The History of Pearl West

In August 2010, the Camera’s owners sold the site for $9 million to Karlin Real Estate of Los Angeles. Lynda Gibbons, founder of the Boulder commercial real estate firm Gibbons-White, put that deal together. Before the project was entitled, Karlin decided it could no longer carry the risk of getting it approved in Boulder and asked Lynda to sell.

In December 2012, a group of about 30 investors bought the property for $13.5 million, with the old Camera building still standing. Randy Nichols, founder of Nichols Partnership, led the development. Eric Kramer and Crestone were Randy’s funding partner, and I was one of the investors Kramer brought into the group. Lynda stayed on as co-developer, contributed to the building’s design and handled its leasing.

In June 2014, the old Camera building came down. The architects Shears Adkins Rockmore designed an $80 million redevelopment: a four-story building on Pearl Street and a narrower building on Walnut, joined by a bridge over the alley, built to LEED Platinum, the highest rating for sustainable buildings. Below the street, two garages hold about 300 cars, one of them robotic. The buildings were completed in 2015 and 2016. All in, Pearl West cost about $93.5 million.

Pearl West opened as a home for Boulder’s tech companies and was nearly fully leased. SolidFire, the Boulder data-storage company NetApp bought in 2016, made about 62,000 square feet its headquarters. The Trade Desk moved its Boulder operations in. Galvanize signed for the first two floors of the Walnut building and opened its campus in 2016. Its ground-floor café became a gathering place for Boulder’s startup community, and in 2018 and 2019 Galvanize was the central hub of Boulder Startup Week. On Pearl Street, Fjällräven opened a flagship store at the corner of 11th, beside the goldsmith John Atencio, and restaurants such as bartaco and Eureka! filled the ground floor.

In December 2016, with the buildings 91 percent preleased, the investors sold Pearl West to Invesco Real Estate for $122.5 million. Our investment group got back about twice the equity we had put in.

Then COVID lockdowns emptied downtown offices, and Pearl West lost much of its momentum. The era of establishing big offices for tech startups was over — as tech would leverage remote work. Galvanize’s lease came to an end on August 31, 2026 — marking the end of an era for Boulder’s startup ecosystem.

Yet, Pearl West retail proved resilient: Hapa Sushi, bartaco, Fjällräven, John Atencio and Corrida remain among the most popular spots in Boulder. The anchor office tenants, among them Pathstone and The Trade Desk, renewed their leases. And with the Sundance Film Festival coming to Boulder — and Tulagi riding on its coattails — a new era of Boulder creativity, culture, and tech was a ray of light shining through the foothills overlooking downtown Boulder.

This is the second issue of Introducing The Chill House at Pearl West, a newsletter series that will run over the next few weeks. Next: Galvanize.