Well, it's finally a done deal. Belmar has been sold Starwood Capital Group.
As I reported earlier, the Southern Utes, faced with a downturn in gas revenue, have been looking to raise cash by selling Belmar. It's finally happened. Interestingly. Continuum Partners, the design firm that has been the driving force behind Belmar since its inception, has also announced they will sell their minority share of the downtown Lakewood development. But what do we know about Starwood Capital?
The Denver Business Journal is reporting that Starwood's interest in Belmar is focused on expanding retail, which reflects the strong economic recovery currently underway in Colorado. It wasn't that many years ago that I heard people say Belmar (and indeed the entire metro area) was overbuilt in terms of retail, but the population of the front range is expected to boom over the next decade, and downtown Lakewood is well positioned to capture its share of that growth. The Denver Post, meanwhile, quotes Lakewood's deputy city manager as saying that only 50% of Belmar's residential and 45% of its commercial development is complete. (Does that 50% include the large Trifecta building, which is almost but not quite finished? I don't know.) Starwood has a history of buying underdeveloped properties, adding value, and then selling them for a healthy profit. Taken together, this suggests Starwood sees Belmar as having lots of room to grow.
Starwood has been involved with development in Denver before, including around the revamped and bustling Union Station. But Starwood is a huge, huge investment firm. They're involved with everything. The firm owns property worldwide, including resorts in Spain, office buildings in Florida, and hotels in London. Belmar was a big deal for the Southern Utes and Continuum. For Starwood, a big deal was its 2005 acquisition of Group Taittinger for $3.2 billion. In a portfolio like that, will Belmar be just another measly $250 million property?
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