— Greeley will not move forward with the purchase of the JBS USA headquarters building in the Promontory business park, with the city focusing instead on funding of a new civic campus downtown.
“We’re out,” Greeley mayor John Gates told BizWest Wednesday.
Gates and City Manager Raymond Lee met Friday with JBS’ chief financial officer Victor Machado and “made it clear that we’re not interested in purchasing their building right now,” Gates said. “We have too much going on, primarily that we’ve invested our efforts in the civic campus.”
Greeley officials first revealed the potential purchase of the 136,500-square-foot property during a City Council meeting in April, during which more than a dozen “major projects” were described in a staff presentation. Included was a line item of $19.7 million for the JBS building and economic incentives.
Documents obtained by BizWest through a Colorado Open Records Act request revealed that the city was looking to purchase the building for $15.7 million, or $115 per square foot, with another $4 million in economic incentives.
“The city has negotiated the purchase of the JBS Corporate office building at 1770 Promontory Circle for $15.7 million,” according to a May 6 memo from Kalen Myers, the city’s interim budget and policy director. “This purchase, combined with $4 million in economic incentives, will facilitate JBS’ expansion to the neighboring buildings at 1553, 1555 and 1557 Promontory Circle. To fund this purchase, the city will issue certificates of participation (COPs), using the acquired JBS building as the collateralized asset for the loan. The annual payment for the COP issuance is estimated to be $1.3 million for a term of 20 years. The planned repayment source for this debt is the food tax.”
The acquisition would have facilitated JBS’ purchase of the largely vacant, 450,000-square-foot State Farm campus next door, providing ample space for expansion.
The City Council last fall had given Lee permission to negotiate the JBS purchase, Gates noted, but priorities have shifted.
With Greeley having recently given initial approval to the massive Cascadia project in west Greeley — including a new arena, hotel and water park that would be city-owned — and with the city also working to fund a new civic campus downtown, priced at a revised estimate of $80 million to $95 million, the JBS acquisition didn’t make financial sense, Gates said.
“What I told the folks at JBS on Friday is that we had a change of priorities, and sometimes elected bodies changed our plans, and we changed ours, and feel really strongly that civic campus is a way for us to go,” Gates said. “So part of the issue around us pulling it out at the JBS building was all about timing, right? If the civic campus were funded, or there was a better plan in place, that could possibly be a different scenario. But we’re in a position where we can’t do both, and our highest priority right now is giving our folks a new place to land downtown and revitalize downtown even more than it already is, with the civic campus and perhaps a boutique hotel.”
JBS’ earlier expansion proposal
JBS about a potential 60,000-square-foot, three-story expansion of its Promontory headquarters building, holding a pre-application meeting with the city.
JBS spokesperson Nikki Richardson told BizWest at the time that “JBS USA has no immediate plans for an expansion of our U.S. headquarters in Greeley, Colo. The company’s submittal to city planners represents long-held plans to consolidate operations into one location should business conditions justify expansion in the future.”
Richardson has not yet responded to emailed questions from BizWest about the company’s plans.
JBS leases 50,000 square feet in the 1557 Promontory building, alongside 4Rivers Equipment.
State Farm’s three-building campus has been largely vacant for years. The Bloomington, Illinois-based company vacated its north building at 1555 Promontory Circle in 2018, and announced in November 2020 that it would vacate the remaining two buildings, adopting a work-from-home model.
The properties are owned by JDM II SF National LLC, a unit of Phoenix-based JDM Partners. The Greeley properties are part of a 14-property, 3.4 million-square-foot portfolio owned by JDM Partners. The properties were subject to a $383.5 million loan, according to
