The Medtronic life science campus in Lafayette sells to RCS for $188M
The two-building campus was completed earlier this year.
Denver Business Journal
August 24, 2023
By Kate Tracy
The Lafayette campus of a global medical technology company has sold for $188 million.
Real Capital Solutions, a Louisville-based real estate firm, announced it has acquired the newly
built campus of Medtronic (NYSE: MDT), located at 200 and 250 Medtronic Drive near the
intersection of U.S. Highway 287 and Northwest Parkway.
The campus sits on 42 acres and includes two five-story life science office buildings totaling
404,159 square feet. After breaking ground in 2021, construction on the campus finished this
year.
Adam Abeln, chief acquisitions officer for RCS, confirmed the purchase price of $188 million,
and said it marks the largest purchase price in RCS’s 40-year history. He said RCS has done
multiple deals with the property’s developer and seller, Minnesota-based Ryan Companies US
Inc., and has been tracking the campus through its development.
“What interests us about Medtronic was just the credit quality, the name, the fact that they’re
the world’s largest medical device producer and the fact that it fits within our strategy today,”
Abeln said, adding that Medtronic’s long-term lease on the property made it an attractive deal
in an uncertain real estate market.
Medtronic’s Lafayette campus is its second largest in the country, according to RCS. The
medical device company has plans to eventually employ more than 1,000 people there.
Medtronic is operating on a 20-year lease and is the sole tenant on the campus.
RCS has $2 billion of real estate assets under its management, with properties in Colorado and
across the country. In 2019, Abeln said RCS began pursuing deals with long-term leases that
provided some safety and stability in an uncertain real estate market. But that’s all about to
change, he said.
“We’re going to get pretty aggressive within the market in the next six to 18 months, and we’ll
be changing our strategy from buying safe, single-tenant net-lease deals like Medtronic more
towards value-add opportunistic deals,” Abeln said. “So we’ll be looking at buying apartments
specifically here in Colorado and elsewhere, and then value-add office, retail and industrial.”
Prior to choosing the Lafayette campus, Medtronic had planned to expand to Louisville’s
StorageTek campus, now called Redtail Ridge. The company abandoned those plans in 2020,
and even considered Texas or Minnesota before settling on Lafayette.
Medtronic has locations in more than 150 countries and more than 350 locations, according to
its website, and its U.S. headquarters are in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company also has
multiple locations throughout the Denver metro area that were focused on patient monitoring,
respiratory intervention, spine technology and surgical innovation, according to previous
reporting.
Some 60,000 square feet of the Lafayette campus was planned for dedicated research and
development work.
Ryan Companies declined to comment on the sale of the Lafayette campus.
In addition to Medtronic’s Lafayette campus, there have been a number of other life science
campuses and buildings under development in the area.
Last year, San Diego-based PMB and Montgomery Street Partners proposed the Coal Creek
Innovation Park in Superior. St. John Properties said it is spending $95 million on Simms
Technology Park in Broomfield.
Meanwhile, Lincoln Property Company and Maryland-based FCP proposed the Colorado
Research Exchange last year in Broomfield, and Conscience Bay Company announced a life
science building in Boulder. Breakthrough Propertiesis renovating a 164,000-square-foot life
science campus in Boulder as well.
Last year, San Diego-based BioMed Realty purchased Flatiron Park in Boulder.
