Denver investor pays at least $42.9M for Fort Collins office portfolio

FORT COLLINS — A Denver-based real estate investment firm has acquired a Fort Collins office portfolio that has sold for the fourth time since 2015.

West Hampden Investors LLC, managed by Ogilvie Properties Inc. and Ogilvie Partners LLC, purchased 20 buildings in the Prospect East Business Park in east Fort Collins for at least $42.9 million, according to property records recorded Dec. 23 by the Larimer County Clerk & Recorder. Specific transaction information won’t be available until sales data is posted on the county assessor’s website.

The portfolio encompasses about 360,000 square feet and was sold by LLCs affiliated with Cress Capital, a Newport Beach, California, investment company with a Denver office.

Cress in 2017 purchased what was then a 23-building portfolio for $55.6 million. It sold two of the buildings — at 1625 Sharp Point Drive and 2424 Midpoint Drive — in February 2021 for $30.65 million, and sold 1600 Prospect Park Way in October 2019 for $6.3 million.

The portfolio has attracted widespread investor interest since February 2015, when it was part of a blockbuster, $209 million sale of properties owned by affiliates of the W.W. Reynolds Cos. in Boulder and Fort Collins. W.W. Reynolds was the original developer of the properties.

The buyer of that portfolio, Unico Properties LLC, quickly flipped the Fort Collins properties, selling them to Prospect Development Partners LLC, an arm of The Pauls Corp., with Pauls selling it to Cress two years later.

Cress Capital principal Thomas Parnell did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Dustin Jones, manager of Ogilvie Partners LLC, said the group first looked at the Fort Collins portfolio in mid-2021 but did not initially put it under contract.

“Although we didn’t end up putting it under contract initially, it came back to us, I think in late October of this year,” Jones said. “And when we took a second look at it, it had seen a lot of leasing activity from the first time that we had seen it. There was a really good trajectory of demand even in the couple of months where we had not acquired it.”

Jones said that Fort Collins has just 5% availability in that product type, making it an attractive investment.

“Given that and the stabilized nature of the portfolio, it was really attractive for us, particularly in the times of COVID, for this product type,” he said.

Another selling point was the number of tenants with connections to Colorado State University, he said.

“When we dove into this project, one of the things that was attractive was the tenant mix, and the amount of tenants that referenced the proximity and the involvement with CSU was very attractive to us,” Jones said. “I think we saw that as an encouraging sign not just for that existing tenant base but for continued demand in that market.”

West Hampden Investors was formed in late 2016 and has a portfolio of more than 750,000 square feet, including office, retail, flex and vacant land, from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, Jones said.

“We would absolutely love to acquire additional product type in Northern Colorado,” he said. “There are not a lot of investment opportunities out there now that meet our business plan, but we would definitely love to acquire more product in the future.”

Jones said the properties will continue to be leased and managed by WWR Real Estate Services LLC, a unit of the W.W. Reynolds Cos.

In addition to the real estate acquisition, West Hampden Investors also assumed ground leases with the Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners for certain properties in the portfolio. The Board is entitled to receive 2% of consideration paid for lease assignments and received $40,000, according to documents filed with the Larimer County Clerk & Recorder.

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