Investor pours heart, millions into downtown F.C. real estate

FORT COLLINS – Mike Jensen will tell you that downtown Fort Collins is “where it’s at.”
He could be talking about the commercial and social nexus of Fort Collins, or he could be referring to his wallet.
Since early 2003, Jensen and his investment partners have acquired 11 different properties in the central business district worth approximately $8 million. That includes his latest deal for the J. Pitner building, 125 S. College Ave., scheduled to close the end of this month.
Jensen, 30, has agreed to buy the 10,644-square-foot building, recognized as one of the prime retail spaces downtown, for $1.36 million. He plans to lease the main floor to a retail tenant, while considering office or residential uses on the second floor.
“We’re looking ideally for a national retailer,” Jensen said. “Otherwise, we’d be looking for local downtown retailers.”
The J. Pitner acquisition follows soon after Jensen’s purchase of the former Brotherton Office Products space, across the street at 130 S. College Ave. His other notable downtown purchases over the past 18 months include the Firehouse Building, 232-238 Walnut St.; the Vault, 146 N. College Ave., and three buildings and a vacant lot between 238 N. College and 272 N. College. Jensen’s indicated an interest in redeveloping the 200 block into a convention center-hotel property.
Counting purchases that date back to 1997 – which includes the Aggie Theater building – Jensen owns part or all of 16 buildings between Prospect Road on the south and Jefferson Street on the north.
“I think there is a big opportunity downtown,” he said. “In my mind, it’s the epicenter of the Fort Collins community. When I think of Fort Collins, I think of Old Town. That’s really the charm and the ambience for me. And I have a passion for historic and magnificent properties.”
Jensen made his initial foray into Fort Collins real estate in the 1990s, when he developed Housing Helpers Inc., a business that matched rental-housing hunters with landlords. Eventually Jensen began to acquire his own portfolio of residential real estate, totaling more than 100 houses.
He sold Housing Helpers in May 2001 and took a self-imposed hiatus on a boat in the Caribbean.
“For the first six months I thought, ‘Ahhh, I don’t have anything to do,'” Jensen recalled. “After that, I thought, ‘Oh no, I don’t have anything to do.'”
He developed a strategy to focus on commercial real estate, and returned to business in March 2003. Since then, he’s launched a collection of companies: Fort Collins Real Estate, College Ave. Commercial Management, CampusRenterCenter.com and Mortgage World Loans.
He’s financed his commercial investments by selling off his residential holdings in blocks of five or six houses at a time.
“I have studied other markets like Boulder and Denver and similar cities and found that when residential does what it’s done here in the last 10 years, the commercial side of things are soon to follow,” Jensen said.
Jensen’s purchases have involved partnerships with various investors, including Andrew Bantham, Roger Flack and Braun Mincher. Bantham and Mincher have also joined Jensen in development of a real estate investment trust concept, which the trio has dubbed Main Street REIT. A REIT allows investors to buy into a block of real estate holdings and then enjoy returns based on the increasing value of the real estate.
“The vision is that we would assemble these different partnerships into a larger entity, which would be Main Street REIT,” Jensen said. “If it works well for Fort Collins, it’s something we could model for other cities.”
Jensen’s spree of downtown deals has already caught the attention of other downtown boosters.
“If this man comes in here with an attitude of buying these buildings and renovating these buildings and putting in quality operations, it can only enhance downtown,´ said John Arnolfo, owner of the Silver Grill Café, 218 Walnut St.
Chip Steiner, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, said he hopes Jensen’s passion for downtown meshes with the DDA’s goal of bringing cultural activities to the area.
“Our focus is on cultural facilities to the extent it can be done in an economically sound fashion,” Steiner said. “We’re also looking for support facilities, such as a hotel … as long as it adds to the character and ambience, we like it.”
In fact, one of Jensen’s projects could bear immediate fruit as a cultural amenity. He intends to convert the corner lot at 303 S. College Ave., once a service station and a retail space, into a restaurant with sidewalk dining and public art.
The building has been leased to A Taste of Philly restaurant. “We’re looking at a beautiful brick façade along with a nice exterior patio,” he said. “We’ve also incorporated into that a nice public art display, with some sort of bronze statues or a fountain or a combination of the two.”
Jensen said he was inspired by redevelopment of the Mountain Empire Hotel, now the Armstrong Hotel, across the street at 259 S. College Ave.
“We’re going to create a very similar atmosphere to (the Armstrong) on our corner, to help pull activity to the south part of Old Town,” he said.

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