Rialto Lands $55M Square Mile Loan in Denver Office Buy
By Matt Grossman February 4, 2019 3:43 pm
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Square Mile Capital Management has lent Rialto Capital Management $54.6 million to fund Rialto’s acquisition of an office building in the heart of Denver, the lender announced today.
Rialto is joining with SteelWave, a San Francisco-based property manager, to pick up the 223,000-square-foot tower at 930 15th Street in the Colorado capital. Brokers from HFF, including Leon McBroom and Eric Tupler, arranged the financing for the buyers.
A Square Mile spokesman said that executives from the company would decline to comment further about details of the loan, referring questions to Rialto and SteelWave. Representatives for those companies did not immediately respond to inquiries.
Under prior owner CenturyLink, the building had fallen largely vacant. But Rialto and SteelWave plan to pour some of the proceeds of the loan into “extensive renovations” that will bring the office space up to snuff for creative-industry tenants. Projects include adding glass curtain walls, remodeling the lobby, setting up a rooftop terrace and overhauling the elevators. Gensler will be responsible for the design.
Matthew Drummond, a Square Mile lending executive, said the investment firm was drawn to the project by both its sponsorship and its location within a humming commercial market.
“Downtown Denver is a dynamic commercial office market that we find extremely attractive. It’s also a market where the current demand for flexible creative office product is very strong,” Drummond said in a statement. “Rialto has a sterling track record and a compelling plan to meet that demand through the recreation of this well-located boutique building.”
The building, centrally located in Denver’s Downtown district, stands a block north of the Colorado Convention Center and just across from the local branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. New residents have poured into the mile-high metropolis over the last decade, as tech firms and young workers seek to find each other in a low-tax state that’s seen as laid back and entrepreneurial. Its population grew by more than 100,000—nearly 20 percent—between 2010 and 2017, according to census data, and the Denver Business Journal counts several dozen commercial and multifamily projects underway within a mile or two of 930 15th Street.
Square Mile wouldn’t name the acquisition price, but the website of Denver’s property tax office said the building was valued at $30.9 million.
