The retail strip at 8295 Ralston Road in Arvada sold for $1.02 million. (Courtesy Ben Jones)
Ben Jones is used to shooting ads for businesses. Now, he’s designing retail space for them.
“It’s a very unexpected, sort of second career for me,” he said.
Jones, 42, is the founder of Image Brew, a Denver video production company that works with brands such as Samsung, Facebook and Visa. When he’s not out in the field with a camera, he’s on the jobsite renovating commercial real estate with a hammer.
Last week, Jones paid $1 million for the retail strip at 8295 Ralston Road, about five blocks from Olde Town Arvada. The deal works out to about $157 per square foot for the roughly 6,500-square-foot building, which is divided into six units, the largest about 1,500 square feet.
“Filmmaking is so digital. I’m on a screen even when we’re shooting, the cameras are digital, the editing is digital … real estate feels sort of a way that I kind of get back to just like touching the brick of the building and doing some of the upgrades with the carpentry myself,” Jones said.
Ben Jones
Jones’ plan is to redevelop the antiquated property built in 1969 into the “Ralston Road Shops.” Currently, the space is home to a nail salon, tax preparer and an alterations/cleaning business. The nail salon will be vacating the space in six months as the owners retire.
“It’s this one-story, retail, brick — and I’m like, man, why aren’t these five unique businesses with cool signs where I can clearly tell who’s there?” he said.
It won’t be Jones’ first time doing this. Previously, the media entrepreneur repositioned a retail strip in Berkeley near Tennyson Street, which he dubbed the “Stuart Street Shops” at 4301-4321 W. 44th Ave.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing, my wife thought I was crazy, but it was like ‘Oh, here’s this building that looks like one building’, it was all painted one color, and no identity at all,” he said of the Tennyson project. “And I said, ‘Man, I think as a creative guy, what if we just gave it a refresh, painted each unit a different color, put a cool sign on each unit. I think it would attract small businesses.”
In Arvada, Jones said he’s aiming to pull off a shoe-string budget — about $100,000 in the first 12 months.
“I’m a scrappy guy who’s gonna triple bid all the jobs, be doing demos alongside some of the contractors,” he said.
To know what upgrades are needed, Jones said he’s leasing the smallest unit to Image Brew during the redevelopment process.
“Any upgrades I’m going to make as if I’m just the Image Brew guy renting a space from some other landlord,” he said. “I’m going to say, ‘Man, I wish they would make this hallway brighter. I wish they would fix the parking lot.’ I’m just going to start doing those things, and that’s been my secret sauce.”
Right now, Jones said, some of the space is “straight out of the ’70s.” He plans to remove the building’s awning, update common areas and give each unit its own personality, with a monument sign out front displaying business names. He hopes to rent renovated units for $20 to $23 a square foot annually, with flexibility on lease lengths.
Inside the 8295 Ralston Road property. (Courtesy Ben Jones)
Before he was in the business of real estate, Jones honed his entrepreneurial skills through Image Brew, which he started in 2006. At the time, he was still living in his hometown of Rochester, New York.
The next year, Jones moved to Denver. He bought a 3,500-square-foot building at 1100 W. 38th Ave. in LoHi for the business about 12 years ago.
“It was an old paint store, and we made it a cool, hip, funky production company office, where we turned the garage into a photo/video studio, we turned a few of the offices into editing suites,” Jones said.
NAI Shames Makovsky broker Joey Gargotto represented Jones.
“Ben has a track record of delivering thoughtful neighborhood retail. Ralston Road Shops has been a staple in Arvada for decades, and I’m sure the neighborhood will be happy to see some fresh energy on the block,” Gargotto said.
