A Colorado Springs private equity firm that is a major property owner and a longtime local development firm have formed a new company that will offer development services from vacant ground through managing completed buildings.
The O’Neil Group and La Plata Communities have formed a joint venture called ONE La Plata that will include most of the development operations of La Plata and the real management operations of O’Neil Group, according to a news release from the new company. O’Neil Group and La Plata each own 50% of ONE La Plata, which now employs 28 people that formerly worked for the two partners and will eventually work in one of O’Neil Group’s buildings.
La Plata and O’Neil Group had discussed combining some operations for the past two or three years, but discussions intensified after the Colorado Springs City Council rejected La Plata’s request to annex its 3,200-acre Amara development east of Fountain, La Plata CEO Doug Quimby says.
“Amara was planned to be the next Briargate, though it is smaller than Briargate. Our view is that it (Amara) was ripe for development, and we had plans all laid out. We were finishing with Briargate and The Farm and thought we would roll right into Amara,” Quimby says. “Once the annexation was rejected, we had nothing to do but a few small parcels that were not enough for the company to thrive, so we began exploring other things.”
La Plata is best known for completing development of Briargate, including the Briargate Business Campus, Cordera, Pine Creek, The Farm, the Promenade Shops at Briargate and the Briargate Crossing shopping center. ONE La Plata will manage La Plata’s remaining properties, which include Amara, parcels in the business campus, a 60-acre parcel called Ovation near Old Ranch Road and Powers Boulevard and a 600-acre development in Grand Junction.
“We saw a chance to create a new company to bring different development skill sets together, which is rare in this community, by partnering. We saw the chance to partner with them (La Plata) as a great opportunity,” O’Neil Group CEO and founder Kevin O’Neil says. “We are taking one of the best developers who can get property to a pad ready for construction and we can now build out the site and provide management.”
ONE La Plata will be managed by La Plata founders Quimby and Mike Ruebenson, who will be CEO and president, respectively, of the new company, working with O’Neil on the organization’s strategy and long-term direction. The company will manage more than 1 million square feet of office, industrial and commercial space in the Colorado Springs area and oversee development of more than 2,000 acres of land.
“This isn’t about Norwood [Development Group, the largest local developer]. It gives us bigger scale to compete in the marketplace in general,” Quimby says. “La Plata has been a big master-plan commercial developer. Now we will be a broader real estate development services company, offering property management, engineering services and planning services for ourselves and third parties. We now have all those functions in house.”
O’Neil Group owns more than 1.2 million square feet of commercial buildings that are managed by The Paramount Group, its property management arm that is now part of ONE La Plata, as well as defense contractor ONE Dev, has invested in Colorado Springs data management software company Bluestaq and other companies and operates investment funds that acquire stakes in small defense contractors.
ONE La Plata will manage the real estate for O’Neil Group’s Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation, the national security-focused business park on the east edge of downtown Colorado Springs, as well as the 1,900-acre Karman Line development near Schriever Space Force Base and two developments near Falcon, in which O’Neil is a partner. ONE La Plata will not be involved in a 27-story downtown apartment tower O’Neil plans to develop.
