech center, Fitzsimons
and Buckley.
He expects average rents to
run about $1.60 per sf.
“We’re not looking at the
$3 (per square foot) rents you
are going to see in LoDo,”
DiRaimondo said.
Also, with an average size
of about 900 sf, the Iliff Sta-
tion development will be big-
ger than a typical new urban
community, he noted.
“We think it will fill a niche
that is really underserved,”
DiRaimondo said.
“I think if you look at the
appeal of this and the appeal
SteelWave, a new company with a long history, has bought 15 acres next to the Iliff Station light-rail
station in Aurora.
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
�Amazon’s arrival in the
Denver market signals the
beginning of an e-commerce
push into the metro area.
“We have known for a long
time we’re going to see a real
growth of e-commerce in the
Denver market. It certainly is
exciting and really healthy for
the market to see this kind of
industry start to take off,” said
Tyler Carner, a CBRE indus-
trial specialist who was not
involved in the deal.
Amazon leased Majes-
tic Commercenter’s new
452,400-square-foot specula-
tive distribution building at
19799 E. 36th Drive in Aurora
for a package “sortation” cen-
ter, where products custom-
ers have ordered are sorted
and shipped to post offices
for delivery. The center will
speed up the delivery process
and allow the e-retail giant
to get packages to customers
on Sundays. Amazon Prime
members will be able to place
orders until 11:59 p.m. and still
get free two-day shipping.
“We are always looking for
ways to better serve custom-
ers, and this facility enables
faster delivery with later cut-
off times for orders,” spokes-
woman Ashley Robinson said
in an email. “We want tomake
sure we are placed as close to
the customer as possible to
ensure we can offer a great
Prime service and fast ship-
ping speeds to customers.”
Amazon is moving quickly
to open the center, which will
employ “hundreds” of work-
ers.Asked if therewill be relat-
ed facilities in the Denver area,
Amazon said it has “nothing
to announce at this time.”
Neither Majestic Realty Co.,
which owns the building, nor
the brokers who represent-
ed Amazon – Alec Rhodes,
Tyler Smith and Aaron Valdez
of Cushman & Wakefield –
would comment on the trans-
action.
The Rocky Mountain region
is not a huge distribution hub
because its population densi-
ty is low in comparison with
markets like Chicago, Los
Angeles and Houston, for
instance. But it is important
from a regional distribution
standpoint, and as e-com-
merce companies build out
their distribution networks
to get products to consumers
quickly, Denver and similar
markets come into play.
There currently are a cou-
ple of million-sf deals, and a
couple of 250,000-sf or larger
deals, in the market that are
e-commerce related, accord-
ing to Carner.
“If you look at these
e-commerce groups around
the country, they have these
large fulfillment centers and
they often have smaller dis-
tribution centers, often more
infill located. So we suspect
we will see some of those
going forward,” he said.
In addition, there are “mul-
tiple,” smaller e-commerce
deals in the market, he said,
adding third-party logis-
tics companies that supply
e-commerce companies also
will be looking for space.
“What we really are see-
ing, and will see, is growth
in everything from smaller,
25,000- to 50,000-square-foot
users connected to e-com-
merce to the larger e-com-
merce fulfillment centers,”
Carner said.
s
Majestic Commercenter’s 452,400-sf Building 29 will house Amazon’s “sortation,” or fulfillment, center.
Barry DiRaimondo
CONTENTS
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