'Neighbor' buys Wazee Exchange

By Jill Jamieson-Nichols
Colorado Real Estate Journal

A Lower Downtown office building owner became the natural buyer for a historic building a block away.

MAVD West purchased the Wazee Exchange, a 75,000-square-foot office building at 1900 Wazee St. It plans to add retail storefront space and upgrade the building's presence on 19th Street. With excess parking capacity at Blake Street Terrace, which the company also owns, it also will be able to provide a little extra parking for the Wazee building, which sits just a block from Coors Field.

MAVD bought the property for $8.1 million from Colorado & Santa Fe Real Estate. The building is approximately 92 percent occupied by multiple small office tenants, said Frederick Ross Co. broker Darrin Revious.

Because of the foot traffic that passes by - especially on game days - the building could be a great spot for a sandwich shop, coffee shop, art gallery or small furniture store, for example, said MAVD West's Randy Hughes.

"It just made sense because so many people were going to be walking by that it would be a great opportunity to expose these retailers to those people," he said, adding up to 9,000 sf of retail will be available.

The three-story building was built before the turn of the 20th century. MAVD West hasn't finalized all the details of the upgrade, but expects it will "create a nicer image for LoDo," Hughes said.

"The existing leases were signed several years ago, so there is a lot of opportunity for them to renew them at the current market rates and increase the income pretty substantially," said Revious, who handled the transaction with Frederick Ross broker Todd Silverman.

MAVD West is a subsidiary of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based MAVDevelopment, a company owned by members of Vlasic family, best known for Vlasic pickles. The company owns more than 2 million sf of commercial space, primarily in the Ann Arbor area.

It established a local presence last year with MAVD West, whose activities include development of a new 105-acre business park on  Harmony Road in Fort Collins.