Louisville Lowes trades as biotech redevelopment looms

LOUISVILLE — The shuttered Lowes home-improvement store in Louisville has been purchased by one of the parties involved in a plan to transform the big-box retail space into a manufacturing hub focused on biotechnology tenants. 

Lowes HIW Inc. sold the roughly 134,000-square-foot building at 1171 W. Dillon Road in March to G&I XI 1171 W Dillon LLC, a holding company affiliated with New York-based real estate investor DRA Advisors LLC, for $13.07 million, Boulder County property records show. 

DRA Advisors in financing through one of its investment funds a joint venture with Denver-based developer Koelbel and Co. and Vitrian, a Maryland builder of biotechnology spaces, to develop the Centennial Valley Innovation Center on the site of the former Lowes, which closed last year after the home-improvement retailer opened a new location nearby at the Nine Mile Corner shopping center in Erie.

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“Vitrian, Koelbel and DRA have deep roots in the Colorado marketplace and in the Centennial Valley in particular,” Vitrian co-founder Scott Nudelman said in a prepared statement last month when the redevelopment effort was announced. “As biomanufacturing and non-pharma advanced manufacturing expands beyond the coastal markets, Boulder County will continue to benefit. We look forward to collaborating with companies and stakeholders in the region, including the Colorado Bioscience Association and Institute, Front Range Community College and non-profit organizations focused on STEM workforce development.”

The Centennial Valley Innovation Center will provide “dedicated biomanufacturing and advanced manufacturing capable space,” the development group said in a news release.

According to the Centennial Valley Innovation Center’s website, the project is expected to be delivered by December 2024.

The U.S. Highway 36 corridor between Denver and Boulder is home to almost one-third of Colorado’s biotech companies and research institutions, according to the Colorado BioScience Association.

In the past, Colorado has often lacked the facilities to accommodate major life-science players that might consider setting up shop in the region. But recently developers “have made significant investments in our communities to help address” the need for laboratory and flex-office space, CBSA president Elyse Blazevich told BizWest in a February interview. “We now have more than 3.5 million square feet of lab space planned or in construction” throughout the state.Many of those square feet are being developed or planned along the U.S. 36 corridor in places such as Louisville’s Redtail Ridge, the Coal Creek Innovation Campus in Downtown Superior and Flatiron Park in east Boulder.