A fire sale in Greenwood Village is at risk of burning out.
A firm set to buy the financially distressed Offices at the Promenade complex says the receiver that negotiated the $5.4 million sale has since made costly errors and kept the deal from closing.
The prospective buyer, Prentice Avenue LLC, made the claims in a lawsuit filed last week against the receiver, Trigild LLC.
The Offices at the Promenade, a 132,000-square-foot complex at 7935 and 7995 E. Prentice Ave., last sold in 2016 for $16.9 million.
The buyer then was Melcor, a Canadian firm that subsequently took out a $10.6 million loan on the property from Genworth Life Insurance Co. that it needed to pay off by the end of June 2025.
“The Colorado office market is a joke. It is beyond bad,” Pat Melton, director of leasing for Melcor, told BusinessDen in February.
Melcor failed to pay off the loan, and Genworth subsidiary GLIC Real Estate Holding got the property put in receivership in February. Receivers are court-appointed caretakers tasked with protecting the value of an asset.
Trigild, the receiver, auctioned the building off over two days in April. The top bidder was Mooney Enterprises LLC, which offered $5.4 million.
It later assigned its purchase rights to Prentice Avenue LLC, which filed this week’s lawsuit. The two entities appear to be related, both listing their office address in state records as 5050 S. Syracuse St., Suite 700, in Denver.
Little additional information about the buyer was available as of press time. Attorney Seth Murphy of Spierer, Woodward, Corbalis & Goldberg, who is representing Prentice Avenue LLC, declined to provide additional information about the entity.
A judge approved the sale, and it was supposed to close by June 15. In its lawsuit last week, Prentice Avenue details why it didn’t.
The biggest dispute appears to revolve around property taxes. Prentice Avenue claims that Trigild wanted it to pay for half of 2025 property taxes and all 2026 property taxes, even though the firm was only going to own the building for half of 2026.
Additionally, Prentice Avenue claims that Trigild failed to renew two leases despite interest from the tenants, causing one of them to decide to leave Offices at the Promenade. That company had also planned to lease space in the complex for an affiliated company, which will no longer be happening, according to Prentice Avenue.
The firm also says that the Denver Technology Center’s Architectural Control Committee found multiple violations related to the building’s upkeep, but that Trigild has failed to correct them.
Trigild did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did an attorney representing lender GLIC, which is also a defendant in the lawsuit.
Despite the drama, Prentice Avenue still wants to buy Offices at the Promenade.
Murphy, the attorney for the firm, noted that the lawsuit includes a claim for specific performance, which seeks an order from the court that the receiver follow through on the contract.
