Midyette adds to 1600 Pearl holdings

1615 Pearl St. has an actual value of $943,400, according to the Boulder County assessor; 1611 Pearl, $258,000.

Recycled Audio, owned by Longmont residents Josh and Karen Samuel, will be moved across the street to 1638 Pearl St.

In October, Midyette’s company also purchased two other parcels in the same block. 1600 Pearl Street LLC purchased 1600 Pearl St. for $2 million and 1622 Pearl St. for $1 million and change.

Midyette also has put up for sale a new mixed-use building in the 1600 block of Pearl – to be delivered in October 2000 – with Border’s Bookstore as the retail anchor tenant. Although the space is leased, the tenant may move to another building owned by the landlord, the listing states. The 57,500-square-foot building and 31,500-square-foot lot are going for $16 million, or $278 per square foot.

In May, Midyette held a “pre-application” meeting with Brent Bean, a senior Boulder planner, to discuss the possibility of developing a theater at 1600-1638 Pearl. In November, Bean said a theater would require an extensive “use review,” and Midyette is now pursuing a “use-by-right” project that requires no public review before receiving a building permit. The retail location for Borders could be done as a use-by-right project.

One downtown source say Midyette has held negotiations with Sundance Cinemas, owned by Robert Redford, to open a theater downtown. While Midyette would not comment about Sundance, he said final use for the site “hasn’t even been addressed” and nothing has been ruled out for development in the 1600 block of Pearl.

“No decision has been made,” he says.

Scott Dickey, senior vice president of Los Angeles-based Sundance Cinemas, says there’s no deal to build a theater in the 1600 block of Pearl. The newly formed venture will open a prototype theater in Portland, Ore., in the spring and one in Philadelphia in the summer. If the first two are successful, the company will open more but has yet to finalize a real estate strategy. “We don’t know what works yet,” Dickey says. He says the company will evaluate business once it gets the first two theaters open. It took 18 months for the first two theaters to happen, but Dickey says he expects “a lot shorter lead time” once the company opens the first two.

SEALING FATE: Developers Eric Gabrielsen and Bruce Oreck, operating as Walnut Canyon Partners, have sealed a deal with Westpeak Investment Advisors. Officials with the institutional money management firm have signed a 10-year lease to take the top two floors in a four-story, 50,000-square-foot building Walnut Canyon Partners plans for the southwest corner of Walnut and 15th streets. The developers plan to break ground this month on the new structure – designed by Boulder architect David Brown and to be built by CCM Construction – that will be called the Westpeak Building. It will include 85 underground parking spaces, a precious commodity in downtown Boulder even with the two new parking garages.

Westpeak is expected to occupy the building in December 2000. It was started in 1991 and has about 35 employees.

BROOMFIELD

BIG LISTING INC.: Cushman & Wakefield brokers David Hart and Chris Phenicie have the listing for the remaining 135 acres in Interlocken business park. “We actually just got the assignment,” Phenicie says. “We got awarded the assignment.”

Phenicie and Hart are the listing agents on 370 Interlocken Blvd., which is now 100 percent leased, and the speculative building going up at 380 Amber Drive. The Amber Drive building will be finished next summer.

Phenicie says Interlocken has 135 acres remaining, and he and Hart have been asked to sell four parcels that total 48.66 acres. They are the last developed parcels in the park, meaning they have infrastructure. The remainder of the 135 acres, referred to as “phase five,” is on the far east side of the park and has no road or utilities. It is essentially being saved for future development.

“We’re not actively marketing that part of it,” Phenicie says. “We’re just marketing the 48.66.”

The land is worth about $25.5 million at about $12 per square foot for the ground, and some 1 million square feet of space can be built on it.

What Hart and Phenicie will do is comb the countryside to identify the best candidates for an “anchor build-to-suit,” a building in which the primary user does not occupy all the space.

MALL DEALS: St. Louis-based May Department Stores in October purchased two lots in Broomfield’s FlatIron Crossing, a 1.5-million regional shopping mall under construction at the 96th Street Interchange with U.S. 36. May paid a total of $4 million for Lots 3 and 4 in the filing.

Seattle-based Nordstrom paid $1 million for Lot 5.

Phoenix-based Westcor Co. LP, developer of the mall, paid $1 million for Lot 2.

All four deals were in the top 10 commercial sales in the county for the month of October.

SNAPPED UP: Of the total 215,000 square feet in Eldorado Ridge office park, adjacent to Interlocken business park, only about 7,400 square feet is left. There’s the potential for a third building.

LONGMONT

NYET: The Longmont City Council unanimously axed a proposal in late November that would have allowed property owners to request rezoning after annexation. Current code allows planned unit development zoning only in connection with or at the time of annexation. Planning Director Brad Schol said the change in code would give developers more flexibility. He said it may result in higher quality development and better varied housing types.

SUPERIOR

EXPANSION PLANS: Level 3 Communications Inc. (Nasdaq, LVLT), which officially opened the first phase of its $70 million 850,000-square-foot corporate headquarters on 42 acres in Interlocken business park on Nov. 1, now hopes to expand into Superior, pending the blessing of the Superior Town Board. The company would add 1 million square feet, which would more than double its campus in Interlocken.

The project, which would be by far the largest single development in town, would be five buildings between four and six stories – the tallest structure now in Superior is three stories – on the south end of town near Colo. 128. Level 3 officials originally asked to construct a 10-story structure.

The corporation would develop the easternmost 51 acres of a 167-acre site it has an option to buy. The opportunity expires in mid-December. Officials say they are willing to chip in to make the remaining 116 acres open space. The corporation would work with the Trust for Public Lands on the preservation of the balance of the site.

“From the start, Level 3 has made Colorado part of its business plan and corporate culture,” Level 3 President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Crowe said at the grand opening of the corporate campus in Broomfield.

Level 3, which is the third-largest corporation in the state based on market value, already has become one of the fastest-growing employers in the region, hiring 1,000 new workers this year alone. It is one of the top 10 employers in the area.

More than half of its almost 3,800 employees are in Colorado, and more than 15 percent of its employees are graduates of the University of Colorado. The Broomfield campus houses almost 1,000 of the 1,800 located in Colorado.

The company’s network operations span 26 cities in the United States and four cities on the European continent. Level 3 is a communications and information company that is building the first international network for Internet Protocol technology.

The network will be able to connect customers end-to-end across the United States and in Europe and Asia.

Level 3 expects to complete the 16,000-mile intercity portion of the network in the United States during the first quarter of 2001.

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