Gates Corp. on Monday sold what was left of its former 80-acre campus along South Broadway to a Houston development firm that plans to build housing, offices, restaurants and shops near a rail line running through the site.
The LionStone Group purchased Gates’ 30-acre eastern campus sandwiched between an existing light-rail station along Interstate 25 and one planned about a mile southeast. The site is one of the most important to the city’s transit plans because three rail lines are planned to intersect there, Gates spokesman David Kenney said.
Parcels now dedicated to parking lots and industrial and office buildings will accommodate “transit mixed use” – the highest density of residential, business and transportation development permitted in Denver – and “residential mixed use,” which allows homes and shops on the same block.
Neighborhood groups representing 2,500 households worked with Gates officials for more than a year and a half to craft the rezoning plan, which recently received city approval.
LionStone has not decided where to put new buildings on the property or what they will look like and will invite surrounding neighbors to contribute ideas, co-owner Tom Bacon said.
The site includes about 300,000 square feet of existing office space that will be renovated and leased with help from Denver brokerage Frederick Ross.
The site’s purchase price was not immediately available. The project will be paid for from a $185 million fund LionStone raised to tackle development in several major city cores, Bacon said.
In 2001, Gates sold the western side of its campus – 50 acres west of South Broadway once used for manufacturing rubber belts and hoses – to Cherokee Investment Partners, a firm that specializes in cleaning up contaminated properties.
Cherokee’s preliminary plans call for a “new urban” village that Gates wants integrated with LionStone Group’s development to the east.
Gates already is working to clean up contaminated land on the eastern campus, Kenney said.
Formed in 2001, the LionStone Group is led by former executives of global real-estate behemoth Hines.
Staff writer Christine Tatum can be reached at 303-820-1015 or ctatum@denverpost.com.
