A rendering released in 2019 of the hotel once planned for 2534 18th St. in Denver. (BusinessDen file)
A developer that once planned to build a hotel on a site in LoHi has instead sold the land.
Mike Mathieson, of Forbes Partnership, sold the 0.43-acre 2534 18th St. property last week for $5.3 million, according to public records. That works out to $277 a square foot.
The site currently has a small office building on it and is zoned C-MX-5, which generally allows mixed-use buildings up to five stories. Mathieson purchased the site in 2013 for $2.1 million, records show. Robert Bratley and Jack Sanders, formerly of JLL and now with Berkadia, represented the seller.
As of 2019, Mathieson planned to build a 116-unit building at 2534 18th St. that would be leased to Sonder, the San Francisco-based hotel operator. He’d already developed one building for the company a short distance away, at 3022 Zuni St.
But the project never broke ground.Â
The buyer in the latest deal was Greenwood Village-based Infinity Properties, owned by the Schmergel family.Â
“We love the LoHi neighborhood,” said Regan Schmergel, whose uncle started the company in the 1990s.
Infinity’s development activity there includes the Bell and Palmer apartment complex at 3110 Zuni St. and Tejon Heights apartment building at 3456 Tejon St. It’s currently building Accent LoHi at 37th Avenue and Navajo Street.
Infinity’s holdings aren’t limited to apartments. The company also owns the building where Recess Beer Garden, Bamboo Sushi and Postino LoHi operate. Schmergel said the company likes LoHi’s “walkability, the scale of the structures in the neighborhood, the thriving businesses and the energy on the street on a Friday afternoon in May.”
Mathieson, meanwhile, made headlines in 2023, when a City Park West home he’d been hoping to demolish was instead designated a city landmark.Â
Mathieson’s last Denver real estate sale was in March 2024, when he sold a site in RiNo for $9 million to the developers of the adjacent One River North building.
A lawsuit he subsequently filed against the city remains pending, although it has been largely paused since late 2023. In February, an attorney for Mathieson wrote he was “is in the process of resolving this case outside of court” — and that someone had agreed to buy the property contingent on completion of a zoning lot amendment.
Back in LoHi, meanwhile, a second site where a hotel was once planned is on the market. Pinnacle Real Estate is listing two lots at the corner of 18th and Central streets where Denver-based Central Street Capital once envisioned a hotel. They are separated by an alley from the site Infinity just bought.
A rendering released in 2019 of the hotel once planned for 2534 18th St. in Denver. (BusinessDen file)
A developer that once planned to build a hotel on a site in LoHi has instead sold the land.
Mike Mathieson, of Forbes Partnership, sold the 0.43-acre 2534 18th St. property last week for $5.3 million, according to public records. That works out to $277 a square foot.
The site currently has a small office building on it and is zoned C-MX-5, which generally allows mixed-use buildings up to five stories. Mathieson purchased the site in 2013 for $2.1 million, records show. Robert Bratley and Jack Sanders, formerly of JLL and now with Berkadia, represented the seller.
As of 2019, Mathieson planned to build a 116-unit building at 2534 18th St. that would be leased to Sonder, the San Francisco-based hotel operator. He’d already developed one building for the company a short distance away, at 3022 Zuni St.
But the project never broke ground.Â
The buyer in the latest deal was Greenwood Village-based Infinity Properties, owned by the Schmergel family.Â
“We love the LoHi neighborhood,” said Regan Schmergel, whose uncle started the company in the 1990s.
Infinity’s development activity there includes the Bell and Palmer apartment complex at 3110 Zuni St. and Tejon Heights apartment building at 3456 Tejon St. It’s currently building Accent LoHi at 37th Avenue and Navajo Street.
Infinity’s holdings aren’t limited to apartments. The company also owns the building where Recess Beer Garden, Bamboo Sushi and Postino LoHi operate. Schmergel said the company likes LoHi’s “walkability, the scale of the structures in the neighborhood, the thriving businesses and the energy on the street on a Friday afternoon in May.”
Mathieson, meanwhile, made headlines in 2023, when a City Park West home he’d been hoping to demolish was instead designated a city landmark.Â
Mathieson’s last Denver real estate sale was in March 2024, when he sold a site in RiNo for $9 million to the developers of the adjacent One River North building.
A lawsuit he subsequently filed against the city remains pending, although it has been largely paused since late 2023. In February, an attorney for Mathieson wrote he was “is in the process of resolving this case outside of court” — and that someone had agreed to buy the property contingent on completion of a zoning lot amendment.
Back in LoHi, meanwhile, a second site where a hotel was once planned is on the market. Pinnacle Real Estate is listing two lots at the corner of 18th and Central streets where Denver-based Central Street Capital once envisioned a hotel. They are separated by an alley from the site Infinity just bought.
