LOWE SELLS MASSIVE COMPLEX

December 20, 2012 | 7:00 am ET Staff Reporter

We're sensing a trend here: Lowe Enterprises Investors has taken the same tactic in Denver, recently selling Tanager Meadows Apartment Homes, a massive 528-unit apartment complex in Colorado Springs, to Real Capital Solutions for an undisclosed sum (ARA’s Kevin McKenna, Ken Greene, Doug Andrews, and Jeff Hawks brokered for Lowe). Lowe’s Brad Howe says after owning Tanager for eight years, the timing was right to sell: “Our strategy going in was to reposition the property and improve the performance through a renovation strategy.” The military base there had some short-term withdrawals, but now they’re back.”

Instead of multifamily, Brad says Lowe is focused more on Denver’s office market for future acquisitions, where it just purchased the 191k SF Alamo Plaza. “We like Denver, period. And office, in our minds today, presents more value because it’s earlier in the recovery cycle,” he says. (Sorry, multifamily, you're too... successful?) While he says Lowe is open to all product types for value-add plays, Denver’s office market is lending more opportunities than other products. “Most research shows Denver beginning at what will be a long growth cycle with both the energy sector and, perhaps more importantly, the emerging tech sector,” he says.