Investors dig deep for Crossroads land

LOVELAND – Paying a near-record price, an investment group has scooped up slightly more than 16 acres of commercial land at Crossroads Business Park in Loveland with designs on shopping, entertainment and hospitality development.
The $3.17 million paid by Crossroads Investments LLC works out to $194,000 per acre, or $4.50 per square foot.
That’s almost double the price-per-acre paid for the adjacent 60-acre Eagle Crossing business park at the booming junction of Interstate 25 and Crossroads Boulevard.
“We feel we’re going to play on the regional momentum that’s driving so much of the action to that location,´ said Phil Wenta, a partner in the investment group. “We don’t feel this whole regional market is even close to the saturation point.”
The group has enlisted Fort Collins-based BHA Design Inc. to draft a comprehensive land plan that would accommodate the same mix of commercial uses that other developers in the fast-growing business neighborhood are pursuing.
The five contiguous lots that make up the 16-plus acre purchase are in the center of Crossroads Business Park. Prior to the development of the Larimer County Fairgrounds and the Budweiser Events Center, the business park had been zoned for light industrial use.
But with the growing entertainment focus of the highway junction – with fans flocking to attend hockey games and rock concerts – retail stores and hotels have emerged as more attractive uses for the pricey land.
Land prices near the intersection have risen steadily in the five years since Larimer County settled on the junction as its new fairgrounds site. A recent purchase by Co’s BMW of five acres on the west side of Interstate 25 pushed skyward at $5.50 per square foot.
“It’s a fair price to pay, I think, given the status of water, sewer and roadways on that property,´ said Nick Christensen, managing principal of Chrisland Inc., the commercial real estate firm that brokered the sale for owners Rocky Mountain Crossroads LLC.
“All of that adds a lot of value to the land.”
Wenta said he and his principal investment partner, Troy Peterson, and two silent partners in the deal were willing to pay a premium for the land, since the race to put the vacant land to use depends on the kinds of improvements Christensen mentioned.
“With some of the large investments being made up and down the corridor, the timing seems right for this piece of land,” Wenta said. “Of all the other sites in the immediate area, we’re the only one platted and ready for construction.”
Windsor developer Martin Lind, best known for turning a network of gravel pits into Water Valley, a successful golf-residential community in south Windsor, has also banked on the Crossroads neighborhood, having spent $6 million on the 60-acre Eagle Crossing commercial center.
Lind said the rising profile of the Crossroads/I-25 junction as a draw beyond the Northern Colorado region means room enough for everyone with designs on retail- and entertainment-related projects.
“If it relied totally on Northern Colorado’s critical mass, it would take more time,” Lind said.
“What the events center did was to expand Colorado’s critical mass, making it a larger. We’re getting people from all over. That’s neat because, in my mind, it’s a tourist dollar and there’s no better source of money.”
Wenta said he and Peterson were talking with potential buyers for portions of their new property, but would offer no details.
On their doorstep will be the recently announced 250-room Embassy Suites hotel and conference center. Just across I-25 is a retail and entertainment complex that Thunder Mountain Harley-Davidson owner Todd Erdmann is rapidly building out, with a Hooters restaurant, a Hilton hotel and an indoor events center in the works.
Just south of Crossroads Business Park, a 700,000-square-foot open-air shopping mall and theater complex, a project of Tennessee-based Poag & McEwen, will open late next year.