Equity Commonwealth Takes Loss On $132M Denver Office Sale As It Winds Down Business
Equity Commonwealth is closing the books on its real estate holdings with the sale of its last remaining property, 17th Street Plaza, a 709K SF office tower in downtown Denver.
The publicly traded REIT is under contract to sell the 32-story building at 1225 17th St. for $132.5M, or $186 per SF, with the deal expected to close later this month, according to a press release.
The buyer has not been disclosed and the transaction will not enter into the public record until after it closes.
The transaction should be the final step in Chicago-based Equity Commonwealth’s full liquidation, a process the company outlined in a July 2024 earnings call, when executives confirmed that its assets would be sold off and the company would wind down operations.
The firm faced pressure from activist investors, including Indaba Capital and Land & Buildings Investment Management, to dissolve and return capital to shareholders after struggling to secure an acquisition opportunity.
The net purchase price for 17th Street Plaza will be about $124.4M after credits, many of those being contractual lease costs. The company purchased the building in 2009 for $134.3M, per public records.
17th Street Plaza houses several high-profile tenants, including KPMG, Salesforce, CBRE, JLL and several law firms, according to the Denver Business Journal. It reports that Salesforce, which occupies nearly 44K SF, and CBRE, with 41K SF, renewed their leases in the fourth quarter. Ballard Spahr, one of the building’s longtime tenants, will vacate its 28K SF space this summer.
This sale follows Equity Commonwealth’s liquidation road map, which includes distributing proceeds to shareholders and delisting from the NYSE by the second quarter of this year. The company has already begun returning capital, it said, reaffirming a liquidating distribution range of $20 to $21 per share, including an initial $19 per share payout in December.
The sale remains subject to customary closing conditions, with closing expected in late February.
