Denver's Vault hits market without a price

The Vault, a 107,000-square-foot former WeWork at 17th and Champa in Denver, is up for sale without an asking price, a concrete repricing test for private owners and lenders still waiting for the bid-ask spread to close. The Denver Business Journal first reported the listing, with JLL as exclusive advisor for Harbor Associates, which paid $17.6 million for the nine-story building in 2017. Built in 1907 and occupied by WeWork until the coworking company left five years ago, the property now sits vacant.

Between 2019 and 2024, the ownership group poured more than $22.4 million into the property, per Connect CRE, restoring the first two floors and exterior, adding a new lobby, modernizing the building systems, and leaving eight of the nine floors fully renovated with furnished spec suites on the sixth through ninth. The furnished spec suites suggest the owner was still positioning the building for lease, not sale, until recently, and the renovation budget alone exceeds the acquisition price, a measure of how much capital the owners committed to a property that is now vacant. The building also contains a 2,007-square-foot retail space at the corner of 17th and Champa, and the listing includes access to up to 200 garage spaces across the street at the Residence Inn, a practical amenity for any office user or conversion.

Even with retail and parking giving The Vault conversion optionality, the cost basis of roughly $40 million is not matched by a stated price, a sign that the bid-ask spread is still too wide to print. The office clearing trade is real but narrow: trophy and conversion-eligible assets are pricing while the sub-breakeven debt wall drags on the broad stack. The Vault should be exactly the asset that clears first — fully renovated, landmark, with a WeWork vacancy and $40 million at stake. When a seller with that much invested doesn't name a number, the clearing trade has not broadened yet.