The first commercial building will emerge soon at North Park in Broomfield, and it’s only a small part of things to come.
The 152,761-square-foot flex building isn’t being built in isolation but rather as a component of the 1,100-acre master-planned community stretching from the Northwest Parkway to Highway 7 on the west side of Interstate 25.
Kyle Harris
“This is part of a much larger, well-thought-out master plan,” said Kyle Harris, McWhinney vice president community development, North Park general manager. “It’s an important (use), but it works better in conjunction with all the other uses we anticipate for the community.”
North Park is a McWhinney-developed community planned for as many as 17.2 million sf of commercial space and 6,205 residential units. To date, it includes a 98-unit residential community being completed by KB Home, and Prospect Ridge Academy, a K-12 school with a strong math and science focus. McWhinney also is discussing a possible future STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) school with Adams 12 Five Stars Schools, JPMorgan Chase plans to break ground on an operations/data center by early 2018 on 100-plus acres it acquired at North Park, and additional development is expected to be announced in the near term.
At the same time, McWhinney and a team of consultants are revising the nearly decade-old North Park master plan, looking at rebranding, incorporating agriculture and many other facets. The process will be completed by November.
McWhinney is kicking off the flex/industrial building on a speculative basis due in part to the strength of the industrial market. The building will be located at 1785 W. 160th Ave. and is scheduled for core and shell completion in May.
“The flex/industrial marketplace continues to be very strong. Secondly, we believe our locational advantages are going to be well received in the marketplace,” said Harris, adding there is “great access” to the Northwest Parkway, Interstate 25 and Baseline Road/Highway 7, as well as ease of access to Denver International Airport.
“We believe tenants are going to want to have access to other assets and amenities within a community setting, and there’s not much of that in the industrial marketplace,” he said. The building will be next to a linear park that McWhinney is developing, so employees will have use of North Park’s extensive system of trails and open space, as well as restaurants, services and a variety of housing. “Having all those pieces together we think will create an opportunity that you just don’t see in other flex spaces,” Harris commented.
In addition, “We are seeing that Denver continues to move to the north from a development perspective, and Boulder continues to push to the east,” positioning North Park to capture all kinds of users, including those in STEM-type industries.
Jeremy Kroner, Jim Bolt and Frank Kelley of CBRE will market the building for lease in cooperation with Ashley Stiles at McWhinney. The state-of-the-art building will have 24-foot ceiling height, an ESFR sprinkler system, and dock-high and drive-in loading.
