Demolition eyed for long-vacant pension fund building

The former headquarters of Colorado’s public pension fund could be reduced to rubble.

Last month, a firm requested a demolition permit for the 43,000-square-foot office building at 1300 N. Logan St. in Capitol Hill, which is owned by the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association, or PERA.

PERA is now based at 1301 Pennsylvania St., which is connected by a skyway to the building on Logan. In late 2019, The Denver Post highlighted the fact that 1300 N. Logan had been sitting unoccupied for 10 years. No one has moved in since.

In December, PERA transferred the building from its “operational” portfolio to its “investment” portfolio, according to Patrick von Keyserling, a spokesman for the organization. He declined to comment on the demolition request.

The investment portfolio is managed by L&B Realty Advisors, a Dallas-based firm.

The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Robert Hudgins, a Cushman & Wakefield broker who previously marketed the building for lease, previously told Businessden the structure “needed to be completely remodeled.”

“The top floor used to be the executive offices for PERA way back in the day. And, you know, the conference room, the green room that they had up there, the offices and everything, it was like stepping back into a ‘Dallas’ set,” he said, referring to the 1980s TV show.

PERA commissioned the development of 1300 Logan to serve as its headquarters in the 1970s.

The structure was expected to cost $3 million when it broke ground in April 1975, according to the agency’s annual report that year.

It’s also not the first time demolition has been considered for a building on the site, according to a report written by Denver city staff.

In the late 1800s, a sandstone home was erected on site. The house was donated to the Denver Art Association in 1922, where it served as the home of the initial iteration of the Denver Art Museum.

The arrangement lasted until the late 1960s, when the museum outgrew the space.

Despite community opposition, and even a fundraising effort by The Denver Post to preserve the structure, the property was sold in 1970 to a “consortium intending to replace it with a modern office building.”

In July that year, a demolition permit was issued and the building was removed shortly after.