The four-story Quebec Court II office building in March 2023. (BusinessDen file)
A biotech entrepreneur with a big real estate vision has purchased a large vacant office building in the Denver Tech Center for just $30.50 a square foot.
Afshin Safavi, a co-founder of North Carolina-based BioAgilytix Labs, paid $5 million last week for the four-story, 164,000-square-foot building at 5800 S. Quebec St. in Greenwood Village, according to public records.
Safavi plans to make it the first location of Colorado Health & Tech Centers, a new company he’s formed to operate buildings, targeting users in the medical, biotech and tech sectors.
“I’m sitting on the most cost-effective lab space in Colorado,” Safavi said, noting the low price tag.
The building, known as Quebec Court II, was previously fully leased by Comcast. A company spokeswoman said that lease expired in November 2021. The former owner, a REIT operated by California-based Griffin Capital that paid $27 million for the structure in 2013, held a three-day online auction for the property in early May, tapping CBRE to assist in marketing.
Safavi, however, did not purchase the building through the auction, according to Fuller Real Estate broker Travis Wanger, who represented him.
Wanger said the bids at the auction failed to reach the reserve price, or minimum the seller wanted to accept. Wanger, who guessed the reserve was about $10 million, said Safavi didn’t actually bid but monitored the auction, and reached out after it concluded without a buyer.
“Nobody wanted to touch a vacant office space,” Wanger said.
The structure was built in 1980 and renovated in 1998, according to the auction listing. It sits on a 6.24-acre lot just west of Interstate 25.
“It’s a steal, right?” Wanger said of the purchase price.
Afshin Safavi co-founded North Carolina-based BioAgilytix Labs before moving to Colorado. (Courtesy Afshin Safavi)
Safavi previously told BusinessDen he emigrated to the United States from Iran at age 13, and co-founded North Carolina-based BioAgilytix Labs in 2008. He moved to Colorado in 2016, and BioAgilytix was acquired in 2018 for $435 million. He lives in Cherry Hills Village.
In a Wednesday interview, Safavi said he envisions 10 campuses of Colorado Health & Tech Centers stretching from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, each 50,000 to 400,000 square feet.
He expected to develop buildings from the ground up, and originally anticipated a location in the works at 19091 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora would be the company’s first. It could be operational in two to three years, he said.
But Safavi said Quebec Court II “turned out to be just the ideal building.” It’s already standing, so it can open much faster. It’s centrally located, Class A space and plenty of executives live nearby.
“There is no shortage of CEOs and ex-CEOs in Greenwood Village,” Safavi said.
What there is a shortage of in Colorado, Safavi said, is lab space. In addition to meeting that demand, however, he also wants to bring different disciplines to one place.
In Greenwood Village, he’d love to have doctors on the first floor, tech staffers on the second, biotech on the third and something like law offices, accountants or venture capitalists on the fourth — all in the hopes they interact with each other.
“That’s where the new ideas come from,” he said.
Safavi said he might spend anywhere from $10 million to $50 million on improvements to the building. The number will really depend on the type of tenants that move in and which side pays tenant improvement costs, he said, adding he thinks he can offer rates 33 to 50 percent below other local lab spaces.
Safavi’s local real estate holdings also include the building at 511 Broadway in Denver. That could be redeveloped into a Colorado Health & Tech Centers location when existing leases are up years from now, he said.
This isn’t the only recent rock-bottom sale price for a Denver-area office building. The bulk of the 24-story Denver Club building at 518 17th St. sold late last year for $14.5 million, or $52.80 a square foot. The buyer in that deal was Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners.
The four-story Quebec Court II office building in March 2023. (BusinessDen file)
A biotech entrepreneur with a big real estate vision has purchased a large vacant office building in the Denver Tech Center for just $30.50 a square foot.
Afshin Safavi, a co-founder of North Carolina-based BioAgilytix Labs, paid $5 million last week for the four-story, 164,000-square-foot building at 5800 S. Quebec St. in Greenwood Village, according to public records.
Safavi plans to make it the first location of Colorado Health & Tech Centers, a new company he’s formed to operate buildings, targeting users in the medical, biotech and tech sectors.
“I’m sitting on the most cost-effective lab space in Colorado,” Safavi said, noting the low price tag.
The building, known as Quebec Court II, was previously fully leased by Comcast. A company spokeswoman said that lease expired in November 2021. The former owner, a REIT operated by California-based Griffin Capital that paid $27 million for the structure in 2013, held a three-day online auction for the property in early May, tapping CBRE to assist in marketing.
Safavi, however, did not purchase the building through the auction, according to Fuller Real Estate broker Travis Wanger, who represented him.
Wanger said the bids at the auction failed to reach the reserve price, or minimum the seller wanted to accept. Wanger, who guessed the reserve was about $10 million, said Safavi didn’t actually bid but monitored the auction, and reached out after it concluded without a buyer.
“Nobody wanted to touch a vacant office space,” Wanger said.
The structure was built in 1980 and renovated in 1998, according to the auction listing. It sits on a 6.24-acre lot just west of Interstate 25.
“It’s a steal, right?” Wanger said of the purchase price.
Afshin Safavi co-founded North Carolina-based BioAgilytix Labs before moving to Colorado. (Courtesy Afshin Safavi)
Safavi previously told BusinessDen he emigrated to the United States from Iran at age 13, and co-founded North Carolina-based BioAgilytix Labs in 2008. He moved to Colorado in 2016, and BioAgilytix was acquired in 2018 for $435 million. He lives in Cherry Hills Village.
In a Wednesday interview, Safavi said he envisions 10 campuses of Colorado Health & Tech Centers stretching from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, each 50,000 to 400,000 square feet.
He expected to develop buildings from the ground up, and originally anticipated a location in the works at 19091 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora would be the company’s first. It could be operational in two to three years, he said.
But Safavi said Quebec Court II “turned out to be just the ideal building.” It’s already standing, so it can open much faster. It’s centrally located, Class A space and plenty of executives live nearby.
“There is no shortage of CEOs and ex-CEOs in Greenwood Village,” Safavi said.
What there is a shortage of in Colorado, Safavi said, is lab space. In addition to meeting that demand, however, he also wants to bring different disciplines to one place.
In Greenwood Village, he’d love to have doctors on the first floor, tech staffers on the second, biotech on the third and something like law offices, accountants or venture capitalists on the fourth — all in the hopes they interact with each other.
“That’s where the new ideas come from,” he said.
Safavi said he might spend anywhere from $10 million to $50 million on improvements to the building. The number will really depend on the type of tenants that move in and which side pays tenant improvement costs, he said, adding he thinks he can offer rates 33 to 50 percent below other local lab spaces.
Safavi’s local real estate holdings also include the building at 511 Broadway in Denver. That could be redeveloped into a Colorado Health & Tech Centers location when existing leases are up years from now, he said.
This isn’t the only recent rock-bottom sale price for a Denver-area office building. The bulk of the 24-story Denver Club building at 518 17th St. sold late last year for $14.5 million, or $52.80 a square foot. The buyer in that deal was Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners.
