DENVER – CBRE announced today it recently facilitated the auction sale of 55,446-square-feet of the Standley Lake Marketplace retail center located at 8393-8533 Church Ranch Boulevard in Westminster, Colorado. The sale was unique for a couple of reasons — the property was 45 percent vacant at the time of sale and it was sold through an online auction.
Matthew Henrichs and Brad Lyons with CBRE Capital Markets, National Retail Partners, in Denver represented the seller, an undisclosed entity. The buyer was a private investor out of Colorado Springs. The sale, which closed June 28, 2017, included 21 retail suites, eight of which were vacant at the time of sale.
“A high vacancy rate can be cause for concern, but in this case it didn’t tell the whole story. We knew the average retail vacancy rate in the area was strong and that Standley Lake Marketplace was preparing to announce that VASA Fitness was backfilling the vacant anchor space formerly home to a Safeway grocery store. So in this case, high vacancy equated to tremendous value- add potential,” said Mr. Henrichs, senior vice president with CBRE in Denver.
According to Henrichs, value-add retail is a rare but sought-after property type in today’s commercial real estate investment market. “We are seeing a resurgence in investors aggressively pursuing value-add opportunities in Colorado. True value-add has been hard to come by in the retail arena over the past three years. However, the recent wall of maturity of CMBS loans is slowly adding inventory to the market. Investors with patient money and cash on hand are poised to take advantage of such opportunity,” said Mr. Henrichs.
Built in 1999, Standley Lake Marketplace is a multi-tenant retail center located on 5.07 acres near the intersection of Church Ranch Boulevard and Wadsworth Boulevard in the northwest Denver metro. The property benefits from visibility and accessibility from two major thoroughfares as well as a large on-site parking lot. Current tenants include Papa Murphy’s, Cost Cutters, H&R Block, Edward Jones, Pizza Hut, Jenny Craig, Rocky Mountain Integrative Academy, Trinity Chiropractic, Desert Sun Tanning, We Kick Inc., Nail Avenue, Standley Lake Marketplace Liquors and Westminster Calvary Church.
The sale did not include three large retail spaces also located within the marketplace. The Scandinavian Designs store at 10180 North Wadsworth Parkway was excluded, as were two other sites, including the future VASA Fitness center.
CBRE was hired to facilitate the auction in conjunction with Ten-X, an online real estate marketplace.
“Auction sales do not always involve listing brokers, but in this case engaging CBRE meant we were able to create additional interest in the property, hold site tours and help potential buyers understand the property fundamentals,” said Mr. Lyons, executive vice president with CBRE in Denver. “Considering the value-add potential of this investment, it was critical to be able to tell the property’s complete story.”
Image courtesy of CBRE.
