Nearly five years after Phillips 66 Co. pulled the plug on its plans to develop a 432-acre parcel in Louisville into an alternative-energy research center, a California-based company that operates exclusively in Colorado has placed the land under contract.
Bancroft Capital agreed to buy the property in June, Doug McDonald, the company's founder, told me. And — referring to Amazon.com Inc.'s hunt for a location for a sprawling second headquarters campus — he said the parcel is "one of a few really dynamic sites in Colorado" suitable for the Amazon complex.
GALLERY: Above, a look at Amazon's Seattle HQ campus.
A Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Phillips 66 indicates that the sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018 at a price of $50 million.
The land, along U.S. 36, was prepared for development by Phillips 66, which demolished the buildings that had been on the site in 2009. Storage Technologies, then Sun Microsystems, maintained large facilities there before Phillips 66 bought the land.
Bancroft developed the Peloton residential development in Boulder and owns several properties around metro Denver. It has been after the Louisville land since the first round of bidding in 2008 that placed the land under the control of Phillips 66, which spun out of ConocoPhillips in 2011.
"I think we were the runner-up to ConocoPhillips," McDonald said.
After Phillips 66's plans fell through, Bancroft again picked up its own development plans for the land, beginning in 2013. With the site having been a longtime home of regional headquarters for large companies, the company thought that the parcel's future lay in attracting one or more large corporate tenants, McDonald said.
The fact that Amazon's hunt for a site for "Amazon HQ2" was announced three months after the land went under contract is coincidence. But that doesn't mean Bancroft isn't trying to capitalize on the opportunity.
"We're working closely with the city of Louisville to prepare materials requested by the Metro Denver Economic Development [Corp.]," McDonald said, referring to the eco-devo agency that will have a key role in bidding on the Amazon complex. "We think this is one of a few really dynamic sites in Colorado that could work for Amazon."
According to Amazon's request for proposals, it is looking for a site of at least 100 acres in a North American metro of at least 1 million people with an international airport within 45 miles and a strong university system.
"This site meets all the criteria," McDonald said.
Amazon wants all bids by Oct. 19, well before the Phillips 66 sale to Bancroft is expected to be complete, but Bancroft is working with a team it had already assembled to work on the site's development to be a part of the bid submitted by the Metro Denver EDC.
The years the company has spent planning for the have given it a bit of a head start, but there is still a lot of work to do, McDonald said.
And the years of planning can still apply, even if Amazon ends up somewhere else. The land is still well-situated, ready for development and has natural elements that are likely to be attractive to a major corporation, McDonald said.
Bancroft was founded in 1992 but has done business in Colorado since 1994. Although it is headquartered in Manhattan Beach, California, all of its properties are located in Colorado.
