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Luxury condos set for 2007

$60 million project features upscale units and mountain views

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 23, 2006 at midnight

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Developers Bruce and Stuart Rifkin plan a six-story, $60 million luxury condominium development in an area known as the Alameda Triangle, about a half-mile from the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.

The Rifkin brothers, sons of cable-TV pioneer Monroe "Monty" Rifkin, will open the 75-unit Monroe Pointe at 333 S. Monroe St. in summer 2007.

Units will be priced from the $400,000s to more than $2 million for a penthouse unit. They will range in size from 860 square feet to 5,500 square feet, with many in the 1,700-to-1,800-square-foot range, said Bruce Rifkin. Monroe Pointe is being listed by Cate Dobson and Rhonda Knop of Distinctive Properties.

The contemporary-styled condo tower, designed by the Davis Partnership to take advantage of mountain views, will replace the vacant Cherry Creek Medical Building.

"We're starting to tear it down right now, as we speak," a process that will take four or five weeks, Bruce Rifkin said Wednesday.

The Rifkins bought the building in 1999, when it was about 75 percent leased to physicians and other medical users.

"The building was physically obsolete, and we knew we could never get a good enough lease rate to pay back all of the tenant improvement costs that were needed," Bruce Rifkin said. "So, basically, we let the leases run out and kept the building going for about three years."

However, about the time the building was ready to be redeveloped, the economy was in a tailspin in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Rifkins used that time for an "exhaustive study" of the best use, including a condo tower, offices, apartments and a hotel.

"About 14 months ago, we decided the condo route was the way to go," Bruce Rifkin said.

He said he and his brother were inundated with unsolicited offers from both national and local condo developers for the site.

"They all told us this was their No. 1 choice for a condo development in Denver, so we decided to do it ourselves," he said.

The Rifkin family has deep roots in the Cherry Creek area.

"We own the office building just southeast of us, at 360 South Monroe Street, where my father originally started his cable-TV company (American Television & Communications) in the early 1970s, so we feel we have a strong obligation to improving that neighborhood," Bruce Rifkin said.

Monroe Pointe will face competition from the luxury NorthCreek development that Christian Anschutz has under construction at Detroit Street and East First Avenue in Cherry Creek North, although Rifkin said there's enough demand to support both.

"There are some people who like the Anschutz site because they can walk out their door to 20 restaurants and the shopping center," Rifkin said. "Other people want to be close to the action, but not right on top of it, and want great views. They say they live in Colorado and want the mountain views and don't want to be looking at the Janus building. It's really cut and dried, black and white, for people."

Meredith Gabow, president of the Cherry Creek Association, agreed that views at Monroe Pointe will be wonderful.

"It is a spectacular location, and they will have breathtaking views," Gabow said. "I think the neighborhood is thrilled to see residential going into the Alameda Triangle. Residential will really connect Alameda to the rest of the neighborhood, which is what we want to see."

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