Philly firm to buy 30-acre RiNo property from Pepsi

This article first appeared on BusinessDen.com, a BizWest news partner.

DENVER — PepsiCo has found a buyer for its RiNo bottling facility, which will soon become one of Denver’s largest redevelopment sites.

Stoltz Real Estate Partners, which is headquartered in the Philadelphia area, is preparing to buy the 30-acre property at 3801 Brighton Blvd., sources tell BusinessDen.

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Real estate firms typically buy properties using individual LLCs. State records show that Stoltz head Keith Stoltz registered PR-Stoltz PropCo RiNo LLC last week.

Requests for comment left with Keith Stoltz and another Stoltz executive were not returned.

New York-based PepsiCo has operated the RiNo facility since the 1950s. In July 2021, BusinessDen broke the news that Pepsi was looking to sell the property and that the company plans to build a massive new facility near Denver International Airport.

CBRE brokers Tyler Carner, Jim Bolt, Jeremy Ballenger and Jessica Ostermick were hired to market the property. Carner said Wednesday that a sale could close by the end of this week, although he declined to identify the buyer.

RiNo, where Pepsi’s property is located, was once a largely industrial area. But it has been transformed in the last two decades or so, attracting first artists and breweries and then new office and apartment buildings.

CBRE’s marketing materials referred to the property as a “one-of-a-kind redevelopment site” that “is large enough to accommodate a full-scale mixed-use development.”

Pepsi previously sold two parking lots totaling 3.77 acres across from its RiNo facility. San Francisco-based apartment developer Carmel Partners paid a combined $36.2 million for the 3800 and 3900 Brighton Blvd. lots in 2019.

Redevelopment of the manufacturing facility would not happen immediately. Stoltz has yet to submit any plans to the city. And Pepsi is expected to continue operating in RiNo until its new facility by the airport is up and running; the company has yet to buy that land and break ground.

Stoltz is familiar with the Denver market, although it has generally bought existing buildings rather than spearheaded the building of new ones. The company’s local holdings include the structures at 1900 Wazee St., 1801 Lawrence St. and 1860 Blake St. downtown, as well as the office building at 155 S. Madison St. in Cherry Creek.

President Joe Biden’s family home in Delaware is built on land formerly owned by Keith Stoltz, who sold the four acres to Biden in 1996, according to the Delaware News Journal.

Pepsi’s property is across the street from North Wynkoop, an approximately 15-acre site that was purchased by Denver-based Westfield in 2014 and is in the process of development; one completed project is the Mission Ballroom concert venue.

Other major redevelopment sites that will be in play in Denver in the coming years include the parking lots surrounding Ball Arena and the current home of the Elitch Gardens amusement park. Those two adjacent sites add up to about 120 acres.