A 92,080-square-foot building that houses North America’s largest climbing gym and two industrial tenants sold for $16.15 million, or $175.34 per sf.
Monterey, California-based Call Family Trust bought the property at 1050 W. Hampden Ave. in Englewood from Ogilvie Properties. Ogilvie acquired the property, formerly Sports Authority’s headquarters, in 2017 and repurposed it as industrial space and a 53,104-sf Earth Treks climbing gym.
Located at the high-traffic intersection of Hampden and South Santa Fe Drive, it is 100% leased to Earth Treks, Warming Trends and Standard Interiors.
Christian Smith
“This property presented a fantastic opportunity for an out-of-state investor to enter the competitive Front Range commercial real estate market with solid inplace income and significant term on the leases,” said Christian Smith, principal and broker associate at The Colorado Group Inc., who represented the buyer. “This is a property with a lot of exposure, solid tenants and potentially some value to be added in the long term.”
Jeremy Ballenger
CBRE Executive Vice President Jeremy Ballenger said, “1050 W. Hampden is a highly functional property with long-term leases, a growing revenue stream and an infill location in Denver’s south-central submarket. Rising transportation costs and growing customer demand for same day delivery have increased both the value of centrally located sites as well as industrial tenant demand for centrally located functional space. Despite this deep demand, little new construction has delivered in south-central Denver for decades due to nonexistent developable land.”
Ballenger, along with CBRE’s Tyler Carner, Jim Bolt and Jessica Ostermick, represented Ogilvie Properties in the sale.
According to CBRE research, while approximately 1.5 million sf of industrial space is slated to deliver in metro Denver in the first quarter, the south-central submarket has no industrial space under construction. A lack of new construction has contributed to the submarket recording an average historical vacancy rate of 2.3%, consistently one of the tightest industrial rates in the country and well below the Denver market average of 5.6%.
“Ogilvie understood where the market was heading when they acquired this property, and their anticipation of pentup demand has materialized. Tenants appreciate that this location is surrounded by high-income households and offers direct highway visibility and easy access to Denver’s growing population,” said Carner.
“This was another great group effort from Ogilvie Properties to get this across the finish line. We took an empty office facility and transformed half of it into North America’s largest climbing gym, popping the top from 20 feet to 50 feet, and transformed the other half into two tenant industrial spaces inclusive of two docks and multiple drive-in doors. In the end, we delivered very cool facility that was well-received by the investment community,” said Ogilvie Properties’ Stuart Ogilvie, who said CBRE was instrumental in helping execute the project’s success.
The level of investor interest in the building was “very high due to the location in the south-central submarket, which has been Denver’s tight submarket over many years,” said Ballenger. “Also, the location at the intersection of Hampden and Santa Fe makes this a uniquely visible and easy to access site. We saw interest from private buyers all the way to institutional buyers.”
The building has ESFR and wet sprinklers, a 140-foot fenced truck court, heavy power, monument signage along Santa Fe/U.S. Highway 85, significant parking capacity, and drive-in and dock-high loading.
