Developer buys, subdivides former Brewer Steel building in Greeley

GREELEY — A Johnstown developer plans to split the former Brewer Steel Co. building in southeast Greeley into three smaller industrial sites.

Poudre Bay Partners LLC CEO Brian Smerud told BizWest a subsidiary of his company purchased the property at 2985 First Ave. for $4.95 million in a deal that closed late last month. 

The sale has yet to appear on Weld County property records as of Monday morning. The property was last valued at $1,037,129 by county assessors.

SPONSORED CONTENT

The many benefits of simple, coordinated healthcare

Kaiser Permanente combines health care and coverage in one connected system to maximize employee health and minimize employer costs.

The property was previously owned by BMA America Inc., a North Carolina-based company that repurposed itself last year as a specialty maker of sugar-production equipment. BMA purchased Brewer Steel, a Greeley-founded company, in 1994 and left the city last year as part of its consolidation.

Smerud said the company believes that it’s more likely to sell smaller portions of the building at $185 per square foot or lease at $16.50 per square foot annually instead of offering the entire structure. Listings for the divided property range from 12,315 square feet to 17,775 square feet of industrial floor space.

Just 3.3 percent of Greeley’s 7.3 million square feet of industrial inventory is vacant, according to the city’s Department of Economic Health and Housing. At the moment, only 84,900 square feet of new space is under construction, or less than 1 percent of the current industrial space within city limits.

Additionally, all three of the spaces have in-building cranes, which Smerud views as a bonus for prospective fabricators and heavy manufacturers in a market where space is limited. 

“I show the property multiple times per week, and I’ve only owned it for a few days,” he said.