Student-housing developer Core Spaces expected to buy Naropa campus 

BOULDER — Core Spaces LLC, a Chicago-based student-housing developer, is the buyer that is expected to take over Naropa University’s main Boulder campus.

“Naropa is currently under contract with Core Spaces to purchase the campus at 21st (Street) and Arapahoe (Avenue),” Naropa president Charles Lief confirmed to BizWest in an email Friday.

While the main campus transaction has yet to be finalized, Core bought a pair of properties this fall from Naropa — the Alaya Preschool site on 19th Street and a Guadeloupe Street residence rented by Lief — for $3.4 million. 

A pair of warranty deeds recorded this fall in Boulder County show that Core Boulder Arapahoe LLC, an entity registered to Core’s office address in Chicago, paid Naropa nearly $1.6 million and just over $1.8 million for campus property.

Naropa, according to media reports, went public this summer with its plans to sell the Alaya Preschool, resulting in the formation of a community group dubbed Future of Alaya intent on keeping the school open.

“To continue investing in new programs, limit tuition increases and maintain scholarship funding, Naropa had the opportunity to sell two properties, the Alaya Preschool and the house currently rented by the Naropa president. We negotiated a sale of both properties to Core Spaces which was willing to enter into an agreement allowing Naropa to exercise an option to repurchase either or both properties in 2026,” Lief said. “That repurchase option offers the very active Future of Alaya group considerable time to raise the funds needed to maintain the uninterrupted operation of the preschool. It also gives Naropa housing option flexibility when it hires a new president in 2025. The new president could rent the current house, which Naropa could repurchase, or identify other housing more suitable to the specific needs of the new president without being tied to the present house.”

The roughly 3.6-acre campus at 2130 Arapahoe Ave., which for four decades has been home to Naropa University, a liberal arts school with a Buddhism-inspired curriculum founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, was not included in the $3.4 million sale to Core Space. However, Core Spaces, which will likely redevelop the site, does plan to buy the Arapahoe Avenue property in the near future.

“We selected Core Spaces because of their considerable experience developing in Boulder and the quality of their projects,” Lief said. “With Naropa’s support, Core Spaces is in the early stages of investigating the best use of the property and having preliminary conversations with the City of Boulder. The closing could happen sometime in 2026. Naropa would then have the option to remain in occupancy on that campus and move sometime in 2028.”

Core Spaces, representatives of which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday, is no stranger to the Boulder market. 

About five years ago, the developer made a splash when it bought the Liquor Mart property at the corner of 15th Street and Canyon Boulevard from W.W. Reynolds Cos. for $16.6 million. The parcel had been the home of a grocery store and a liquor store since 1949, and the adjacent property was the former site of Robb’s Music. Core then built the oLiv Boulder apartments on the site. That project features a 190,000-square-foot building with 146 units and 262 beds.The company, through holding company Core Boulder 28th Street LLC, bought the 99-room Best Western hotel site at 770 28th St. in late 2021 for $28.5 million with the goal of converting it into University of Colorado student housing.

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