Cornerstone Picks up $53M Office in Denver's LoDo

December 15, 2011
By Nicholas Ziegler, News Editor

Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers has just made a nice pickup in the Rockies, as the firm has just purchased 1899 Wyncoop, a 165,727-square-foot office buiding in Denver’s LoDo submarket of the Central Business District for a reported $56 million. Jones Lang LaSalle’s capital markets team represented the seller, Nichols Partnership.

The class A building, constructed in 2000, is adjacent to the Union Square development, and features nine stories of office space that is currently 92 percent leased. Mary Sullivan, a senior managing director with JLL, characterized the property as a “well-positioned asset with significant upside potential.”

The pace of office transactions in Denver is increasing, according to a third-quarter report by services firm Cushman & Wakefield Inc. Vanacy rates are decreasing, rental rates have stabilized, and new-leasing activity, while below peak levels, are still within “normalized bounds.”

The Central Business District, specifically, has seen total office vacancy drop by more than the citywide average. The Denver area has seen the rate change 2.2 percent since the fourth quarter of 2010, to currently stand at 13.5 percent. “Demand for Class A space,” the report notes for the CBD, “has been particularly strong, resulting in a 2.3 [percent] overall vacancy rate decline year-over-year to just 13.1 percent — the lowest level recorded for this property class since 2008.