In an effort to keep its office central to where its clients are, an investment bank has leased space in the heart of Denver.
Piper Sandler’s Colorado group moved into its new 12,000-square-foot digs at 1144 15th St. last month. The Minnesota-based company shares the 20th floor with First Bank, and Piper Sandler has approximately 40 employees regularly coming into the building.
1144 Fifteenth— also known as the Optiv building — was completed in 2018 after being developed by Hines. Piper Sandler will be taking over space previously occupied by Chipotle before the company moved its headquarters to California.
Zach Bishop, managing director of Piper Sandler’s Special District Group, said Piper Sandler had a former office in the Tabor Center at 1200 17th St. for around two decades. Another group of Piper Sandler employees worked out of Firmspace at 1401 Lawrence St.
The company’s new office at 1144 15th St. is a big expansion for the company’s Denver office.
“I think for us, it was a no-brainer. We want to be downtown. It’s just where a lot of the consultants, the attorneys, the various people we work with in our industry are located,” Bishop said.
Although Piper Sandler looked at offices in Cherry Creek, the River North Art District and the Denver Tech Center, Bishop said downtown made the most sense for his employees, who were coming from all different parts of the Mile High City. Bishop said it’s also convenient to have nearby downtown restaurants, as well as access to the nearby sports stadiums and Union Station for getting to the airport.
“A lot of our business relationships are downtown, and so it makes sense for us to be there,” Bishop said.
Despite the national movement toward remote work following the pandemic, Bishop said he and his team members were shocked by how hard it was to find Class A office space in Denver, especially the exact right size for what his company needed.
“We are requiring the vast majority of our folks to be in-person five days a week,” Bishop said, while also acknowledging various exceptions for certain employees or certain situations.
Bishop thinks employees benefit from a social environment for both peer and client conversations. At Piper Sandler’s new office, employees can have more nuanced conversations than they would on Zoom, or they can walk down the hall to quickly get a question answered. While Piper Sandler’s employees are often on the road meeting with clients, the general expectation is that people should be coming into work.
Bishop’s team at Piper Sandler is responsible for raising money for real estate development projects and works with special districts and urban renewal authorities to fund public infrastructure for residential, retail, office and industrial development. Some of Piper Sandler’s local upcoming deals include the Redtail Ridge redevelopment in Broomfield, in addition to Castle Rock’s Dawson Ridge, a 2,000-acre project that Westside Investment Partners wants to turn into residential, commercial and industrial uses.
Rick Schuham of Savills Studley represented Piper Sandler in its new lease at 1144 15th St.
In addition to Optiv, other notable tenants at 1144 Fifteenth include Gates Corp., which moved its headquarters there in 2018, according to previous Denver Business Journal reporting.
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