Colorado Real Estate Journal -
David Nestor reinvented his lighting company, and now his high-visibility building on South Santa Fe Drive is being reinvented. Nestor sold the Urban Lights building at 1385-1393 S. Santa Fe Drive in Denver to Greenbox III LLC, an entity of Denver based Focus Property Group, for $5.31 million. Urban Lights will remain on the main level while Focus turns the lower floor into 65,000 square feet of green self-storage space. “It couldn’t have been a better match,” said Nestor, who was represented by Cassidy Turley Colorado brokers Tyler Smith, Alec Rhodes and Aaron Valdez. “I was able to keep the showroom intact, the office intact and still maintain the warehouse I needed to do the business I’m doing.” The 131,245-sf building is a fixture on the Santa Fe corridor, and that’s one of the reasons Focus Property Group liked it for its Greenbox Self Storage concept. “All of our Greenbox locations are in urban areas with high visibility and high traffic. They are essentially retail locations,” said Focus Property Group Vice President Josh Fine. “This was a great fit for us because it’s right on South Santa Fe Drive, so it has tremendous exposure. It’s in between a lot of very dense neighborhoods, both to the south and to the north.” Its third Greenbox development, the property will include around 650 eco-friendly storage units. Beetle-kill pine will be used to build office walls, and there will be a rooftop photovoltaic array, insulation to reduce energy use, low-water use fixtures and other green features. Focus recently completed Denver’s first self-storage facility built for LEED certification at 3310 Brighton Blvd. and broke ground for a second project at 2424 Delgany St. “Our goal is to be the dominant self-storage brand in Denver. We feel like our niche is a good fit for the Denver area, so we’re excited to roll that out,” said Fine, adding the company is looking for additional sites. Reinvention of the Santa Fe building, a retail/showroom/ warehouse building constructed in 1984, in another bright spot for Nestor’s lighting business, which he has turned into a nationally recognized operation. The founder of Foothills Lighting & Supply, which outgrew its original location in Lakewood, he sold the business and leased the Santa Fe building to a building supply firm in 2005. Under the new ownership and a bad economy, the business suffered. “It was obvious about four years into that lease they were not going to be a viable tenant,” Nestor said. “In July 2010, I had a choice to make … Unfortunately they had so soiled the Foothills Lighting name that I really felt I had no alternative but to rebrand,” he said. Nestor formed Urban Lights, hired back many of his former employees and rebuilt the business, which has been recognized nationally as Showroom of the Year in the over-$6 million category by Residential Lighting magazine. “I didn’t have a sales problem anymore. What I had was a real estate problem,” he said, adding he didn’t need the entire building and “couldn’t find a good tenant to save myself.” A family friend recommended Smith, and within a month Cassidy Turley was generating activity on the building, Nestor said. “Thanks to the guys at Cassidy Turley and ultimately the buyer, the spirit feels pretty good right now. “It’s been a fast track up to the top again. We’re excited to be back in the running.”