A once high-flying office campus in south Aurora is now under contract at a deep discount, with a proposed sale price that is a fraction of what it pulled in less than a decade ago.
The two-building Cherry Creek Place I and II complex at 3131 and 3190 S. Vaughn Way is under contract to sell for $8.8 million, a steep slide from the nearly $40 million the same buildings fetched in 2018. The roughly 400,000-square-foot campus sits just off the I-225 and Parker Road interchange, in a part of town that has long leaned on big-office users.
According to BusinessDen, a court-appointed receiver overseeing the property has agreed to sell the towers to an entity listed as WT Investments Limited for $8.8 million, or about $21.50 per square foot. Court records show a judge approved the proposed sale on Feb. 5, although the deal has not yet closed.
Property history and specs
Marketing materials describe Cherry Creek Place I and II as a pair of six-story office buildings constructed around 1980 to 1982, with a combined rentable area of roughly 406,800 square feet and large floor plates that historically appealed to call-center tenants, according to Transwestern's property listing.
The campus last traded in 2018, when an affiliate of Pennybacker Capital bought the property for about $39.7 million and took on a sizable loan that later became the focus of a legal fight, according to reporting by the Denver Business Journal.
How it landed in receivership
After the loan went sideways, Wells Fargo, which had become trustee for the debt, alleged the ownership group had defaulted and asked a judge to step in and appoint a receiver, according to BusinessDen. The court selected Doug Wilson for the role.
In his initial report, Wilson described the towers as being "in generally good physical condition," even as he noted that many of the large-floor-plate tenants that once filled the buildings had either downsized their space or moved out entirely. That combination of decent bones and shrinking demand set the stage for the steeply discounted sale now moving through the system.
What buyers and the market are watching
Brokerage and marketing materials frame Cherry Creek Place I and II as a candidate for redevelopment or a major office repositioning. Current listings emphasize flexible floorplates and "white-box" availability that could appeal to tenants who want a blank slate, according to LoopNet.
Regional market reports show that demand has weakened for large, single-use office campuses similar to Cherry Creek Place, contributing to discounted trades at other office properties around the Denver area, according to research from Lee & Associates. For investors circling this Aurora deal, the question is whether that kind of bargain pricing signals a bottom or just another step down in a still-shifting office market.
