Coorado Springs Real Estate Briefs: November 2, 2007

The 50,000-square-foot Toko America industrial building at 4755 Forge Road has been purchased by a local investor group, 4755 Forge Road LLC, for $2.4 million.

Formally a single-tenant facility, the property will be subdivided into suites of 2,000 to 9,000 square feet, said John Rodgers of Peak Commercial Properties.

Some of the space will be sold as industrial condominiums.

Rodgers and Andrew Madden, also of Peak Commercial, handled both sides of the transaction.

The local commercial real estate marketplace has seen a number of changes during the past two months. The following is a brief overview.

Peak Commercial opens

John Rodgers and Andrew Madden have opened a commercial real estate firm.

Peak Commercial Properties is headquartered at 104 S. Cascade Ave. and will focus on industrial real estate and land development.

The company also plans to provide a research division to support its niche in the market.

Since 2005, Rodgers has brokered more than $30 million in transactions, representing clients ranging from the Pikes Peak region's Daniels Chevrolet, Proforma Land Development and Morley & Cos. to international companies such as UPS, FedEx, Ingersol-Rand and Toko America.

Madden has participated in $16 million of industrial and land transactions.

C&W adds two brokers

Peter Scoville and Michael Palmer have left NAI Highland Commercial Group to join Greg Phaneuf at Cushman & Wakefield.

Both Palmer, a veteran broker with $1 billion in transactions to his credit, and Scoville have served the industry in leadership capacities.

Scoville is the past president of the Colorado Springs chapter of the Realtor Commercial Industrial Society. Palmer is a past president of the Colorado chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors.

Multifamily market strong

In its third quarter 2007 market overview, Realfactsonline.com said that the Pikes Peak region ranks fourth of four Colorado market service areas surveyed in rent ranking, rent growth percentage year- over-year and occupancy.

The city's $715 average rent was 26.3 percent lower than Boulder's, 19 percent lower than Denver-Aurora's and 14 percent lower than Fort Collins-Loveland's MSA.

In contrast, year-over-year figures show that Colorado Springs' multifamily market appears the most stable, with average occupancies growing by 1.1 percent. Denver-Aurora fell 0.2 percent, Fort Collins- Loveland dropped 0.5 percent and Boulder saw a 2.4 percent decline.

For the three-quarter period, however, the city saw an average 92.1 percent average occupancy, compared to a 97.3 percent in top- ranked Fort Collins-Loveland, where rents also rose year-over-year by 6.5 percent. Colorado Springs showed only 1 percent growth in rents for the same period.

The state registered higher overall totals than the Pikes Peak region, with an average rent for the third quarter of $855, rent growth of 2.9 percent, an average occupancy of 94 percent and occupancy growth of 0.1 percent.

Becky Hurley covers real estate for the Colorado Springs Business Journal.

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