Fluid Truck was allowed to abandon the lease on its headquarters at 400 W. 48th Ave. in Globeville. (BusinessDen file)
The distressed Denver office building that was formerly home to the startup Fluid Truck has sold at a deep discount.
The building at 400 W. 48th Ave. sold last week to Monocle Properties LLC for $4.5 million, according to public records.
That works out to $47 a square foot for the 95,000-square-foot building. And it amounts to a 60% discount compared with the $11.2 million the sellers paid for the building in 2021.
State records show the purchasing LLC was formed by John Albright Jr. of Cherry Hills Village. According to his LinkedIn profile, Albright owns DEMA Services, a plumbing and HVAC firm, along with other companies.
Court records related to the property’s receivership said in June that a party under contract would “occupy a significant portion of the vacant space for their own company operations.” A message left Friday with a staffer at one of Albright’s companies was not returned.
The building by the Interstate 70-Interstate 25 interchange in Globeville was sold by 48th Office Investment LLC. That entity is made up of Fluid founder and onetime CEO James Eberhard, developer Ryan Arnold of Armada Venture Partners and JLL broker Ken Gooden, alongside some smaller investors.
The trio bought the property four years ago with the idea that Fluid would be the building’s anchor tenant and Arnold, then with Tributary Real Estate, would manage the property.
But things had gone south by November 2023, when the landlord entity sued Fluid over unpaid rent. The following March and April, it told a judge Fluid was “experiencing financial difficulty and/or mismanagement” under Eberhard and should be run by someone else, while Fluid countersued and accused its landlord of coaxing the company into leasing more and more space while hiding that a hotel next door would be housing the homeless.
The dispute was later settled. But the financial difficulties were real. Fluid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2024 and was subsequently allowed to abandon its lease at 400 W. 48th Ave. The company, which had raised at least $80 million from investors, was sold in December for about $10 million.
That left the building about half-empty. Late this winter, Independent Bank, which had financed the 2021 acquisition of the property, successfully requested that a receiver be appointed to oversee it. Gooden and Arnold fired back, saying the bank displayed “a hyperaggressive, if not hostile, posture” toward them.
A settlement was approved in June, court records show. The landlord group agreed to pay the bank $9.5 million — essentially the unpaid amount on the 2021 loans.
The building was being marketed for sale or lease even before the appointment of Cordes & Co. as receiver, court records show. The buyer went under contract May 19 and closed July 23.
Fluid Truck was allowed to abandon the lease on its headquarters at 400 W. 48th Ave. in Globeville. (BusinessDen file)
The distressed Denver office building that was formerly home to the startup Fluid Truck has sold at a deep discount.
The building at 400 W. 48th Ave. sold last week to Monocle Properties LLC for $4.5 million, according to public records.
That works out to $47 a square foot for the 95,000-square-foot building. And it amounts to a 60% discount compared with the $11.2 million the sellers paid for the building in 2021.
State records show the purchasing LLC was formed by John Albright Jr. of Cherry Hills Village. According to his LinkedIn profile, Albright owns DEMA Services, a plumbing and HVAC firm, along with other companies.
Court records related to the property’s receivership said in June that a party under contract would “occupy a significant portion of the vacant space for their own company operations.” A message left Friday with a staffer at one of Albright’s companies was not returned.
The building by the Interstate 70-Interstate 25 interchange in Globeville was sold by 48th Office Investment LLC. That entity is made up of Fluid founder and onetime CEO James Eberhard, developer Ryan Arnold of Armada Venture Partners and JLL broker Ken Gooden, alongside some smaller investors.
The trio bought the property four years ago with the idea that Fluid would be the building’s anchor tenant and Arnold, then with Tributary Real Estate, would manage the property.
But things had gone south by November 2023, when the landlord entity sued Fluid over unpaid rent. The following March and April, it told a judge Fluid was “experiencing financial difficulty and/or mismanagement” under Eberhard and should be run by someone else, while Fluid countersued and accused its landlord of coaxing the company into leasing more and more space while hiding that a hotel next door would be housing the homeless.
The dispute was later settled. But the financial difficulties were real. Fluid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2024 and was subsequently allowed to abandon its lease at 400 W. 48th Ave. The company, which had raised at least $80 million from investors, was sold in December for about $10 million.
That left the building about half-empty. Late this winter, Independent Bank, which had financed the 2021 acquisition of the property, successfully requested that a receiver be appointed to oversee it. Gooden and Arnold fired back, saying the bank displayed “a hyperaggressive, if not hostile, posture” toward them.
A settlement was approved in June, court records show. The landlord group agreed to pay the bank $9.5 million — essentially the unpaid amount on the 2021 loans.
The building was being marketed for sale or lease even before the appointment of Cordes & Co. as receiver, court records show. The buyer went under contract May 19 and closed July 23.
