Veteran real estate broker warned city in 2023 not to buy Denver Post building: "They were walking off a cliff"

A veteran Denver commercial real estate broker warned elected Denver officials in December of 2023 to scrap their plans to buy the Denver Post building for $88.5 million. The broker said at the time "there is no justification" for paying about $290 per square foot for the building as downtown vacancy rates were increasing, more and more high rise owners were defaulting on their loans and building after building was headed for foreclosure.

But the city of Denver bought the building anyway in early 2024, and the largest tenant in the building, DP Media Network LLC, stopped paying rent in August 2025 and has now failed to pay rent and late payments totaling about $3.5 million.

DP Media Network LLC has said it wants to renegotiate its lease with Denver. The city and DP Media Network are now embroiled in a court battle, according to the city.

"It was buying an asset when the market is clearly stating that this is not the time to buy at this price," said William Lucas, managing director with Cushman Wakefield, an international real estate company.

Lucas has been leasing downtown Denver real estate for clients for more than 30 years and spoke after CBS News Colorado obtained the 2023 letter he wrote to Denver's mayor and council members two years ago.

"This was really the talk in our office. 'What is the city really doing? Why are they really buying this building?'" said Lucas. "And I just thought they needed to hear from somebody else who saw the market differently and it felt like maybe the city was operating inside a vacuum and they needed a different perspective of what's really happening in the market."

Lucas said he heard back from one council member, but that was it.

The city said it made the 2024 Denver Post building purchase because it intended to move Denver courts into the building in 2030, and banked on collecting some $47 million in rent payments from building tenants -- including DP Media Network LLC -- before then.

In the two-page letter, Lucas told elected officials "There will be many more attractive economical options in the next few years, which most likely will include 101 W Colfax (Denver Post building) but at a better price point. I cannot fathom a strategy that supports paying $290 per square foot for 101 West Colfax," wrote Lucas.

He pointed out that in 2023, the current vacancy rate downtown was 30% "which will increase to 35% in 2024 and increase even more in 2025."

Real estate firm CBRE says in the third quarter of this year, the downtown Denver vacancy rate was 37.7%.

Lucas wrote to the city in 2023 that "some office buildings have already gone back to the lender ... and many more will follow."

Since then, Trepp, a company that tracks real estate data, reported about 30% of commercial mortgages in central Denver tied to office buildings are delinquent, one of the worst rates in the country.

Lucas urged the city in 2023 to defer purchase, as he said the downtown Denver market for office space would continue to decline.

"Without a doubt, they were walking off a cliff and they did walk off a cliff. Anyone in the industry saw the same thing," commented Lucas. Now, said Lucas, "The Post is not paying rent and the city is chasing them. I'd rather be in the opposite position."

He said he spoke out in 2023 because he was born and raised in Denver and was concerned with how the city was spending taxpayer dollars.

On Thursday, Laura Swartz, Communications Director for Denver's Department of Finance, issued a written statement, critical of Lucas' 2023 letter. "Private sector real estate and public sector real estate are very different," asserted Swartz. She said the city received "favorable financing terms" to buy the Post building "which was the city's primary consideration." She went on to say the Denver court system needs additional space which has to be near downtown courthouses. She suggested other downtown office buildings would not have been suitable for Denver's court needs.

"They bought high," said Lucas during a recent interview with CBS, "and there's nothing there -- it evaporated."

See the full letter below.