Over the last 18 months, many private investors have been evaluating net-leased commercial real estate opportunities as part of a broader search for income-producing assets. In the current commercial real estate environment, elevated interest rates, macroeconomic uncertainty, and refinancing risk continue to influence investor decision-making.
Net-leased retail properties remain a meaningful area of investor interest, while select medical office and industrial properties with stable tenants and long-term occupancy needs may also fit certain investors’ criteria.
Lowrey Burnett, Fountainhead Commercial founder, represented a buyer & successfully closed the transaction.
The client, an established Denver-based HVAC contractor, just acquired a commercial office property in Wheat Ridge, CO.
The consensus was clear: 2025 was the floor. 2026 is a recovery year. And 2027 is shaping up to be a “banner” year.
I left the event agreeing with that read. But I also left with a sharper conviction about something I have believed for a while: this recovery is not going to lift all boats. The Denver office market is bifurcating, and the gap between the buildings that win and the ones that struggle is getting wider by the quarter. If you are a business owner leasing or considering purchasing office space, understanding which side of that line your space sits on matters more right now than almost anything else.
Colorado just lost its largest publicly traded company. In February 2026, Palantir Technologies, a $300 billion AI and software firm that had called Denver home since 2020, announced it was moving its headquarters to the Miami area. The announcement came without advance notice to the governor, the mayor, or anyone else in state government. Just a single post on X.
That kind of exit deserves more than a headline. For business owners in Denver, it raises a question worth sitting with: what does this signal about the environment we are all operating in?
Over the past several years, the office market has experienced one of the most dramatic shifts in commercial real estate history.
You’ve probably seen both headlines:
Employees are returning to the office.
Office demand is still down.
Both are true at the same time.
Across many markets, office attendance has steadily improved compared to the lows during the pandemic and in subsequent years. Most companies now operate with some form of in-office expectation, often three to four days per week. Yet despite more people showing up to the office, leasing activity still feels slower than it did before 2020.
So, what’s going on?
The short answer is this: companies are back in the office, but they are using space very differently.
Fountainhead Commercial founder, Lowrey Burnett, CCIM, just represented another 1031 Exchange buyer & successfully closed the transaction.
The client, a California-based family investor, acquired a Single-Tenant-Net-Leased (STNL) retail asset valued at $2.525 million.
Property had a 15-year lease in place with a national-credit QSR retailer.
Client’s goals of (1) deferring 100% of their capital gains tax liability & (2) creating a durable, long-term income stream was achieved with this purchase.
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Denver, CO
