An Australian company is buying control of Denver’s most recognizable office building.
Macquarie Properties and Macquarie Office Trust will acquire an 80 percent stake in downtown Denver’s Wells Fargo Center, better known as “the cash-register building,” in a deal expected to close by the end of the year.
This is the second time the 50-story building will have changed hands this year. Maguire Properties, a publicly traded commercial-property investment and management company in Los Angeles, purchased the building from CommonWealth Properties earlier.
Under terms of the deal, Macquarie also will acquire a controlling interest in five of Maguire’s California office buildings. Macquarie is putting a California building it owns into the joint venture called Maguire Macquarie Office.
The purchase price was not disclosed.
The 1.2 million-square-foot, 698-foot-tall Wells Fargo Center at 1700 Lincoln St., completed in 1983, is the third-tallest building in Denver. The tenants include several departments of Wells Fargo Bank, Newmont Mining Corp. and the Holme Roberts & Owen law firm. It’s 89 percent occupied.
The new venture will include about 4 million square feet of office space. Maguire owns about 16 million square feet of space.
“The institutional investors in Australia have an enormous amount of capital and have identified Southern California and Maguire as a REIT (real estate investment trust) that continues to grow and would like to be a part of it,” said Peggy Moretti, a spokeswoman for Maguire.
Maguire netted about $350 million by contributing its assets. It intends to use about $100 million to pay down debt. The remainder will be used for future acquisitions and development.
Maguire will keep the leasing and property management of the buildings. There are incentives in place to ensure that the venture meets specific goals, Moretti said.
More than $26 billion in assets are managed under the Macquarie brand across a portfolio of unlisted properties, trusts, development funds and investment syndicates. The company also has a partnership with Denver-based ProLogis, the world’s largest owner, operator and manager of distribution facilities. Macquarie ProLogis Trust has about $1.6 billion in assets.
Last year, Macquarie entered into a similar arrangement with Regency Centers, a Florida-based developer of shopping centers.
Macquarie is turning its attention to the U.S. because there is more capital coming from investors in Australia than there are commercial properties to buy, said one real-estate expert who asked not to be named.
“They bought into three operating REITs and could deploy capital and not gear up with any personnel,” he said.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-820-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
