Northridge Capital owns two resort hotels in Aspen and Telluride, but this marks its first purchase in the Denver area. It bought the 19-story, 210,000-sf Mountain Towers from Dallas-based Invesco Realty, which owned it on behalf of a pension fund. Invesco, in 1998, paid $23 million for the building, which cost about $40 million to build in 1984. Northridge paid $23.5 million, or about $112 per sf, for the building. Sources close to the deal tell GlobeSt.com that equates to about a 7% cap rate.

Northridge says it plans an aggressive campaign to lease up the available space by building speculative office suites, catering to the tenant base of the Colorado Boulevard submarket. Northridge will be "investing the capital to attract new tenants to this iconic building," says David W. Jackson, president of Northridge. "We hope to build on Mountain Towers' reputation as an excellent address for business. Given the positive outlook for the Denver market, we anticipate closing on a few more assets here in the very near future."

Northridge has invested in 27 assets on behalf of investors, with a combined acquisition value of more than $536 million. The Denver regional office of NorthMarq arranged $17.45 million in permanent financing on behalf of Northridge. The financing was arranged by Steve Bye, executive vice president and senior managing director of NorthMarq; Dan Koehler, vice president; and Kelly Niquette, investment analyst.