UCHealth buys last St. Michaels Place land; hospital, development growing with city

GREELEY — UCHealth bought eight acres in St. Michaels Place in Greeley, the last land available at the 18-year-old mixed use development.

It paid $2.5 million to get commercially zoned space for what will most likely be medical offices. The health system opened a hospital and medical center nearby in 2019.

“They’re gonna run out of room,” said Mark Bradley, co-owner and managing broker with Realtec Commercial Real Estate Services Inc. in Greeley.

The eight acres could accommodate 70,000 square feet of office space, he said, “maybe more.”

Bradley represented the seller, St. Michael’s Commercial Enterprises LLC. 

UCHealth was repped by Pete Kelly, a first vice president with CBRE in Fort Collins; the buyer and its rep didn’t return calls or emails by press time.

St. Michaels began in 2003, adding tenants and businesses, many of which shuttered amid the 2008 recession. Losses followed. Economic reluctance to return extended into the early 2010s.

Commercial activity grew in the mid-2010s and firms in the area such as oil and natural gas producer Noble Energy added workers. Investor interest rose again, too.

The selling LLC is affiliated with Eagle- and Longmont-based real estate investor Gedeon LaFarge who had a similarly named, retail-focused LLC until May, when it was voluntarily dissolved, and has several real estate, architecture, and equestrian-related LLCs on file with the state.

Broker materials show the 20,500-square-foot St. Michaels Clocktower office building on the market for $5.3 million. Brian Smerud of Waypoint Real Estate in Fort Collins, who has the listing, said it’s owned by a family investor in southeast Colorado.

Smerud last month sold the Depot building next door for a shade under $1 million. The roughly 5,900 square feet houses a dentist’s office in about half the space and locker rooms for the long-closed pool, which the new owner is turning into a second office to lease.

Several smaller medical offices predated the hospital’s arrival, and its opening has brought more, Bradley said, including Orthopaedic & Spine Center of the Rockies buying about a dozen acres at Fox Run a mile away.

Bradley said Realtec has sold for several St. Michaels owners including the original developer and banks.

Bradley said the development is doing well overall; Realtec “sold two lots to Spirit Hospitality pre-COVID,” which has held the land and may still build on it, possibly bringing a Hampton Inn.

“It was an attractive master-planned development,” Bradley said of St. Michaels, and “Greeley keeps growing west so it’s well-positioned.”

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