DENVER—JR Bitzer, an office specialist and one of the founding partners of Lee & Associates Denver, recently assisted San Francisco-based Soma Capital Partners in the brokerage of the LAB, a newly completed 78,639-square-foot office building located at 17th and Platte in Denver. WeWork Cos., a New York based co-working platform with 3.5 million square feet globally, preleased approximately 65% of the building. According to Bitzer, Platte Street is one of the more dynamic streets in all of Denver, with its eclectic mix of retail and office tenants ideally situated in between the burgeoning Lower Highlands and the nationally recognized Union Station redevelopment. Globest.com caught up with Bitzer to get his take on the Denver office market and the impact of millennials.
GlobeSt.com: How has the Denver office market changed in the last five years?
JR Bitzer: The overall mix of tenants is much more diverse, as we continue to see a flux of tech companies either moving to Denver or expanding, as well as other industries choosing to make Denver home. As the vacancy rate has dropped and rents have skyrocketed, we finally have speculative development taking place. There are more cranes in Denver today since any period since the mid-eighties.
GlobeSt.com: What kind of interest are we seeing from companies and investors in this market?
Bitzer: Denver is one of the strongest economies in the country, and a hotbed for millennials. If you're a company who wants to attract millennials, you need to be in Denver. From an investor standpoint, institutional investors who once strictly focused on the coasts, now consider Denver a top-tier market for investments. Not only domestic investors, but international investors as well.
GlobeSt.com: How much of an impact are millennials having on this market?
Bitzer: A tremendous amount. Millennials want to live downtown, have access to public transportation and want a collaborative work environment with lots of amenities. These are traits that did not exist 20 years ago, and one of the reasons developers are confident in building speculative office buildings near light rail and new housing developments.
GlobeSt.com: Do you see this trend continuing?
Bitzer: I do. Denver is no longer a cow town that is solely dependent on oil and gas and the telecommunications industries. As long as Denver continues to plan accordingly, it will continue to attract out of state companies and millennials.
GlobeSt.com: Is construction keeping pace with demand?
A: Yes, we learned our lesson in the eighties and to a lesser extent the nineties. New development is very constrained which is a good thing at the moment.
GlobeSt.com: Denver seems to have become the darling of the nation and business, why do you think that is?
Bitzer: The easy answer is the quality of life. But I would attribute it to our city and state leaders of the past and present. We have a world class airport, at the time the largest mass transit project in the country which has resulted in the rebirth of Union Station and smart and sustainable urban infill development.
GlobeSt.com: Can you think of anywhere else you would like to be in CRE brokerage?
Bitzer: Not really, but maybe Silicon Valley 20-25 years ago when things were just starting to take off. Hopefully kind of like Denver today.
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Natalie Dolce
Natalie Dolce, editor-in-chief of GlobeSt.com and GlobeSt. Real Estate Forum, is responsible for working with editorial staff, freelancers and senior management to help plan the overarching vision that encompasses GlobeSt.com, including short-term and long-term goals for the website, how content integrates through the company’s other product lines and the overall quality of content. Previously she served as national executive editor and editor of the West Coast region for GlobeSt.com and Real Estate Forum, and was responsible for coverage of news and information pertaining to that vital real estate region. Prior to moving out to the Southern California office, she was Northeast bureau chief, covering New York City for GlobeSt.com. Her background includes a stint at InStyle Magazine, and as managing editor with New York Press, an alternative weekly New York City paper. In her career, she has also covered a variety of beats for M magazine, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, FashionLedge.com, and Co-Ed magazine. Dolce has also freelanced for a number of publications, including MSNBC.com and Museums New York magazine.
