Flywheel Capital Sells Colorado Springs Campus for $54M

10125 and 10205 Federal Drive. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Flywheel Capital, of Denver, has sold a Class A office/flex and manufacturing/distribution campus in Colorado Springs, Colo., to an undisclosed private partnership for $54.3 million. Cushman & Wakefield advised Flywheel on the sale.

The 25.9-acre property comprises two buildings totaling 289,018 square feet, which Flywheel had acquired in September 2018. That transaction was valued at $27.9 million, according to CommercialEdge.

Flywheel subsequently completed a capital improvement and repositioning program that resulted in the property being fully leased at the time of this latest sale. Along the way, Flywheel landed a $34.3 million first mortgage floating-rate bridge loan from RMR Mortgage Trust.

In a prepared statement, John Fefley, a senior director with Flywheel, noted that the property had been almost vacant when Flywheel bought it, and that the repositioning and capital improvement program was accomplished during the pandemic.

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Cushman & Wakefield’s Aaron Johnson and Jon Hendrickson, managing directors, represented the seller in the transaction.

The two two-story buildings are at 10125 and 10205 Federal Drive in the Interquest Business Park and were built in 1998.

10125 Federal Drive. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

10125 Federal is a 191,924-square-foot multi-tenant office building that’s fully leased and anchored by Northrop Grumman, one of the world’s largest defense contractors, along with a technology security company.

10205 Federal Drive is a 97,094-square-foot manufacturing and distribution building, also fully leased, and is the headquarters of a company that engineers and manufactures wireless infrastructure mounting and concealment solutions.

The property is near the intersection of I-25 and Interquest Parkway, providing quick access to multiple military installations, extensive executive and employee housing on Colorado Springs’ north side, and downtown Colorado Springs.

Desirable but a bit flat

In a prepared statement, Johnson said that Colorado Springs is recognized as one of the most desired locations in the U.S. for aerospace and engineering and tech users, and has proven resilient with solid market fundamentals overall.

The Colorado Springs office market has an average direct vacancy of 11.6 percent and overall vacancy of 15.4 percent, with lease rates up slightly and net absorption near zero, according to a third-quarter report from Cushman & Wakefield | Colorado Springs Commercial.

Just over a year ago, Flywheel acquired a four-building, 299,600-square-foot Class A office campus in northeastern metro Denver from an affiliate of Equus Capital Partners Ltd. for $66.9 million. Gateway Centre was fully leased to 24 tenants.