Tech Center Sells Cherry Creek Block

DENVER-The Denver Technological Center sold the company it created to own a key block in the heart of Cherry Creek North, where it planned a $100-million, mixed-used development. The amount paid by locally based Western Development Group wasn’t disclosed.

The principal of the low-profile Western Development is Christian Anschutz, the 30-year-old son of Philip Anschutz. The elder Anschutz, among other things, owns the Staples arena in Los Angeles and is the largest shareholder of locally based Qwest Communications and the Regal Entertainment Group, the world’s largest movie theater chain.

Christian Anschutz didn’t return calls from GlobeSt.com. Peter Culshaw, president of the Tech Center, says that Western Development plans to continue the development program that he had planned for the block. The Tech Center had owned the block, bordered by First and Second avenues, the Fillmore Plaza and Detroit Street since 1987. The Tech Center’s plan called for expensive condos in a new six-story building, as well as the possibility of a stand-along restaurant and a 40,000-sf residential and retail building.

The site is next to the new world headquarters for the Janus family of mutual funds. On the other side is the Tattered Cover bookstore. And across the street, is the Taubman Co.’s Cherry Creek shopping center, the best performing regional mall in the state.

“We’re primarily suburban owners and developers, although as you know, we recently bought the Hudson Bay Centre in Downtown and we own the Ptarmigan Place in Cherry Creek,” Culshaw tells GlobeSt.com. “We’ll take the proceeds from this sale and invest it in other real estate opportunities.”

Culshaw says that Western Development made repeated offers, until “they gave me an offer we couldn’t refuse.” This is not Western Development’s first Cherry Creek North purchase. Records show that lat fall it paid $6 million for a building anchored by a Starbuck’s at 200 Fillmore St., catty corner from the block it bought from the Tech Center. The seller in that transaction was Rita Bass, who is married to Bill Coors of Molson Coors Brewing Co.