Rosemont Takes Denver WTC for $176M

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor 

Rosemont Realty L.L.C. pushes up its presence in the metropolitan Denver market by 770,200 square feet with the acquisition of the Denver World Trade Center. The real estate company purchased the two-building office property from I & G Denver WTC L.L.C., an entity of LaSalle Investment Management  for $176 million.

Rising 28 and 29 stories above downtown Denver at 1625 and 1675 Broadway, the 34-year-old Denver WTC has a prominent place on the city’s skyline. It also has a prominent place on the list of the best occupied office assets in Denver’s central business district. The property’s tenant roster is 95 percent full with 55 businesses calling the location home, including the likes of Key Bank, Noble Energy Inc. and Resolute Energy Corp.

It’s an occupancy level that, like the towers’ height, is head and shoulders above many office buildings in the area. The overall vacancy rate for Class A assets in the city’s CBD is 14.1 percent, according to commercial real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which has been tapped to oversee leasing at Denver WTC.

“This acquisition follows a broader strategy by Rosemont of migrating more of its portfolio into commercial business districts where tenant demand is improving and rates have the potential to grow rapidly in the coming years,” Daniel Burrell, CEO of Rosemont, said in a prepared statement.

Denver fits the bill. The city’s office market is poised for an upswing, buoyed by growth in the oil and gas industry, according to a first quarter 2013 report by JLL. Demand is expected to go on the rise this year, and rental rates will surely follow.

With the purchase of Denver WTC, Rosemont’s portfolio in metropolitan Denver now totals approximately 1.4 million square feet. Its last acquisition in the area came in November 2012, when it snapped up the 167,000-square-foot Cole Center at Denver West in Golden.