Gart bought the former Levitz Furniture warehouse building, which is renamed as the 6th Avenue Commerce Center, out of bankruptcy court in 1999. Alex Ringsby and Paul Kahn of Cushman & Wakefield are listing the property.
Gart Properties paid $7 million for this building and another Levitz building in Colorado Springs in 1999. It sold the Colorado Springs building and almost sold the Lakewood property, twice.
"We had it under contract twice to high-tech, telecommunication companies that wanted to turn it into a 'telecom hotel,' which is a building filled with sophisticated telephone switching equipment," Sidell says. "We weren't looking to sell it, but they offered us so much money that it finally became an offer we couldn't refuse."
But both deals collapsed with the dot.com economy.
"We were ahead of the curve buying a value deal in 1999, when there weren't many value deals available," Sidell tells GlobeSt.com. "But we were just a bit behind the curve, when it came to the telecom hotel."
While the building was under contract, it "fell off the radar screen" from the brokerage community, he says.
Dennis Meyer, president and owner of Office Liquidators, tells GlobeSt.com he is glad to leave his southeast Denver building on Evans, just off Interstate 25.
"Driving on I-25 is already a nightmare and it is going to be even worse over the next five years as T-Rex picks up," Meyer tells GlobeSt.com. T-Rex is a $1.7-billion widening and adding light rail along I-25. "And there's about three times as much traffic along 6th Avenue than along Evans. And we have a ton more parking. We'll also have more natural light in the new building.
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