Colorado Springs Real Estate Briefs: December 28, 2007

Creativity and commercial real estate can seem like an odd pairing, but not for Sierra Commercial's David Bacon and Randy Miller, nor for Cushman & Wakefield's Peter Scoville and Michael Palmer.

In fact, the Realtor Commercial Industrial Society presented this year's "Transaction of the Year" award to the four brokers, based on the resourcefulness, knowledge and yes, creativity, required to get large or complex deals closed.

Retail transaction

Bacon garnered his third RCIS award in seven years, this time for the "Retail Transaction of the Year" category.

The challenge was to establish the broker's exclusive buyer agency relationship with the Larry H. Miller Group, an out-of-state auto dealer and buyer. At the same time, he had to secure two sites, both north and south, each about 15-acres.

Concerns that had to be addressed included a multiple parcel assemblage for the south site near Fountain and Powers boulevards and the formation of a joint venture partnership with Nor'Wood Development on the north site. Through the two-year process, he learned that Toyota required their dealers to upgrade dealerships to meet future corporate standards.

That necessitated not just one new location to accommodate the Motor City operation, but a second site for the dealer's North Academy store.

Bacon won the 2000 "Broker of the Year" award and teamed in 2006 with Sierra Commercial land broker Dale Wheeler to receive top industry honors for the Industrial Transaction of the Year.

Industrial transaction

In the industrial category, Scoville and Palmer of Cushman Wakefield won top honors for repositioning and successfully marketing the former 64,449-square-foot Intel building at 9965 Federal Drive.

The industrial property on 10.93 acres was purchased by Corporate Office Properties for $2.6 million during January 2006.

The Palmer-Scoville brokerage team worked with COPT vice president George Swintz to change its profile to that of a single- or multi-tenant Class "A/B" office/R&D project and to determine potential users for the plant.

Because the facility offered up to 10 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet, call centers were put on the top of the list for marketing purposes, Scoville said.

Within three months, the brokers had identified Spectranetics, a cardiovascular medical device manufacturer as a potential tenant. Spectranetics moved in during March 2007.

Office transaction

This 96,334-square-foot lease transaction took two phases, said 2007 office transaction winner Randy Miller of Sierra Commercial Real Estate.

The building's first showing took place during February 2006, but negotiations did not begin until the prospective tenant returned to the market late in October, with a very short time constraint.

Closing before Dec. 31, 2006, was required, creating a furious 45- 50 day period for lease and financial negotiation. Complicating the deal was the fact that the subject property went through a foreclosure sale during the lease negotiation.

As a result, leases had to be negotiated between the tenant and the defaulting landlord and the new owner.

Correction

The 45 closed sales reported by C.B. Richard Ellis broker Chris Bodnar for the last 18 months were for the entire state of Colorado, not just for Colorado Springs. "Approximately 25 percent of our total sales took place in the Pikes Peak region," he said. Bodnar also said 5 percent cap rates in California made Colorado Springs a "very attractive" investors market.

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