Dave Layton, co-CEO of Partners Group, remembers hunting for a new office location when the Denver REI store, located in the old electrical plant of the Tramway Co., impressed him.
“Find me one of these,” he told his real estate adviser.
Vacant and vintage factories of the size that Partners Group, a Swiss money management firm, needed aren’t an easy find. So the company ended up building its U.S. headquarters in that style from scratch.
With its red brick, exposed steel beams and vast ceiling space, the main building on the new campus looks like it was dropped down from Denver’s River North neighborhood.
But it’s located in Broomfield, southwest of Flatirons Crossings mall, near the campus of Level 3 Communications, which is now part of CenturyLink.
“We are planting a flag in Colorado. This will be our main campus for the Americas,” said Layton. “This is a big deal for us and for our people.”
In some ways, the move reflects Partners Group. The firm, even though it was started in 1996, taps the centuries-old financial pedigree of the Swiss. Rather than locating in the financial hub of Zurich, its founders chose the more family-friendly town of Zug, population 125,000.
Back in November 2015, Partners Group, applying under the code name Project Chalet, received approval for $4.4 million in tax credits from the state in return for creating 150 jobs with an average salary of $220,000 over the next eight years.
Just four years in, the company counts 220 Colorado employees, and it rapidly outgrew its temporary office space in downtown Denver.
What was first envisioned as a campus with 80,000 square feet will have 129,400 square feet when the third and final building opens early next year, giving it room for up to 500 workers.
“It was hard for us to project how fast we would be growing. We really got some momentum,” Layton said.
Jeff Romine, director of economic vitality with the City and County of Broomfield, said the campus blends old and new and blurs the line dividing urban and suburban.
Employees can reach the campus via a shuttle that connects to a nearby bus stop. More housing is going into what has been primarily a suburban office park.
And placing urban-style buildings on more affordable suburban land highlights how the company finds value in ways that others don’t, he said.
Partners Group manages $93 billion on behalf of institutional investors, mostly pension funds and insurers. Its expertise includes private equity, private real estate, private infrastructure and private lending.
“We are a very outbound-driven firm,” said Layton. “Every client and asset is the result of someone building a relationship.”
Metro Denver for decades hosted mutual fund groups that invest in publicly traded stocks and bonds. As that industry faded, it left behind a cadre of support workers who have attracted firms like TIAA, Charles Schwab and Fidelity.
Partners Group has brought a new set of expertise to town, and Layton said luring workers from private equity hubs like New York, Boston and Los Angeles is not difficult.
“It is a place people want to be,” he said. “And as a little bonus, we have a great view of the mountains.”
