Alex Ringsby has cashed out of downtown.
The president of Ringsby Realty, a Denver-based industrial real estate firm, sold his company’s former office at 1336 Glenarm Place for $1.8 million to KJ McMasters, an Evergreen resident.
“We just don’t have a need for any more office assets in the city of Denver. We’re really an industrial company,” Ringsby said.
The 2-story, 6,250-square-foot brick building sold for $288 per square foot and includes a parking lot next door. Ringsby bought the property in 2014 for $1.2 million from the Colorado Press Association.
“I appreciate the fact that the values went up, considering values (in the office market) have halved. We’re lucky we bought it when we did,” Ringsby said.
McMasters’ business, Talent Solvers, will move into the top floor. The company does headhunting for startups in freight, logistics and supply chain industries. Peak Kickboxing, which has three gyms across the metro, will open its fourth on the ground floor.
Talent Solvers has been remote since 2020. McMasters didn’t renew his lease for an office in Lakewood and bought out of his other lease in Chicago when the pandemic hit. Since January, he’s been working out of coworking space at the Denver Athletic Club across the street.
“I just saw the building a bunch of times, and I reached out to the Ringsbys and we worked it out,” McMasters said.
Talent Solvers, which does a bit under $5 million in annual revenue, needed a long-term home, McMasters said. The company’s six employees are younger and would benefit from working in person, he said. Being within walking distance of the 16th Street Mall was a plus.
During the sale negotiations, McMasters brought in Michael Frison, CEO of Peak Kickboxing. McMasters trains at one of Peak’s gyms and will be a co-owner in the new location in his building, which is set to open by the end of January.
“I’ve been training MMA down there for seven years. My wife does jiu-jitsu, my girls go down there and do MMA,” McMasters said.
McMasters said Talent Solvers wants to grow its reach with artificial intelligence and tech startups in the freight industry. Coincidentally, the Ringsby family owned a trucking business that was once among the country’s largest.
After his family sold that company in 1986, the business pivoted to industrial real estate. It moved its office to the Glenarm building from a building off Auraria Parkway, which Ringsby sold last year. In 2022, the company moved again to a custom-built space off Colfax. Being closer to the freeway was a huge reason why.
But another reason was the cost. Property taxes at 1336 Glenarm grew from $10,000 to $50,000 annually, Ringsby said. His company has largely been in wait-and-see mode with regard to new acquisitions and developments, despite having a portfolio of land holdings around the metro.
“We’re always looking for opportunities. There just doesn’t seem to be any at the moment,” he said.
Ringsby said there’s been a huge increase in warehouse supply and fewer tenants on the hunt for space. The city has had some “tough headlines,” recently, he added, from crime and homelessness to the high costs of living and doing business here. The metro’s industrial sector had 3.3 million square feet of new warehouse space under construction at the end of last quarter, according to CBRE. That’s the lowest figure in a decade.
“For more warehouse space we really need more people. Economies are all about growth. When you don’t have growth, you’re dead.”
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