An approximately 80,000-square-foot “communal” office building is being planned for 2½ acres in East Boulder.
Sagebrush Cos. recently purchased the site at 5125 Pearl Parkway for $4 million. It is working with Bill Holicky of Boulder-based Coburn to design Boulder Industry & Arts Center, a working environment similar to Industry in Denver’s River North neighborhood.
“It’s really designed to be an Industry concept where you have a lot of different companies, but you can still have your own private offices,” said Don Caster, principal and president of asset management and development for Denver-based Sagebrush Cos. By code, the largest user will be 5,000 sf, “So you can rent a 100-square-foot office all the way up to 5,000 square feet,” he said.
People will be able to lease out a desk for a day or a month, “But the majority of it, we’ve found, will be private offices,” said Caster, adding there also will be restaurant offerings on the ground floor.
With Google’s new campus being constructed less than 1½ miles away at Pearl and 30th streets and employing up to 1,500 workers over time, Caster said Boulder Industry & Arts Center is likely to appeal to technology companies following Google. However, “I don’t believe it’s going to be 100 percent tech-driven,” he said, adding there definitely will be interest from artists, whether they be dance studios, painters, sculptors, etc.
The development is among Sagebrush Cos.’ first projects in Boulder. It also is building for-rent rowhomes and planning a boutique hotel in Boulder Junction.
“Boulder is a good market. There’s a lot of demand. It’s obviously high barrier to entry. It’s a beautiful area – great people, great economics. I don’t think there’s anything not to like about it,” Caster said.
Because the uses proposed for Boulder Industry & Arts Center are allowed under current zoning, he anticipates Sagebrush Cos. will be in position to break ground in about a year. The project will take approximately 12 months to complete.
Caster estimates construction costs will be about $300 per sf when the building gets under way, which would make the core-and-shell roughly $24 million.
Boulder Industry & Arts Center is designed to be highly sustainable.
While there are numerous communal workspaces in Boulder – Galvanize, Fuse, Impact Hub, Intelligent Office, PivotDesk, “There’s nothing like this concept,” Caster said. “It’s not the typical think tank concept where you just come in and rent a space. You can actually have an office address there, and we’ll also have some form of restaurants as well, so you never really have to leave that space.”
Although it’s early in the design process, Caster is confident in the outcome. In Coburn, “We hired a local firm that knows Boulder very well, and that’s going to give us a finished product that most people will be happy with,” he said.
