Gates Corp. today sold what remained of its former 80-acre campus along Broadway Avenue to a Houston development firm that plans to build housing, offices, restaurants, shops and transportation lines within walking distance of each other.
The LionStone Group purchased Gates’ eastern campus, composed of 30 acres 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 be converted into zones that 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 roughly 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.
The site’s purchase price was not immediately available.
In 2001, Gates sold the western side of its campus – 50 acres west of 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.
