VF Corp. didn’t mess around when it came to securing the building at 1551 Wewatta St. in Denver for its new global headquarters.
“They were, and we were equally, focused on getting to a transaction very quickly because there was a lot of interest in this building from other tenants,” said Scott Matthews, senior vice president of asset management for building owner Bentall Kennedy.
“I’ve never done a deal of this scale as quickly before. I give them full credit for being focused on it and going through the lease negotiations very quickly.”
VF Corp., the parent company to The North Face, JanSport, Smartwool and numerous other brands, signed a 12-year lease for the entire 285,000-square foot building that until recently housed Gates Corp.’s headquarters. VF is relocating its headquarters here from Greensboro, North, Carolina. The deal took about two months to complete.
“We are excited that Denver’s vibrant Lower Downtown district will serve as the new home for VF and five of our Outdoor brands,” said Steve Rendle, chairman, president and CEO. “Our extensive search process led us to review multiple options across the metro Denver area. The combination of LoDo and the building at 1551 Wewatta came together to meet all of our criteria. It’s the ideal setting for us to create a dynamic, collaborative working environment where our business, brands and employees can thrive.”
With the capacity to house 1,200 employees, the building provides the opportunity for VF to expand its future workforce beyond the 800 jobs it expects to have in Denver over the next eight years.
“We’re at unprecedented levels of activity in the office market right now, particularly from large, corporate, out-of-state users, and for this prime location at Union Station, there was a lot of activity,” said Chris Phenicie, CBRE Inc. senior vice president, who represented the landlord. “It’s great news that we were able to land this awesome tenant with VF, but also it’s great news looking forward for Denver that there’s still this huge level of activity in the market.”
Cushman & Wakefield brokers Steve Billigmeier and Todd Wheeler represented the tenant in the transaction.
Bentall Kennedy has been planning to enhance amenities at 1551 Wewatta, which was completed in 2002, to bring them up to today’s standards. It will expand a small fourth-floor roof deck for VF Corp. employees and also enlarge the lobby.
“We knew we needed to expand the lobby regardless of if we were going to find a single tenant or multitenant the building, so that lobby will be expanded and have greater vertical height, and a new glass façade will go on the front,” said Matthews.
“We’re going to work with VF Corp. on deciding exactly what’s going to happen on the interior, but our plans will be modified from what we originally envisioned as VF Corp. tries to make the building its own,” he said.
Also, Bentall Kennedy and VF agreed to increase the level of sustainability for the building, currently designated LEED Gold for Operations & Maintenance. “Even though the transaction went very quickly, one of the really easy parts of the transaction was VF Corp.’s commitment to sustainability, which perfectly aligns with ours,” Matthews said.
From a market perspective, Phenicie said the VF transaction creates fewer options for large tenants looking for space and puts a greater premium on the Denver Union Station area.
“A lot of tenants are going to recognize very quickly that the options keep getting shorter and shorter, fewer and fewer, and it’s going to be interesting to see where the outlets are for people who need space throughout the rest of the market. It’s not like this is a one-and-done situation. This is just a big domino that’s falling. There’s going to be implications, and it’s exciting,” he said.
