PORTION OF D&F TOWER UP FOR BID
The view from the 20th-floor balcony of one of Denver’s most iconic buildings can be yours for the right price — and it comes with five floors to use as you wish.
The view from the 20th-floor balcony of one of Denver’s most iconic buildings can be yours for the right price — and it comes with five floors to use as you wish.
On Wednesday, auctioneers for the Daniels and Fisher Clock Tower building on the 16th Street Mall will open the bidding at $4.25 million with an undisclosed reserve. The property has been on the market for $4.5 million.
“I’ve had the pleasure of owning the space for about 15 years now,” said Holly Kylberg, who bought the five floors in 2001 with her then-husband. “What has always been important to me was the history and sharing the space. I partnered with Historic Denver (for public tours). It just seemed that I was at the point of my life to transition into the next chapter, especially with today’s real estate market.”
Kylberg, who leases the space for events as part of her Clock Tower Events business, said a sale to the highest bidder will be bittersweet because the new owner may not keep it open to the public. The building’s exterior is protected, since it became a historic landmark in 1969. Kylberg also didn’t change the interior drastically because she wanted to keep its historic feel.
“I added a bathroom and plumbing and mainly just cosmetic things because I wanted to keep the old feeling of what it would have felt like 100 years ago,” said Kylberg, who said she has never spent the night in the tower.
The narrow 21-story building, modeled after St. Mark’s Bell Tower at the Piazza San Marco in Venice, once was home to Daniels & Fisher Department Store. Built in 1911, the clock tower sat on the corner of a much larger building. At the time, the tower was said to be the third-tallest building in the United States.
In its early retail days, the store had white-gloved sales clerks and a tea room. It was the area’s best place to shop, according to Mark Barnhouse, author of “Daniels and Fisher, Denver’s Best Place to Shop.”
Barnhouse told Colorado Public Radio in a 2015 interview, “It was a very exciting thing to come down-
town. You’d buy a ticket to ride the elevator to the top, up on the 20th floor — which even today, there’s a glass-walled room that you could see for miles,” Barnhouse said. “It really was the prestige store of its time.”
Kylberg said the tower was used for offices. One floor was used as a hospital for sick employees. But the 20th floor was always open to the public.
“There was the observation deck where you could see 200 miles in any direction,” she said. “It was a novelty to ride the elevator up.”
After D&F merged with the May Company in 1958 and vacated the building, the original store stayed vacant until 1971 before it was demolished. An effort by preservationists saved the clock tower, according to Clock Tower Events.
The elevator doesn’t go up to the 20th floor anymore. Just to floor 19. Kylberg’s property spans floors 17 — where the clock face starts — to 21.
Even more stairs lead up to the bell, which weighs more than 2 tons, according to History Colorado. When the building was rehabilitated, 16 floors became spaces for office tenants. The Bonfils Stanton Foundation has offices there today. In the basement is the Clocktower Cabaret, which has offered nightly shows nearly every night since opening in 2006.
Kylberg said that before she acquired the property for about $700,000 in 2001, it had been empty attic space. The five floors, which include two wraparound balconies, comprise of about 3,000 square feet, and as it goes up, each floor gets more narrow. On average, each floor is about 600 square feet.
The bell tower isn’t included with the sale. The building’s landlords will maintain the bell.
Bids for the property, at 1601 Arapahoe St., are being handled by LFC Group of Companies in Newport Beach, Calif., and will be accepted Oct. 26 through Dec. 15. Details are at FRE.com/235.
Kylberg said she hired LFC to promote the sale to a larger audience.
“A unique, one-of-a-kind property such as this may appeal to buyers outside of Colorado as well,” she said.
Until it sells, Kylberg’s event business will continue taking reservations. And, built into the sale contract, events and public tours will continue for at least one year.
“A property that is this unique will require a special buyer. And if it doesn’t hit the reserve, it may not sell overnight. But that’s OK, too. We will just continue on,” she said. “We want to give people the opportunity to use it because it may not always be there.”