Janus Pulls Plug on Massive Lowry Corporate Campus

DENVER-Janus Capital Corp. is retreating on a plan to build an 800,000 sf to 1.2-million sf office campus on 35 acres in Lowry Business Park. Janus, the nation’s fifth-largest family of mutual funds with $220 billion under management, had planned to sink between $100 million and $150 million into the project. There are a number of reasons for the withdrawal, but the recent poor performance of many of its funds is not one of them, Janus spokesman Blair Johnson tells GlobeSt.com. Rather, Janus is rejecting the Lowry site because today’s technology allows customers to access the fund by computer rather than in person.

The Lowry site is the largest undeveloped commercial tract left at the former Air Force Base. The other reason is that about two blocks from its current headquarters in Cherry Creek, a tony area about three miles southeast of the CBD, Denver developer Randy Nichols is developing a new office tower where Janus has signed a letter of intent to lease 150,000 sf.

“The Sears option just didn’t exist two years ago when we started negotiating with Lowry,” Johnson tells GlobeSt.com. “This will allow most of our employees to be within walking distance of our current headquarters. It just makes sense.” Janus currently leases 635,000 sf in five different buildings in the Cherry Creek area.