Denver’s largest office landlord plans to sell the bulk of its properties in the area.
Equity Office Properties owns six buildings downtown and nine in the Denver Technological Center that total 5 million square feet. It is considering selling all but two of its properties in the Tech Center – the Quadrant and the Metropoint buildings – and all but the Tabor Center downtown and the U.S. Bank Tower, according to sources in the Denver real-estate community.
Tenants in those properties include The Denver Post, the Regional Transportation District, Lauren Diamonds and ESPN Zone downtown; and Century Communities and Earth Tech Inc. in the Tech Center.
In a second-quarter earnings conference call Aug. 1, Equity Office president and chief executive Richard Kincaid announced that the company would exit the Atlanta market and sell select assets totaling up to $2.5 billion in Chicago, Denver and northern California.
Equity Office spokeswoman Terry Holt said the firm has not yet determined which Denver properties it will sell.
“We’re looking at a lot of different things, but specific plans will depend entirely on what pricing we can get,” Holt said. “We’re testing the market to see what the interest is in particular assets. That doesn’t mean we would sell everything we’re testing or that we would sell it tomorrow.”
The company has enlisted Mary Sullivan of CB Richard Ellis to market the downtown properties and Tim Richey and Mike Winn of Cushman & Wakefield for the suburban projects, according to sources in the real-estate community. Holt declined to confirm who the listing agents are.
Sullivan declined to comment. Neither Richey nor Winn could be reached.
Last fall, Equity Office hired Jones Lang LaSalle to market a vacant lot near the Tabor Center for development as a residential or hotel tower. Located at the southeast corner of 17th and Larimer streets, the site already has zoning that would allow for any use and has no height restrictions.
But with plans in the works for numerous condo towers as well as Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons hotels, developers are more interested in the site for office use, said Rob Link, executive vice president of Studley, a tenant-representation firm.
Lease rates would have to increase to $35 a square foot or more before Equity Office is likely to consider developing the site, Link said. The top current lease rates are about $29 a square foot.
During the conference call, Kincaid suggested that the vacant site near the Tabor Center no longer is for sale, saying the company still likes downtown Denver.
“At least, we have a great development site there,” he said.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-820-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
