Steel fabricator Cemco is moving out of its space near Burnham Yard in central Denver. It’s not hard to guess who will move in next.
“That facility will likely get sold to the Broncos,” said broker Mark Dwyer of Lincoln Property Co. “It’s part of that whole area.”
Dwyer, along with colleagues Sam Slaton and Scott Caldwell, represented California-based Cemco in its recent $29.3 million purchase of a 140,000-square-foot industrial property in Commerce City.
The company currently operates in a space less than a third of that size at 480 N. Osage St.
“We have been operating at our current location in Denver for 22 years and our biggest issue has been a constraint on space,” Cemco CEO Tom Porter said in a statement.
The company was mum about its existing Denver real estate.
“As far as the status of the current building, I cannot comment on that,” Cemco spokesman Steve Farkas told BusinessDen.
Cemco purchased the 2.7-acre 480 Osage property in 2003 for $2 million, records show. The company has other locations in California and Texas. It’s one of America’s largest manufacturers of steel framing, according to the company’s website.
“They needed a decent-sized building with a yard and rail, and this building has a rail spur that goes into the building and one that goes into the yard. That was very important to them and very hard to find,” Dwyer said.
He began working with the company about 18 months ago to find a new home for the Denver operations.
That’s also around the same time lawyers formed a host of nondescript LLCs, which have been slowly buying property around Burnham Yard. BusinessDen previously linked those entities to the Denver Broncos, which is considering the former railyard and the surrounding area for a new stadium.
The team, which declined to comment on Cemco’s pending move, maintains it is considering multiple sites for a new stadium, as well as staying at Empower Field at Mile High.
Cemco, founded in 1974, was purchased by Japanese steel giant JFE Holdings in 2022. Its CEO at the time of the sale, Raymond Poliquin, owns the company’s real estate in Denver. Public records show he leased the 480 Osage building to Cemco in late September 2022. That lease expires at the end of September 2026, with options to renew it through 2040, and includes a first right of refusal to buy the property.
“When he sold the business to JFE, he retained ownership of the building but sold the company,” Dwyer said.
Poliquin is no longer with the company, a Cemco representative told BusinessDen. Poliquin could not be reached for comment Monday.
Just down the block from Cemco, a warehouse at 575-577 Osage St. was sold last week for $10.7 million by Iowa-based construction company Kinzler Corp., which purchased it for $5 million five years earlier. That transaction followed the typical Broncos-style real estate deal: an LLC tracing back to a large Denver law firm with little available information, formed in late 2023, paying cash and above market value.
Next door to 575-577 Osage is 485 Osage St., which the team bought in March.
Read more at our partner, BusinessDen.
Originally Published:
