Banker Don Sturm plans to spend nearly $10 million renovating the former Tattered Cover building and an adjacent Cherry Creek office building.
Sturm plans to remove the existing exterior brick walls on both buildings and replace them with glass-curtain walls. He plans to renovate the buildings to a standard that would enable the core and shell to be LEED (a green building rating system) certified. Gensler Denver designed the buildings.
“We’re really rebuilding for the next 50 years,” Sturm said. “We want it to be an investment that is long term.”
Sturm still envisions retailers in the 48,000-square-foot building at One Fillmore Place formerly occupied by the Tattered Cover, despite the challenges of leasing a four-story building to multiple tenants.
“It makes it more difficult to lease, but if you find the right destination user, they can succeed,” said Pat McHenry, a retail broker with Trammell Crow Co. “In this kind of location, people will go beyond their prototype to make it work.”
She cited Bed, Bath & Beyond in Cherry Creek as a retailer that typically locates on one level but made an exception because of the desirable location.
Destination retail could include a salon, spa or health club, said Dan Foy of Chicago-based The Foy Bradford Co., who is marketing the retail property for Sturm. Foy said he has letters of intent from several prospective tenants. He declined to name them.
The asking lease rate for the top level of One Fillmore Place is $25 per square foot. The rates get progressively higher on the lower floors.
Renovating the 90,000 – square-foot office building at 158 Fillmore will begin after Janus Capital Group moves out March 31. KSL Capital Partners has agreed to lease the top floor of the six-story building, and engineering firm Malcolm Pirnie will lease the second floor, said Peter Staab, senior director of Frederick Ross Co., who is marketing the building.
Asking lease rates for that building are about $30 per square foot.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
