
The Larimer Street building was once home to a metal fabricator that left in 2018. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Brendan Foote just bought a property in RiNo. Now comes the hard part.
“We will pay more in the reposition than we paid for the building,” he said.
The 42-year-old San Diego developer purchased 3518 Larimer St. earlier this month for $2.6 million, according to public records. The 8,300-square-foot building, constructed in 1958, fetched $309 a square foot in the deal.
Foote plans to turn the space into a four-unit retail building, with its 3,000-square-foot patio serving as the property’s “heartbeat.” It will be called Larimer Yards, and is the first out of state project that Fabric, his San Diego-based business, will undertake.
“Its pretty typical of our projects. We’re looking at 1950s to 1970s vintage, worn-down commercial properties in need of everything … We try and build a little bit of a model around that,” he said.

Brendan Foote
Foote expects to submit his first proposal to the city by summer, with “ambitious” plans to begin work around the start of next year.
“It needs everything minus four walls,” Foote said of the building’s condition.
The infrastructure challenges are one thing, but converting the warehouse and industrial-style building into retail space is another. The building is pretty deep, so he’ll have to get creative with the space to avoid creating four “super skinny retail units,” he said.
Foote envisions a diverse mix of tenants. A restaurant or eatery, shopping storefronts and a fitness-focused business are seen as ideal.
“I want to try and attract some really exciting businesses and operators to the project … but to do that you have to reduce their capital requirements up front,” he said.
“Our formula has always been [to] go above and beyond on the shell.”
But there’s another story at play here. The value of the vacant real estate, which saw its previous tenant leave in early 2018, has barely appreciated since the last time it sold. Foote purchased the building from fellow developer Roland Kassis out of Philadelphia, who also intended to do an adaptive reuse.
Kassis purchased the site in 2019 for $2.5 million. That’s more than double what the building fetched in 2015, when the then fully-leased property traded for $1.21 million.
“Not a single thing” changed at the building during Kassis’ tenure as owner, said Michael DeSantis, broker with Unique Properties who represented the Philadelphia developer in the sale alongside colleagues Brett MacDougall and Carson Lang.
“It effectively had no power. Everything was ripped out, all the panels, there were some structural things that needed to be fixed,” DeSantis said.

Foote envisions the 3,000-square-foot patio as the “heartbeat” of the redevelopment. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
While the building remained the same, the neighborhood certainly changed.
“Long story short, the [rent] rates have leveled out a bit up there … I just think it’s the cost of capital. Going and building a million dollar restaurant at 3% interest is much different than 7%,” DeSantis said.
The broker said that rates have dropped to around $30 a square foot for retail space, down from previous highs in the $40 to $50 range. He first listed the property for lease about eight months ago.
“To have success on the leasing front we needed a white shell. It’s really tough in our situation,” he said.
But his client didn’t have the time to do that work. Kassis’ main focus is on existing projects on the East Coast, which prompted the decision to pivot to a sale in Denver. DeSantis first listed it at $4 million.
“The previous owner really liked what Brendan does … he was super happy to sell it to him,” he said.
And while it will be Foote’s first Denver project, he’s not new to town. He grew up in the Mile High City, graduating from Regis Jesuit High School in 2001. Many of his family members still live in the Wash Park area.
He left town for school at the University of San Diego to pursue degrees in accounting and business. After graduating, the former Denverite found work as a tax accountant before starting Fabric in 2013. His first project was turning a 1920s engineering union office into a 2,500-square-foot cafe and bakery.
Since then, he’s completed roughly 20 projects, many of them adaptive reuse – making old spaces new again, just like he plans to do in RiNo.

The Larimer Street building was once home to a metal fabricator that left in 2018. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Brendan Foote just bought a property in RiNo. Now comes the hard part.
“We will pay more in the reposition than we paid for the building,” he said.
The 42-year-old San Diego developer purchased 3518 Larimer St. earlier this month for $2.6 million, according to public records. The 8,300-square-foot building, constructed in 1958, fetched $309 a square foot in the deal.
Foote plans to turn the space into a four-unit retail building, with its 3,000-square-foot patio serving as the property’s “heartbeat.” It will be called Larimer Yards, and is the first out of state project that Fabric, his San Diego-based business, will undertake.
“Its pretty typical of our projects. We’re looking at 1950s to 1970s vintage, worn-down commercial properties in need of everything … We try and build a little bit of a model around that,” he said.

Brendan Foote
Foote expects to submit his first proposal to the city by summer, with “ambitious” plans to begin work around the start of next year.
“It needs everything minus four walls,” Foote said of the building’s condition.
The infrastructure challenges are one thing, but converting the warehouse and industrial-style building into retail space is another. The building is pretty deep, so he’ll have to get creative with the space to avoid creating four “super skinny retail units,” he said.
Foote envisions a diverse mix of tenants. A restaurant or eatery, shopping storefronts and a fitness-focused business are seen as ideal.
“I want to try and attract some really exciting businesses and operators to the project … but to do that you have to reduce their capital requirements up front,” he said.
“Our formula has always been [to] go above and beyond on the shell.”
But there’s another story at play here. The value of the vacant real estate, which saw its previous tenant leave in early 2018, has barely appreciated since the last time it sold. Foote purchased the building from fellow developer Roland Kassis out of Philadelphia, who also intended to do an adaptive reuse.
Kassis purchased the site in 2019 for $2.5 million. That’s more than double what the building fetched in 2015, when the then fully-leased property traded for $1.21 million.
“Not a single thing” changed at the building during Kassis’ tenure as owner, said Michael DeSantis, broker with Unique Properties who represented the Philadelphia developer in the sale alongside colleagues Brett MacDougall and Carson Lang.
“It effectively had no power. Everything was ripped out, all the panels, there were some structural things that needed to be fixed,” DeSantis said.

Foote envisions the 3,000-square-foot patio as the “heartbeat” of the redevelopment. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
While the building remained the same, the neighborhood certainly changed.
“Long story short, the [rent] rates have leveled out a bit up there … I just think it’s the cost of capital. Going and building a million dollar restaurant at 3% interest is much different than 7%,” DeSantis said.
The broker said that rates have dropped to around $30 a square foot for retail space, down from previous highs in the $40 to $50 range. He first listed the property for lease about eight months ago.
“To have success on the leasing front we needed a white shell. It’s really tough in our situation,” he said.
But his client didn’t have the time to do that work. Kassis’ main focus is on existing projects on the East Coast, which prompted the decision to pivot to a sale in Denver. DeSantis first listed it at $4 million.
“The previous owner really liked what Brendan does … he was super happy to sell it to him,” he said.
And while it will be Foote’s first Denver project, he’s not new to town. He grew up in the Mile High City, graduating from Regis Jesuit High School in 2001. Many of his family members still live in the Wash Park area.
He left town for school at the University of San Diego to pursue degrees in accounting and business. After graduating, the former Denverite found work as a tax accountant before starting Fabric in 2013. His first project was turning a 1920s engineering union office into a 2,500-square-foot cafe and bakery.
Since then, he’s completed roughly 20 projects, many of them adaptive reuse – making old spaces new again, just like he plans to do in RiNo.