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	January 2007

	Welcome to Cherry Creek Perspective. If it was forwarded to you, and you would like to continue to receive this monthly email newsletter, subscribe free by clicking on Subscribe If you are not sure if you have already subscribed, feel free to subscribe again. You will be sent only one copy. Please forward this email to friends and business associates and encourage them to subscribe free at Subscribe. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Cherry Creek North Business Improvement District has selected its new President and CEO. Julie Bender helped found the DIA Business Partnership. The BID membership recently approved as much as $18.5 million in bond funding for new infrastructure in the District. Now the design of those improvements including Fillmore Plaza must be created and approved. The Cherry Creek Shopping Center has also named its new Marketing Director. Angela Baier came back to Denver from the Thompson Park Conservancy in New York. Before that she was the Marketing Director for the City of Denver at the beginning of the Hickenlooper administration and before that she had a similar post at the Denver Zoo. GE Asset Management paid $64 million or a record $399/SF to CommerzLeasing und Immobilien AG for the 160,000 SF Janus Capital Group office building at 151 Detroit Street in the Clayton Lane complex, part of Cherry Creek North. The building previously sold in 2005 for $57.6 million. Heartland Bank of Missouri has purchased the 3-story office building at 100 Garfield Street for $3,480,000 or $151/SF. The 23,000 SF building was built in 1982 and will be occupied by the bank as a regional headquarters. The bank’s first venture outside the St. Louis area was to open a branch in Lakewood last year, which will close to join the regional headquarters in Cherry Creek. Previously the office building had sold in October 2003 for $2,535,000. RBC Capital Markets, a Canadian investment bank, recently acquired Daniels and Associates, which occupies the former Citadel Building at Steel/Cherry Creek Drive South. The telecom mergers and acquisitions firm founded by Bill Daniels will be renamed RBC Daniels. The Denver Business Journal reports that principals indicated the merger will provide the firm greater access to capital markets and relocation is not expected in the foreseeable future if at all.

The application for a Historic District around Cranmer Park in the Hilltop neighborhood has been withdrawn. The applicants reportedly found they had inadequate support among residents. The proposed district originally encompassed some 1,200 homes and was reduced in size to near 500 homes. The Denver Landmark Commission supported the proposal, but the Planning Board opposed it. Had it been approved, removal of older residences in favor of larger homes, as is popular would have been difficult, but renovation costs would have been eligible for 20% federal income tax credit.

John Elway will add his name to another restaurant in the Ritz Carlton Hotel under construction at 19th/Curtis Street in downtown Denver. Charlie Biederman who developed the JW Marriott Hotel in Clayton Lane is developing the Ritz. The menu will reportedly be very similar to Elway’s in Cherry Creek. The 8,000 SF restaurant and the $75 million hotel are scheduled to open this summer. The pairing of name restaurants and upscale hotels is a growing trend in the hospitality industry.

The first phase of the planned redevelopment of the Gates Rubber Company west site has been announced to begin later this year. To be a Trammell- Crow effort, the development will be comprised of as many as 400 luxury apartment units and 50 affordable-housing units placed in up to three 4- to 5-story buildings with retail occupying 12,000 square feet on the ground floor. Lionstone Urban Investments One from Houston and McStain from Louisville (Colorado) are redeveloping the largely vacant site on the east side of Broadway. Demolition of the existing factory buildings on the west site should begin this spring.

The 2-story Bolderdash building at 3rd/Clayton sold in December for $1,600,000 and the store has been closed. The price is equivalent to $333/SF for the 4,800 SF building.

Bob Mattucci of the Sturm Group met with the Cherry Creek Steering Committee to describe the Group’s plans for renovation of the Fillmore Place (former Tattered Cover) complex. Construction is anticipated to begin in April. Negotiations are continuing with tenants for both buildings but renovation progress must be made in order to help finalize rental contract arrangements.

158 Fillmore Street – The 34,000 SF building is in the middle of the block on the east side of Fillmore Plaza. It will be redeveloped into first floor retail space with office space on the upper floors. The exterior of the building will be high efficiency glass.

1 Fillmore Place – This 48,000 SF former Tattered Covered building will receive the same high efficiency glass exterior with significant signage incorporated into the exterior design. Sturm has interest by both national and local retailers, one of which is interested in three of the four floors. If one retailer rents the first three floors, then restaurant use of the fourth floor is possible. The exterior stairwell for the parking deck will be enclosed.

The Committee encouraged The Sturm Group to be active participants in the CCSC’s First Avenue Initiative, especially concerning the Milwaukee / First Avenue intersection, First Avenue treatment, and Fillmore Plaza.

Penny Parker in the Rocky reports that the future of Mel’s Bar and Grille has become questionable with the sale of 235 Fillmore to Western Development Group owned by Christian Anschutz, son of Phil. She reports that David Steele of Western Development said they are, “exploring options” of renovation or redevelopment (demolition). The restaurant lease was coming up for renewal, but now the tenant hesitates.

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