Monfort Coy on Taking Offices at Denver’s New “It” Building

Employees at the Monfort Companies may be poised to exercise their ambitions at rooftop pickleball and simulated golf, inducements at Denver’s newest and hippest office tower.

The locally based private equity and investment management firm with roots in the state’s cattle industry is poised to lease a chunk of the 710,000-square-foot office building at 1900 Lawrence Street, in Downtown, the Denver Business Journal reported, citing an Instagram post.

“We’re excited to grow into this next chapter,” Monfort Companies wrote in the post — which it deleted after the newspaper asked about the pending deal.

It may take more than the skin of a cattle rancher to acknowledge a zest for pickleball.

It’s not clear how many trophy offices it plans to occupy in the gleaming glass tower in the city’s Central Business District. Terms of the potential lease with Chicago-based Riverside Investment & Development, were not disclosed.

The 30-story tower, among the largest buildings in Downtown, was completed in September, according to the Business Journal.

The building has 29,000- to 31,000-square-foot floors and 11 private terraces with sweeping views of the Front Range, Coors Field and Skyline Park, according to its leasing brochure and website. There’s onsite parking and 10,000 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants.

There’s also an outdoor terrace on the seventh floor, a golf simulator, a fitness center with locker rooms and the pickleball, with courts surrounded by glass panels to protect players from rooftop Rocky Mountain winds.

In renderings, its 30-something picklers have exchanged their professional business garb for court-appropriate whites, or evening sweats as a sun descends toward nightfall.

Monfort, now based in the city’s Ballpark District, could join such tenants as law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which leases 31,000 square feet on the 30th floor. Insurance broker Marsh McLennan also plans to occupy 12,000 square feet.

The cost of leasing its upper floors, closer to the pickleball courts: $45 per square foot, broker Jamie Roupp of JLL, which manages its leases, said last fall.

The Monfort family is synonymous with Colorado, having developed a cattle feedlot and agriculture business with ties to the controlling ownership of the Colorado Rockies baseball team. It’s led by Alon Mor; its executive vice president, Kenneth Monfort, is the son of Rockies general partner Charlie Monfort.

Monfort Companies, which has invested in local businesses, has also branched out into real estate, and owns the El Chapultepec and Giggling Grizzly and Riot House buildings. Late last year, its investment arm acquired three workforce housing complexes around Denver, according to the Business Journal.

— Dana Bartholomew