Prominent local developers Charlie Woolley of St. Charles Town Company and Wally Hultin of Byers Street Properties have decided against developing their proposed 30-story senior/age-restricted condominium tower on the undeveloped parcel at 14th and Stout in Downtown Denver.

The Colorado Real Estate Journal reports that St. Charles Parking LLC and BSP 131 LLC, Woolley and Hultin’s companies that had co-owned the property, sold the 25,000 square foot parcel to Wewatta Street Investments LLC for $7,000,000. The deal closed on 12/18/2006 and was recorded on 1/4/2007.

In March 2005, Woolley and Hultin purchased the four undeveloped parcels along 14th Street between Champa, Stout, and California streets across from the Colorado Convention Center. They immediately sold three of those four parcels to others, holding just the parcel at 1417 Stout Street on Block 131 for their planned condo tower.

They sold the parcel at 14th and Champa on Block 131 to the Nichols Partnership, which is planning on breaking ground at that location this Spring on the proposed 41-story Spire condominium project.

They sold the parcel at 14th and Stout on Block 138 to Whiteco, the Indiana developer planning to break ground at that location this Spring on the proposed 27-story Embassy Suites and 20-story Homewood Suites hotel project.

They sold the remaining parcel at 14th and California on Block 138, across from the new Hyatt hotel, to Wewatta Street Investments LLC, the same entity to which they just sold the 14th and Stout parcel.

Wewatta Street Investments LLC is owned by local real estate investor Bahman Shafa, who manages and markets his properties through another company he owns, Focus Property Group LLC.

When I asked Charlie Woolley about the change in plans, he said, “Wally Hultin and I took a hard look at a vertical senior housing model and traveled far to find good examples. While we remain very encouraged about the model, the Focus people came to us with a very straightforward and attractive offer which we are redeploying into a number of infill projects with a much shorter development period. We are continuing to explore high rise opportunities downtown.”

Focus Property Group is currently promoting both its 14th Street parcels on its website, www.focuspropertygroup.net. The B-5 zoning in the Central Business District allows for various uses on these parcels, such as office, hotel, residential, or combinations thereof. Consequently, Focus Property Group has had local architectural firms prepare massing studies for three potential use combinations for each site, providing a glimpse at what future towers on these sites might look like in terms of number of floors, square footage, amount of parking, etc.

The following images were obtained from the Focus website (click to view at full size).

14th and Stout site:

14th and California site:

Two of the highest-profile undeveloped parcels in Downtown Denver are now owned by Mr. Shafa. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we hear development plans announced for either or both of these sites.