Goldberg paid $7.6 million for the site, in an area known as Pioneer Hills, says Byron Koste, director of the CU Real Estate Center.

Koste's MBA real estate students began working on the project in 1997. The land is surplus property owned by the University Improvement Corp., which manages non-academic real estate assets for the University of Colorado.

Koste says research and work by the students increased the value of the land from about $50,000 an acre to about $150,000 per acre.

''Value was added through actively working on alternatives for how the property is used and then finding buyers interested in those potential uses,'' says Koste in a spring newsletter.

Two percent of the revenues from the land sale will go to the CU Real Estate Center to help maintain its activities.

The land was originally slated for academic facilities, which were never built. The land is known as the Southeast Plaza site, because at one time Denver retail developer Jordon Perlmutter planned a regional mall on it.

Arapahoe County abuts the land on the east site and Parker Road abuts it on the west.

A neighborhood group, South East Aurora Quality of Life, filed a lawsuit against the project. The lawsuit alleges that the Aurora city council violated rezoning laws when it approved development plans.

However, the retail portion is moving forward, as courts have so far ruled in favor of the University Improvement Corp., although the citizen group is appealing the decision.

''Lawsuits are part of the real estate landscape,'' Koste notes. ''They have become a way for citizens to respond to change.''

Instant Insights /

Goldberg Plans 57-Acre Retail Project

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