Stepping outside a Cherry Creek bar with his guests Wednesday evening, Ryan Shear took a moment to address the reason for the occasion.
“Don’t have empathy for me, but it’s not easy being a developer,” said Shear, managing partner at Property Markets Group, a Miami, Florida-based development firm.
Earlier that day, Shears’ firm had broken ground on a 5-story Waldorf Astoria condo project a few blocks away. The 37-unit building is going up at 185 Steele St. and is expected to be completed in early 2028.
The building will have units for sale starting just north of $2 million, with penthouses topping $10 million. Hilton will manage the property upon completion, as it does for all Waldorf Astoria projects, named for the original hotel in New York City. There are similar projects from Atlanta to Chicago and Jerusalem to Cabo.
Shear, whose firm is currently constructing Miami’s tallest building, a 100-story project that’s also a Waldorf Astoria, said his company’s first development in Denver was a risky bet and thanked Hilton for its trust.
“They believed in us. And as you guys know, this is the first branded condo in Cherry Creek. There’s obviously not a lot of condos in general on Cherry Creek, and they took a bet on us and on Cherry Creek and the whole development,” Shear said.
The project will have 5,000 square feet for a restaurant and a smaller retail storefront. Stuart Zall, Kyle Framson and Stacey DePalma of The Zall Co. are marketing the retail space.
Kentwood Real Estate’s Dawn Raymond is running the show on the condo side. She said 65% of the units have been sold.
Denver-based Shears Adkins Rockmore and Uruguayan-Canadian architect Carlos Ott designed the building, with help from interior design firm BAMO. Maxim Capital Group provided $107.5 million in construction financing.
“You guys lived in the trenches with us,” Shear said. “There were many, many, many, many, many days where a lot of swear words were said — not at each other, but just to the sky.
“It is a hard business getting buildings designed and entitled in Denver.”
PMG purchased the development site between late 2021 and early 2023, paying $29 million. That works out to $822 a square foot on average, although one seller received $1,322 a square foot, quadruple what he’d paid two years earlier.
PMG initially sought to rezone its holdings to allow up to 8 stories, but the firm abandoned that effort in 2023 after pushback from nearby residents.
The Cherry Creek site is one of two that PMG owns in Denver. The second is 123 Speer Blvd., where the company recently completed demolition of Denver7’s former building. PMG plans an apartment project there.
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