Real Estate Blog

The bodies of 62 nuns buried in a 123-year-old cemetery at the former Loretto Heights campus in southwest Denver will be exhumed and relocated as the former Catholic school campus is redeveloped into new housing and business space.

The Sisters of Loretto made the decision to close the cemetery, which opened in late 1898 and received burials until 1969, and move the sisters’ bodies to Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery, where nearly two dozen other sisters are already buried, according to a February letter from the group’s president, Barbara Nicholas, to developer Westside Investment Partners, which had hoped to keep the cemetery in place.

The Sisters of Loretto had been concerned about long-term maintenance and care at the cemetery as early as 2017, before the property was sold to Westside, and were assured then by officials that the site’s historic features would be preserved.

But subsequent conversations with experts, officials, community members and others prompted the Sisters of Loret..

Boulder’s Flatiron Park near 55th Street and Arapahoe Avenue was at the center of a historic $625 million purchase that counted as the largest single-asset sale in Colorado’s history, according to multiple real estate sources.

BioMed Realty, a San Diego-based real estate investment trust company, announced its acquisition of the business park from JLL’s Capital Markets group, which worked on behalf of Crescent Real Estate LLC, the Real Estate business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Lionstone Investments, in April.

The purchase spans 1 million square feet and 22 buildings with office and flex space. “The tenancy is a mix of life science and tech users,” said Ben Molk, senior vice president of Crescent Real Estate.

BioMed used a holding company with various LLCs in its name, BRE-BMR, to make the purchase from GPIF Flatiron Business Park, which also contained various LLCs, said Boulder County Assessor Cynthia Braddock.

The holding company also just acquired another building..

A Walmart heir’s purchase of properties in Cherry Hills Village last month easily took the No. 1 spot amongst local residential sales in May.

Ben and Lucy Walton, acting as Terra Nevada LLC, purchased four parcels in Cherry Hills Village for $22 million on May 11, according to property records. Walton is the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

The Waltons purchased four parcels on East Stanford Avenue and South Vine Way. Arapahoe County records indicate the combined site is nearly 8 acres with three homes.

The properties were sold in an off-market deal by Stanford & Vine LLC, which is managed by local wildcatter William D. Armstrong, the CEO of Armstrong Oil & Gas, records show.

It’s the second priciest residential sale ever in the metro area, trailing only Russell Wilson and Ciara’s purchase in April of a Cherry Hills Village home for $25 million, which BusinessDen was the first to report on.

Here are the next four priciest local home sales from May, according to MLS:

Courte..

Laura DuHot wants prospective homebuyers to discover The Enclave, Denver’s best-kept secret.

THE ENCLAVE

What: A friendly gated-street community with only six homesites left. The luxury single-family homes sit on the award-winning Green Valley Ranch Golf Course and are surrounded by acres of open space, trails and recreational areas.
Where: 20968 Beekman Place in Denver. From Green Valley Ranch Blvd., take Orleans to 49th Place, which becomes Beekman Place.
Price: From the mid-$700s
When: 2-6 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Phone: 303-486-8742
More info: OakwoodHomesCO.com/Enclave

The collection of 145 luxury, single-family homes, sits along the award-winning 18-hole Green Valley Ranch Golf Club, home of the Colorado Open.

“You enter The Enclave driving through a canopy of cottonwoods. It’s like you’re entering an enchanted forest,” says Duhot, new home counselor for Oakwood Homes. “When you live here, you don’t feel like you liv..

Oakwood’s quick move-in homes have become increasingly popular in the current real estate market. Not only can homebuyers move-in to a luxury home at an affordable price but can do so without a long delay. Best of all, potential buyers can purchase one without worrying they’ll get trapped in a bidding war or forced to wait more than six months for new home construction.

OAKWOOD HOMES

What: Quick move-in homes at Reunion in Commerce City and Thompson River Ranch in Johnstown.
When: 2-6 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Price: Starting in the mid-$500s
Where: Reunion sales office: 17549 E. 103rd Drive in Commerce City or the Thompson River Ranch office: 3617 Valleywood Court in Johnstown
Call: Call the Reunion sales office at 303-486-8566 or the Thompson River sales office at 970-486-8566
More info: OakwoodHomesCo.com/Reunion or OakwoodHomesCo.com/ThompsonRiverRanch

With a starting price in the mid-$500s, the cost of a new Horizon Collection home sits below C..

After 88 years at 740 S. University Blvd., the Bonnie Brae Tavern will close later this month.

Ricky Dire, who owns the restaurant with his cousin Michael — and whose grandparents founded it in 1934 — told BusinessDen that its last day open will be June 25.

“It’s a very bittersweet thing,” he said.

The Dire family sold the property at the end of May for $4.5 million, according to public records. In addition to the 740 S. University Blvd. building, home to the tavern and a dry cleaners, the deal also involved the Wish Gifts building at 750 S. University Blvd. and the surrounding parking spaces.

The buyers were Alpine Investments, led by Churchill Bunn, and Revesco Properties, led by Rhys Duggan. The two Denver firms said last year that they planned to team up for four apartment developments within the city.

“We’re in early concept planning phase for a three-story apartment project with ground-floor retail along University,” Bunn wrote in an email of the Bonnie Brae site.

The site ..

Homeowners associations in Colorado will be prohibited from seeking foreclosures against homeowners based solely on fines, and they will have to adhere to a cap on those fines.

Gov. Jared Polis signed HB22-1137 into law on Friday to set these limits on homeowners associations to avoid future large-scale foreclosures over escalating fines and fees like those in Green Valley Ranch.

“No homeowner should find themselves in foreclosure just because of a minor fee or a fine that’s been assessed by their HOA,” said Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat and bill sponsor.

Gonzales said she encourages both homeowners and HOA boards to learn about the law, which she said is not difficult to comply with.

“In Montbello and in Aurora as well, we’ve seen these bad actors who have really deeply affected … many, many families through setting up these foreclosure processes,” Gonzales said.

The new law requires HOAs to send written notice in the homeowner’s preferred language about any violations, ..

After a stretch of overbuilding the past decade, metro Denver had too many self-storage units which triggered pricing wars and falling rents. But as with so many things, the pandemic has reworked the equation.

The outbreak created a surge in remote workers who needed to free up more space for home offices. It also disrupted supply chains, causing small businesses to build up inventories and hunt for space. Construction became more costly and difficult, reducing the number of new units hitting the market.

Restrained supply combined with increased demand has brought more balance into the market.

“Storage has had a lot of ups and downs — building cycles and economic cycles,” said David Cramer, chief operating officer for National Storage Affiliates, a real estate investment trust based in Greenwood Village. “With COVID, our sector has seen a very large increase in the number of people wanting to use our product.”

Between 2012 and 2021, the Denver market added 8.7 million square feet o..

The building nearly doubled in value since its last trade.

The powerful North Carolina Healthcare Association is pushing back against proposed changes to the rules governing how health systems in the state add services and build new facilities.