This article comes from CREJ.com's online edition:
written by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
The former Deep Rock bottling building is just the latest property to change hands in Five Points, where the first of 17 development projects will get underway this fall.
“It reminds me of Highland 15 years ago,” said Tom Welsh of Welsh Commercial LLC.
“The Welton Street corridor is very active and alive right now.I think the market has wanted redevelopment and reinvestment to occur on Welton Street for several decades, but a lot of things had to happen for that to come together,” added Chris Coble of Black Label Real Estate LLC
A sampling of projects planned to break ground this fall and next spring includes:
• 2300 Welton, 223 multifamily workforce apartments;
• 2422-2460 Welton, a mixeduse building with market-rate apartments, 3,000 square feet of retail and 14 for-sale townhomes;
• 2650 Welton, a block that contains the historic Rossonian Hotel and will include a 128-room hotel, 40 condos and two restaurants;
• 2714 Welton, the historic arcade building that now houses Rosenberg's Bagels and Delicatessen, along with upper-floor residential space;
• 2821-2843 Welton, a five-story mixed-use project with groundlevel retail and parking, and 66 market-rate apartments;
• 2942-2944 Welton, which will be redeveloped into the NuROOT Innovate Office Space for emerging businesses; and
• East 24th Avenue and Washington Street, 26 townhomes.
"When you look at how many properties have traded in the last 18 months, there's not a lot left that you can buy," said Coble, who handled the $3.35 million sale of the Deep Rock building, a 23,563-sf building with a 3,456-sf mezzanine at 2501 Welton. The property, across from the 25th and Welton light-rail station, wasn't actively marketed.
"The interest really kicked up after the property was under contract and people found out about it. Since then, and since closing, there have been a long list of people who have wanted to purchase the property again from the new buyer."
Coble - along with Welsh, who represented the buyer - are marketing the building for lease. The building has high ceilings, rollup garage doors and dock-high doors, and the mezzanine could be expanded. Zoning and lightrail make it suitable for a range of uses, they said. "It's perfect for a creative, shared office use, restaurant, brewpub, grocery - any number of different tenants that want a place on a main street corridor in front of a light-rail station," said Coble.
"Investors really see the value of rail, especially now that it's being built everywhere," he added.
"It is the largest building on that strip. It's an important piece, and that street is important to the city," said Welsh.
Five Points' resurgence has been by design, according to Tracy Winchester, executive director of Five Points Business District, a nonprofit that has championed the neighborhood since forming five years ago.
“This just wasn’t a happy coincidence.It’s been in motion since 2009,” she said. The district led creation of a vision plan for the area, which calls for Welton Street to be a multicultural entertainment district rooted in African- American history that is viewed as a destination for arts, culture and music. The vision is to create a central gathering place for adjacent neighborhoods and a place that provides retail goods and services relevant to the community.
A host of planning efforts, including a revitalization strategy and streetcar study, were completed, with support of the city, state and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.In 2012, the Five Points Business District worked with the Denver Urban Renewal Authority to have the neighborhood declared an urban renewal area.
“When the corridor became an urban renewal area in 2012, I think that’s what really started things in motion with the developers because now they had some incentive to come in and work with the property owners,” Winchester said. The district also actively engaged with property owners – there are approximately 105 owners from 20th and Welton streets to 30th and Downing Street. Helping them understand that if they improved properties, there would be tenants willing to lease them, for instance, has led to new businesses, which include Urban Herbs and Purple Door Coffee.
Winchester called Welton Street “one of the key spokes in the downtown urban center” that, with new retail and a coming mix of housing, is becoming increasingly attractive to a range of demographics, including millennials.
“We’re prime, and we’re prime for people who want to live in the center of town, people who want to take light rail to work,” she said.
As part of the larger Arapahoe Square area, “It’s the next RiNo, it’s the next Highland,” said Welsh.
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