Asher Luzzatto’s nine-figure real estate plans are getting kickstarted with a fire sale.
The real estate developer – who splits time between Los Angeles and Taos – purchased an entire city block with two office towers on it and plans to convert it to apartments.
“These buildings in Denver represent an opportunity to make good on my thesis that we have all of the square footage we need to build the housing we need,” Luzzatto said.
He paid $3.2 million for 621 and 633 17th St., a source familiar with the deal told BusinessDen. The property record has yet to be recorded.
In 2008, the buildings sold for $112 million. The recent deal is valued at about $3.30 a foot for the office buildings built in 1957 and 1974.
Luzzatto’s plan is to fashion at least 700 apartments out of the existing structures, which total around 970,000 square feet. At a development cost of $150 to $200 million, it will be one of the biggest office to residential conversions west of New York, he said.
The seller in the deal, Denver-based E2M Ventures, bought the property last November. BusinessDen was unable to determine the price. E2M’s founder, Marc Perusse, declined to comment.
“We want it to be a really, really vibrant block. And we want to provide services that benefit both the residents of the building and the CBD at large,” Luzzatto said.
Luzzatto, 37, runs his family’s real estate business, The Luzzatto Co. The firm has a handful of employees and offices in California, Texas and New Mexico. His dad, Marc Luzzatto, started the company in 2007 after decades of investing in real estate. His son called him a “pioneer” of the creative office space, and said his dad turned industrial properties into open concept offices for companies looking to do production and desk work under one roof.
Luzzatto is hoping to get a little bit of everything out of his new office towers.
The first step will be to put retail on the building’s ground floors via partnerships where he will own part of the business.
