Late last summer, Andy Schlauch stumbled upon a red brick office building in RiNo that looked nothing like its neighbors. “I had to do a double take once I saw it,” said Schlauch, CEO of Mainspring, a local real estate investor and developer. A few weeks later, his firm was under contract to buy 2718 Walnut St. On Friday, the company paid $3 million for the two-building, 9,100-square-foot property. The deal, at $330 a square foot, was financed with a 10-year, $2.4 million loan from Alpine Bank with a variable interest rate, according to public records. The plan? Make the building blend into the neighborhood. On one side of the building is hip clothing store Faherty, whose building has funky colors on its exterior. On the other is an F1 simulator bar. Across the street is a newer apartment building. Just to the south, national real estate firm Edens has spent over $100 million to acquire properties, and it’s planning a sizable redevelopment. “There’s been a lot of rent improvement,” Schlauch said. “Retail tenants want to be adjacent to one another, because there’s already foot traffic there. So versus other places in RiNo where you don’t have that concentration of other retailers and foot traffic, this offers a unique opportunity to capitalize on what’s already there.” Mainspring will spend six figures improving the sidewalk and adding storefronts to the buildings, with work beginning this summer and wrapping up in the fall. Much of the space will be vacant by then. Schlauch suspects that most of the leasing interest will come from retail users, although he’s open to office as well. “It’s one of those 1920s barrel-roof warehouses,” Schlauch said of the larger building. “It’s got beautiful wood ceilings, and it’s kind of surprisingly large on the inside once you get in there.” The property also includes a 640-square-foot garage in the rear, with a patio surrounding it. Related Articles Ground lease termination gives distressed downtown tower new owner King Soopers parent company names former Walmart executive as new CEO Tavern Littleton sells for $2M on commercial real estate market Auto exec buys Cherry Hills mansion for $9.3M to lead January luxury real estate sales Year after ‘Shark Tank’ appearance, Boulder-based animal coat company navigating down winter, tariffs The sellers in the deal, Inca Development LLC, had owned the property for decades. The local real estate partnership previously owned the neighboring 2734 Walnut St. building, where the F1 simulator is now. “Inca Development sold the building next door six years ago, and the ownership group was ready to finally leave RiNo after 25 years of owning and operating in the neighborhood. We fielded several offers from investor buyers,” said NAI Shames Makovsky broker Joey Gargotto, who represented the sellers with colleague Levi Noe. Mainspring, meanwhile, is also working to sell a small triangle-shaped lot in Five Points to an income-restricted housing developer. The company is most well known for its mixed-use Backyard on Blake project in RiNo, and The Sudler, a renovated office building in Uptown. Schlauch said the company owns a handful of retail and residential properties around town, including 4500 Broadway in Globeville, which it is selling to the nonprofit cafe that rents out the building, Prodigy Coffeehouse. That deal is expected to close Monday, Schlauch said. Read more from our partner, BusinessDen. Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter. ...read more read less