10-Building Office Portfolio Trades for $125M

WESTMINSTER, CO-TIAA-CREF recently bought the 10-building, 1.25-million-sf portion of the Westmoor business park development here from Denver-based Westfield Development Co. Westfield developed the buildings seven years ago and retains more than 50 acres in the park.

The price was not disclosed, but records indicate the property sold for approximately $125 million, or about $100 per sf. TIAA-CREF was also the lender on the buildings, but it was an arm’s length transaction, says Randy Schwartz, executive vice president of Westfield.

“TIAA-CREF has a lending division and it has an equity investment division, and they’re totally separate,” Schwartz says. However, he says that it did make the deal easier, because they didn’t need to work out any sales deal with the lender since they both share the same parent. It was a direct deal without broker involvement, despite Westfield being the de facto development arm of the Frederick Ross Co. One other group was interested in buying the portfolio, Schwartz tells GlobeSt.com.

Westfield developed the buildings seven years ago. At that time, during the tech boom, they were the first spec buildings along the Northwest corridor between Denver and Boulder. At that time, the US 36 corridor was known as Denver’s Silicon Valley. At first, the developer couldn’t build the buildings fast enough, there was so much demand, Schwartz said. After the tech crash, tenants began to downsize, some never even occupying their class A, “plug n’ play,” space.

Sun Microsystems, which has one of its largest office campuses in the nation in nearby Broomfield, leases two of the buildings. GE Access, formerly of Boulder, is subleasing about 90,000 sf in one building from Sun. Overall, the 10 buildings are 70% occupied. “This is a value-added deal for TIAA-CREF,” Schwartz tells GlobeSt.com