Boulder County Business Report
Michael Davidson
Real Estate Reporter
BOULDER--The National Ecological Observatory Network Inc. and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy announced Oct. 14 they will move into the 156,000-square-foot campus on 38th Street near the intersection of Arapahoe Avenue and Foothills Parkway.
The campus was the longtime home to Exabyte Corp., a data-storage company. The property is owned by Bancroft Capital LLC, a real estate investment firm based in Manhattan Beach, California, that has a regional office in Boulder.
NEON announced it will lease an additional 37,000 square feet at 1685 38th St. The space will become NEONs observatory for monitoring and forecasting ecological change and will serve as its headquarters. NEON already has 45,500 square feet at 1685 38th St. It rented that space in March.
NEON is an independent 501 c (3) that is funded by the National Science Foundation. Its observatory will be the first of its kind to collect ecological data at continental scales over multiple decades, and it will be available to scientists, educators, students, decision makers and the public.
The new offices will accommodate engineering, calibration/validation, airborne research, classroom and meeting space, as well as NEONs data center, the release said.
NEON will move its headquarters and approximately 100 employees from its current location at 5340 Airport Road.
Becky Callan Gamble, president of Dean Callan & Co, represented Bancroft Capital in the deal. Russell Lee and Ronan Truesdale of Keys Commercial represented NEON in the transaction.
For NITA, the move is a homecoming of sorts.
The nonprofit organization, which provides courtroom training and continuing education programs for lawyers, will move its headquarters and educational facilities from Louisville to Boulder.
NITA will lease 18,500 square feet at 1685 38th St.
NITA will relocate 30 employees in the move, NITA director of programs, sales and marketing Daniel McHugh said.
The organization was founded at the University of Colorado in 1971. Since 2006 it has been based in Louisville, to which it moved after spending several years in South Bend, Indiana.
The move allows us to get back where everything started, McHugh said.
NITA officials believe the move will make its conferences and programs more attractive to potential students, McHugh said.
About 1,000 students and 200 to 300 faculty members pass through NITAs Colorado education center each year, McHugh said.
Gary Aboussie of The Colorado Group represented NITA in the transaction. Callan Gamble represented Bancroft Capital.
The leases are good news for Bancroft Capital, which has had a stake in the property since 1999, said Joe Lamkin, a principal with the company.
The companys vision for the property continues to evolve. It once intended to redevelop the land into 305 residential condominium and town-home units called the Redstones, but nixed those plans when the housing market crashed, Lamkin said.
Bancroft co-owns The Peloton, a 490,000-square-foot mixed-use development at 3601 Arapahoe Ave., next to the Exabyte campus. The Peloton has 190 residential units and Bancroft Capital plans to expand it to 385 units in the future, Lamkin said.