An aerial photo showing the 890 Navajo St. property outlined in red. (Courtesy Malman Commercial Real Estate)
John Victor wants to turn the warehouse at 890 N. Navajo St. inside out.
“I would say we are taking what was an inward-facing, objectively ugly duckling today, and we want to turn that around, draw the neighborhood into it, bring some life, bring some creativity,” said Victor, a Denver entrepreneur who purchased the building with partners Matt Jones and Andrew Stettner last week for $4.1 million. Together, they own the property under AJM Development LLC.
The 56,000-square-foot warehouse sold for about $73 per square foot. Its history dates back to the 1800s with rustic post and beam work on the inside, Victor said.
“By its nature, the building sort of naturally is demised into six spaces,” he said. “The middle section was built in the 1800s, then in the early 1900s to midcentury, the end caps were put on and things like the Denver Pickle Company were in there.”
While no formal plans are in place, the vision is to turn the space into something like a Battery621 at 621 Kalamath St. – a collaborative space that is more flexible and non-traditional than the usual warehouse, Victor said. So far, he has raised about $3.5 million towards achieving that goal, according to SEC filings.
“It’s kind of a little less than what industrially you might find on I-70,” he said. “So we’re going to try and cater to a bit more sophisticated or elevated tenant that leans into some of the creativity that the space naturally has, and certainly loves being plugged into the neighborhood.”
And after nearly a year on the market, the property is due for a makeover. The warehouse previously was a marijuana cultivation facility, not exactly conducive to the type of inviting architecture that Victor hopes to create with the space.
“The seller is a cannabis investor,” said Jake Malman of Malman Commercial Real Estate, who represented the seller. “So they own cannabis buildings that are leased to cannabis tenants. When they bought the building a few years ago, the building was 100 percent leased to two cannabis tenants. And then with the decline of the cannabis market over the last 12 to 18 months, the two tenants ended up vacating, so the seller was left with a vacant building.”
With a vacant warehouse, a moratorium on cannabis licensing in the area and a lack of interest in leasing to non-cannabis tenants, Malman said the sellers decided to offload the property.
The property was originally listed in November 2022 for $9 million. That was dropped to $7 million. Finally, it sold for just over $4 million, after nearly a year on the market.
That is down from the $7 million that the cannabis investors bought it for in December 2020, property records show.
“The buyer is going to have to make some improvements and upgrades there, roof, electrical, HVAC. That’s how we got to the price that we were at,” Malman said.
Malman said there were ongoing issues while the property was on the market.
“There was some vandalism and break-ins from the homeless, which caused a significant amount of damage,” he said.
Security cameras were installed, but soon became inoperable when the warehouse’s electrical boxes were destroyed, Malman said. A security guard was hired, but in the brief moments when he’d be off work, the building was looted and vandalized. Paint cans dragged across the premises, wires stripped, shattered windows and broken doors became the reality for the property.
At one point, lights were installed inside for about $25,000. They were gone about a week later.
“I think it was vandalism for the sake of vandalism,” Malman said.
An aerial photo showing the 890 Navajo St. property outlined in red. (Courtesy Malman Commercial Real Estate)
John Victor wants to turn the warehouse at 890 N. Navajo St. inside out.
“I would say we are taking what was an inward-facing, objectively ugly duckling today, and we want to turn that around, draw the neighborhood into it, bring some life, bring some creativity,” said Victor, a Denver entrepreneur who purchased the building with partners Matt Jones and Andrew Stettner last week for $4.1 million. Together, they own the property under AJM Development LLC.
The 56,000-square-foot warehouse sold for about $73 per square foot. Its history dates back to the 1800s with rustic post and beam work on the inside, Victor said.
“By its nature, the building sort of naturally is demised into six spaces,” he said. “The middle section was built in the 1800s, then in the early 1900s to midcentury, the end caps were put on and things like the Denver Pickle Company were in there.”
While no formal plans are in place, the vision is to turn the space into something like a Battery621 at 621 Kalamath St. – a collaborative space that is more flexible and non-traditional than the usual warehouse, Victor said. So far, he has raised about $3.5 million towards achieving that goal, according to SEC filings.
“It’s kind of a little less than what industrially you might find on I-70,” he said. “So we’re going to try and cater to a bit more sophisticated or elevated tenant that leans into some of the creativity that the space naturally has, and certainly loves being plugged into the neighborhood.”
And after nearly a year on the market, the property is due for a makeover. The warehouse previously was a marijuana cultivation facility, not exactly conducive to the type of inviting architecture that Victor hopes to create with the space.
“The seller is a cannabis investor,” said Jake Malman of Malman Commercial Real Estate, who represented the seller. “So they own cannabis buildings that are leased to cannabis tenants. When they bought the building a few years ago, the building was 100 percent leased to two cannabis tenants. And then with the decline of the cannabis market over the last 12 to 18 months, the two tenants ended up vacating, so the seller was left with a vacant building.”
With a vacant warehouse, a moratorium on cannabis licensing in the area and a lack of interest in leasing to non-cannabis tenants, Malman said the sellers decided to offload the property.
The property was originally listed in November 2022 for $9 million. That was dropped to $7 million. Finally, it sold for just over $4 million, after nearly a year on the market.
That is down from the $7 million that the cannabis investors bought it for in December 2020, property records show.
“The buyer is going to have to make some improvements and upgrades there, roof, electrical, HVAC. That’s how we got to the price that we were at,” Malman said.
Malman said there were ongoing issues while the property was on the market.
“There was some vandalism and break-ins from the homeless, which caused a significant amount of damage,” he said.
Security cameras were installed, but soon became inoperable when the warehouse’s electrical boxes were destroyed, Malman said. A security guard was hired, but in the brief moments when he’d be off work, the building was looted and vandalized. Paint cans dragged across the premises, wires stripped, shattered windows and broken doors became the reality for the property.
At one point, lights were installed inside for about $25,000. They were gone about a week later.
“I think it was vandalism for the sake of vandalism,” Malman said.
