Blackstone pays $92.6M for 3 downtown Boulder buildings

BOULDER — The real estate arm of New York private-equity firm Blackstone Group closed recently on the purchase of three downtown Boulder office buildings for a total of $92.6 million.

Blackstone entities purchased 1900 15th St., 1881 Ninth St. and 1050 Walnut St. from Swedish pension manager Alecta, according to Boulder County property records.

Officials for neither Blackstone nor Alecta could be reached for comment Monday.

Alecta officials announced last spring that they planned to sell their portfolio of 48 properties in the United States and the United Kingdom. Bloomberg reported in August that Blackstone had struck a deal to buy the 22 U.S. properties — including multiple shopping centers in California and a prominent office building in Washington — for $1.8 billion.

The three Boulder buildings total roughly 221,000 square feet of office space, plus a pair of parking garages.

Becky Callan Gamble of commercial real estate brokerage Dean Callan & Co. Inc., which handled the leasing for the three buildings under the old ownership, said 1881 Ninth is about 95 percent leased, while 1050 Walnut is 92 percent leased, with deals pending on the vacant space in the latter.

The 33,000-square-foot building at 1900 15th St., meanwhile, has been vacant since early this year. Microsoft had leased the building for the past few years, but sold its Bing Maps-related operations there to Uber last year. Uber subsequently moved those operations to Louisville earlier this year, Gamble said.

Blackstone paid $13.27 million for the 1900 15th St. building. The 1881 Ninth St. building went for $32.9 million. And 1050 Walnut sold for $46.4 million.

The 1050 Walnut property includes about 112,000 square feet of office space, in addition to a parking garage. Its tenants include the likes of Foundry Group, Techstars, Siemens Energy and the Southwest Research Institute. It last sold in 1997 for $16.6 million.

The 1881 Ninth St. property includes 76,000 square feet, plus a parking garage. Tenants there include Solera National Bank, TIAA CREF and Finish Line. The property last sold in 1998 for $12 million.

The 1900 15th St. property last sold in 2012 for $11.9 million.

“I think it’s certainly significant in the size of the sale and the quality, the fact that Alecta had owned two of the three buildings” for nearly two decades, Gamble said. “I think it just speaks again to the attractiveness of owning real estate in Boulder for institutions.”

Blackstone has purchased other property in the Boulder Valley in recent years. In 2015, the company bought the TownPlace Suites by Marriott in Broomfield for $16.5 million. In 2014, Blackstone affiliates paid $22.4 million for the Residence Inn at 3030 Center Green Drive in Boulder and $17.92 million for the Homewood Suites at 4950 Baseline Drive in Boulder.

Correction: The original version of this story stated that Dean Callan & Co. is handling leasing for the three buildings. Leasing duties have shifted under the new building ownership to Erik Abrahamson of CBRE.

on Facebook on LinkedIn