Shift Workspaces’ location at 383 Corona St. opened in 2012. (Courtesy Henry Group Real Estate)
Grant Barnhill doesn’t want to see his landlord when he looks in the mirror anymore.
The owner of Shift Workspaces is looking to sell the coworking firm’s buildings in the Golden Triangle and Country Club neighborhoods and lease them back from the buyer.
“Our path for growth is going to come from leases, not owning,” he told BusinessDen this week.
Grant Barnhill
Shift’s 15,600-square-foot building at 383 Corona St. has been on the market for about a month, with an asking price of $7.2 million. The company is asking $12.46 million for its building at 1001 Bannock St., which is 22,600 square feet.
Barnhill emphasized that Shift plans to keep operating at both locations. In the case of the Bannock location, marketing materials prepared by Henry Group Real Estate state the building would come with a 12-year lease, with Shift paying $810,000 annually for the first six years, and $840,000 annually for the second half.
Barnhill opened the Corona location in 2012 and the Bannock location in 2016.
“We’ve always had the plan to own the buildings for 10ish years,” he said.
“We’ve typically been value-add investors, and both of these buildings have been stabilized for quite some time.”
Shift also has a location in Littleton, which opened in 2020. That location has been leased from the start.
Barnhill got into real estate in 1987 as a broker at Fuller. In 2001, he co-founded Boutique Apartments, rehabilitating and stabilizing apartment buildings. He said he sold his stake in that company to business partner Zvi Rudawsky in 2014 to focus on Shift.
Barnhill said the desire to sell comes down to freeing up cash to grow the business. He’d like to open more coworking locations, potentially in the DTC and Boulder, although he’s still hunting for the right spots. The existing locations are 95 percent occupied, and “we’ve really benefited from the collapse of the traditional model” for office space, he said.
“Our sweet spot is north of 25,000 square feet,” Barnhill said. “We’d love to find a 30,000-40,000- square-feet location.”
Barnhill said the company runs its coworking spaces “more like a boutique hotel,” with sleek interiors and regular events to keep tenants engaged.
Shift’s industrial building at 13201 W. 43rd Ave. in Golden. (Courtesy photo)
But freeing up cash isn’t just about new coworking locations. Shift added an industrial division a few years ago with a similar model — buying and improving properties and leasing them to small businesses before selling the real estate.
“Right now there’s a huge opportunity for that in industrial,” Barnhill said. “All the spaces are very much the same.”
Shift’s first industrial deal was at 13201 W. 43rd Ave. in Golden. Renovations and stabilization are complete and the building is for sale. The second deal was for 3805 Carson Ave. in Evans, a town near Greeley. It’s “about two-thirds of the way through stabilization,” Barnhill said.
Barnhill said he hopes to close on the purchase of a third industrial site by year-end. The company’s industrial projects tend to run in the $3.5 million to $6 million range.
“We want to grow both sides of the business,” he said.
Shift Workspaces’ location at 383 Corona St. opened in 2012. (Courtesy Henry Group Real Estate)
Grant Barnhill doesn’t want to see his landlord when he looks in the mirror anymore.
The owner of Shift Workspaces is looking to sell the coworking firm’s buildings in the Golden Triangle and Country Club neighborhoods and lease them back from the buyer.
“Our path for growth is going to come from leases, not owning,” he told BusinessDen this week.
Grant Barnhill
Shift’s 15,600-square-foot building at 383 Corona St. has been on the market for about a month, with an asking price of $7.2 million. The company is asking $12.46 million for its building at 1001 Bannock St., which is 22,600 square feet.
Barnhill emphasized that Shift plans to keep operating at both locations. In the case of the Bannock location, marketing materials prepared by Henry Group Real Estate state the building would come with a 12-year lease, with Shift paying $810,000 annually for the first six years, and $840,000 annually for the second half.
Barnhill opened the Corona location in 2012 and the Bannock location in 2016.
“We’ve always had the plan to own the buildings for 10ish years,” he said.
“We’ve typically been value-add investors, and both of these buildings have been stabilized for quite some time.”
Shift also has a location in Littleton, which opened in 2020. That location has been leased from the start.
Barnhill got into real estate in 1987 as a broker at Fuller. In 2001, he co-founded Boutique Apartments, rehabilitating and stabilizing apartment buildings. He said he sold his stake in that company to business partner Zvi Rudawsky in 2014 to focus on Shift.
Barnhill said the desire to sell comes down to freeing up cash to grow the business. He’d like to open more coworking locations, potentially in the DTC and Boulder, although he’s still hunting for the right spots. The existing locations are 95 percent occupied, and “we’ve really benefited from the collapse of the traditional model” for office space, he said.
“Our sweet spot is north of 25,000 square feet,” Barnhill said. “We’d love to find a 30,000-40,000- square-feet location.”
Barnhill said the company runs its coworking spaces “more like a boutique hotel,” with sleek interiors and regular events to keep tenants engaged.
Shift’s industrial building at 13201 W. 43rd Ave. in Golden. (Courtesy photo)
But freeing up cash isn’t just about new coworking locations. Shift added an industrial division a few years ago with a similar model — buying and improving properties and leasing them to small businesses before selling the real estate.
“Right now there’s a huge opportunity for that in industrial,” Barnhill said. “All the spaces are very much the same.”
Shift’s first industrial deal was at 13201 W. 43rd Ave. in Golden. Renovations and stabilization are complete and the building is for sale. The second deal was for 3805 Carson Ave. in Evans, a town near Greeley. It’s “about two-thirds of the way through stabilization,” Barnhill said.
Barnhill said he hopes to close on the purchase of a third industrial site by year-end. The company’s industrial projects tend to run in the $3.5 million to $6 million range.
“We want to grow both sides of the business,” he said.
