Alcohol wholesaler moves to Stapleton
Beverage Distributors will join several companies at the upcoming Enterprise Business Center near Interstate 70.
Beverage Distributors Company has preleased 500,000 square feet in United Properties’ Enterprise Business Center at Stapleton, where it will consolidate its three Aurora offices.
Mike Water, executive managing director of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, said the deal is the largest commercial lease he’s brokered in more than 30 years.
“The industrial market is as healthy as it’s ever been,” he said. “Although we’ve seen increasing amounts of new construction, it’s still not keeping demand for new industrial space. We have leased (buildings in the Enterprise Business Center) nearly as fast as they can be built.”
The beer, wine and spirits distributor signed the lease in July. It will occupy the sixth of eight buildings in the 2 millionsquare-foot Enterprise Business Center.
Construction on the bulk-distribution building begins in September and is scheduled for completion in early 2017. It will include 70,000 square feet of office space and 434,000 of warehouse space south of Interstate 70 near Central Park Boulevard in north Stapleton.
Beverage Distributors Company has an option to expand its operations to an additional 142,000 square feet. Financial terms were not disclosed. Industrial space in Denver rented for an average of $7.31 per square foot in the second quarter, according to a report by
commercial real estate firm Colliers International.
Beverage Distributors employs more than 600 people, and the new warehouse will smooth operations, president and CEO Joseph Marotta said.
“We completely maxed out space in our main building (in Aurora),” he said. “We operate out of three buildings, and it’s been very inefficient. Everyone feels that the new location is great.”
The company received five proposals from various developers but decided on the Enterprise Center because of closer proximity to Denver’s city center. In addition to warehousing operations, Beverage Distributors plans to sell beer, wine and spirits from the new location.
The Enterprise Business Center, a three-phase, 100acre Class A development, began construction in 2013.
United Properties has acquired an additional 45 acres for future development.
United Properties completed the first phase of the project in 2014 with four buildings totaling more than 1.2 million square feet. The developer has completed and pending leases for more than 90 percent of the flex industrial and warehouse space, United Properties vice president and regional manager Kevin Kelley said.
Current tenants include FedEx, Coca-Cola, Tire Rack, Property Wire and Cable and Aramark. It’s also where Panera Bread makes dough to ship out to its various stores.
“Major tenants want to be along the I-70 corridor and want to be near I-25 for distribution purposes,” Kelley said.
Construction on the seventh building — 157,000 square feet of flex industrial space — will begin in September, to be completed in mid-2016. An eighth building, near Central Park Boulevard and East 40th Avenue, will be built out as needed with office and retail space.
“All but 350,000 square feet is leased in a very short period of time, and it points to the Denver industrial market being so strong,” Kelley said.
Land parcels at the Enterprise Business Center were purchased from Forest City Stapleton, the master redeveloper for Stapleton.
Forest City purchased 2,935 acres of land from Denver’s Department of Aviation for redevelopment. Forest City is under contract to purchase 900 additional acres north of the Enterprise Business Center, spokesman Tom Gleason said.
“We want to bring new jobs and new housing to Stapleton,” he said. “We have over 6,000 homes that are occupied in Stapleton, but we still have residential development yet to come. Stapleton has a great connection of highways and variety of housing, all to support commercial development of this type.”