An organization that serves as a repository of cable industry history while also aiming to develop new leaders within it has sold its building on the University of Denver campus.
Itap also evaluating whether to stay in Denver for the long term.
The Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center earlier this month sold its 75,000-square-foot facility at 2000 Buchtel Blvd. South for $19.5 million to the University of Denver.
DU already owned the land beneath the building. The Cable Center — Syndeo Institute is a relatively recent addition to the name — leased it for just $1 a year annually, according to Executive Director Diane Christman.
“DU’s always been a strong partner of ours,” Christman said.
The ground lease, which was struck in 1998 and extended for more than a century, was terminated in connection with the sale.
The Cable Center will vacate the building by June 30, according to University of Denver spokesman Jon Stone. He said it will be turned into a DU welcome center and house the undergraduate admissions office.
“The building also provides new revenue opportunities from space and event rentals, and academic programming opportunities,” Stone said in an email. “Finally, moving undergraduate admissions from their current location in the center of campus opens needed space for academic purposes.”
Christman said DU proposed the deal, and she came to the conclusion it “ensures the sustainability of our work.”
“We have a staff of 13 and we’re in 75,000 square feet,” she said.
Many of the organization’s expenses are building-related, and the energy bill can hit $20,000 a month, Christman said. While the Cable Center has hosted its own events and rented the building out for things like weddings, a “big physical space like that is not as important as it once was for a building like ours.”
The Cable Center celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. It was formed by a group known as the Cable TV Pioneers, which still exists today. Christman is a member.
“Initially, we were conceived as more of a museum and educational facility,” she said.
The organization does have a library with photos, memorabilia and hundreds of oral histories, Christman said. But a key goal is also fostering an entrepreneurial mindset within companies and helping the industry’s next generation through the Syndeo Institute.
The facility got its start at Pennsylvania State University. The deal to move onto DU’s campus was struck by Bill Daniels, founder of the cable company Daniels & Associates and a major DU donor, and Daniel Ritchie, a former cable executive who was then chancellor of the private university.
The Denver building opened in 2001.
“You had an academic part, and, at the time, Denver was still kind of the hub of the cable industry,” Christman said.
While companies such as Comcast still have significant operations locally, that status no longer applies. Each year, the Cable Center inducts people into its Cable Hall of Fame. The ceremony was once held in Denver. But sometime in the late 2000s, Christman said, the organization moved it to New York City.
The Cable Center lost at least $1 million annually between 2011 and 2024, with the exception of 2016, when revenue exceeded expenses by about $140,000, according to tax filings.
In 2024, the most recent year available, the organization reported net assets of $50.4 million. Revenue was $3.07 million and expenses were $4.23 million. About 20% of revenue the past two years has come from renting out the building.
With DU’s help, the Cable Center will initially move for two years into about 8,500 square feet a short distance away. DU will also provide storage space for three years.
“We’re not shuttering any part of our services,” Christman said.
During that transition time, a bigger decision will be made. Christman said the organization plans to form a committee of industry leaders and ask them where the Cable Center should be located.
“It could be on the East Coast or it could be on the West Coast, or the committee could say you’re good staying in Denver,” she said.
The committee will make a recommendation or two to the Cable Center’s board, which will make the final decision, according to Christman.
“My hope is that we have that figured out by the end of 2026,” she said.
All the while, the organization will be working on digitizing its historical assets and updating a website that Christman said is already “robust.”
“We have a constituency that is global. What makes more sense for us is to be more digital in our delivery.”
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