Littleton residents will soon be able to shop where offices once stood.
Last week, local retail investor and developer Republic Investment Group closed on a 63-acre site at 700 W. Mineral Ave. for $50 million, records show. Demolition of the existing 680,000-square-foot office building there began Wednesday, RIG owner Grant Nelson said.
The building was once home to Louisiana-based telecommunications firm Lumen, which changed its name from CenturyLink in 2020.
“This property has been so underutilized for so long, that’s really the exciting part … When people went home during COVID, they never really utilized this facility fully ever again,” he said.
As it bought the land, RIG immediately resold 18.5 of the acres to Costco for $5.8 million, and 17.5 acres for $17.1 million to San Antonio-based apartment developer Embrey, records show.
Embrey will build 370 apartments on the southern end of the lot, west of Broadway and north of County Line Road.
“Based upon the incentive agreement with Littleton, we were able to have a better land price for Costco,” Nelson said.
Littleton is kicking back 50 percent of sales tax revenue for the next decade for all retailers onsite, up to a total reimbursement of $29.5 million. City staff said the incentive was justified since the land acquisition costs were about five times greater than other Costco-anchored developments in Colorado, according to the city’s website.
The site is expected to generate 800 jobs and about $2.8 million in net sales tax revenue in its first year, increasing to over $9 million by the 10th year.
Nelson plans to spend $20 million demolishing the office building and constructing infrastructure onsite, including two new traffic signals, nearly 1,000 trees, and bike and pedestrian pathways. That process will last through the fall. RIG will sell or lease the ground for approximately nine other commercial spaces.
No retailers have formally announced that they will open a location onsite, but Westword wrote last month that Chicago fast-food chain Portillo’s was eyeing the site.
Nelson also hopes to secure a second big-box store in addition to Costco.
Costco did not respond to BusinessDen’s request for comment, but Littleton expects the store to open in 2026.
Nelson, 56, said he saw the vision for the wholesaler there thanks to his decades of retail experience. He first toured the property in summer 2022. The Colorado native founded RIG 14 years ago and has spent his entire career in the retail real estate world. He is the former state director of retail trade association International Council of Shopping Centers.
“I only see things through the retail lens,” Nelson said. The site’s “spacing between Highlands Ranch and Park Meadows and Southwest Plaza really created a unique location for retail here.”
An Embrey executive, meanwhile, said its 370-unit apartment project will break ground early next year and wrap up by the end of 2026 or early 2027.
The firm is active in Denver, currently constructing apartments along Colfax Avenue in the Golden Triangle and further east at a site off Leetsdale Drive near Colorado Boulevard.
“We’re pretty dialed,” Embrey Chief Development Officer Jimmy McCloskey said. “We’ve been active in Denver for 26 years or more; we’ve had a lot of projects in the suburbs like this.”
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