One of the most talked-about development sites in downtown Denver sold for $700 per square foot – a price that would put the some of the city’s top office buildings to shame.
But 650 17th St. isn’t the kind of site they make anymore.
“We’re starting to get totally built out. There are very few of these larger sites left,” said Buzz Geller of Paradise Land Co., who sold the 25,000-square foot property to Boston-based Harbinger Development for $17.5 million.
“It’s Main and Main. It doesn’t get any better than that in downtown Denver, so I priced it accordingly,” said Geller. “I think the price is justified,” he said, adding two appraisals substantiated that; one came in at more than $18 million.
Harbinger Development, which didn’t return calls about the acquisition, hasn’t said what its plans are for the site or whether it is looking to assemble other properties on the block. A developer that previously had Geller’s site under contract boasted plans for a 1,000-foot tower – the tallest building in Colorado. That developer had the land under contact for around 16 months but asked for an extension, which Geller said he felt was “unreasonable.”
“Plus, by then the property was worth a lot more” than the contract price, he noted.
The site is located within the city’s “downtown core” zoning district, which stretches from 14th to 18th streets, and from Broadway to Lawrence Street. There is no height restriction, and the allowable floor-to-area ratio is 17:1.
Geller paid $3.5 million for the property in 2002, when Denver’s real estate market was far less magnetic than it is today.
“I just think we’ve come of age so to speak, being able to compete with larger cities,” said Geller.
Prior to the sale of 650 17th, the high-water mark for downtown development sites appears to have been held by parking lots at 822 18th St. and 1321 16th St., which sold to separate hotel developers for about $638 per sf, according to Cushman & Wakefield Managing Director Wade Fletcher, whose expertise includes urban infill properties. Those sites, one of which sold this year and the other in 2016, were considerably smaller, approximately 12,600 and 15,600 sf.
Harbinger Development, which develops a variety of commercial product types, has been heavily involved in hotel development. Current projects, according to its website, include a 415-room, dual-brand Hilton hotel in the Boston Seaport and a 225-key Haymarket Hotel and retail project in Boston’s North End.
