Real-estate agency bought the Seventh Street building it hopes to inhabit come Spring 2027

Five years removed from leaving downtown Grand Junction, the Christi Reece Group is taking steps to return.

The real-estate agency’s downtown departure was a matter of getting a larger space in the Bonsai Design building in the Las Colonias Development, where it started a five-year lease in 2021. With the lease ending in May, its return downtown is tied to realizing a goal of owning the building where it operates.

That will be at 315 N. Seventh St., a 3,500-square-foot building that the Christi Reece Group purchased for $570,000.

“We’ve really enjoyed being down there and being part of the revitalization of the riverfront,” agency owner Christi Reece said of the Bonsai building. “But, you know, we’re in real estate, and we’ve just had a dream to own our own office building, and we’re excited for that to become a reality.”

The reality of operating the business in that building will take some time.

“It definitely needs some upgrades and repairs,” Reece said. “There’s some asbestos, and it needs a radon-mitigation system. And, you know, it just needs a little beautifying, so we’re going to make it look really great.

“We’re excited about putting a mural on the north side of the building, adding some windows in the front and on the south side, and making the interior more comfortable and modern for our staff and agents.”

The space will be slightly larger than the one the Christi Reece Group currently occupies in the Bonsai building, 1601 Riverfront Drive, Suite 103.

The office building at 315 N. Seventh St. is currently configured as two suites, and Reece said they will combine them into one. She said a big conference room will be part of the redesign, plus “a lot of individual offices, and we’re going to put a new break room and kitchen in. So, we’ll have some new walls and take some walls out, so it’s going to transform quite a bit.”

Reece said one of the big advantages of returning downtown is “just being able to meet clients at coffee shops and restaurants, and lots of opportunities to walk around the block and show people the downtown area.

“There’s not a lot of food yet down at the riverfront, so that was always a challenge for the team – we had DoorDash come to our office a lot – so we’ll be excited to be back downtown for that.”

She added, “The other thing we’re excited about is that building has some parking in the back, because it can be challenging to find a building with parking downtown.”

Reece said the estimate for the renovated building to be ready is Spring 2027.

Most of the work will be done inside, as she said, “We’re not going to change the exterior much except for windows and paint and make it pretty.”

That’s short-term. Long-term is a different story, as Reece revealed, “We have a dream of putting a second story on it and having a rooftop deck and some more office space up there.

“But that will probably be Phase 2. I don’t think that’s going to happen in the initial remodel, because we just want to get in there as soon as possible. So, we’ll do the most important items and move in as soon as we can.”

What they do to the exterior initially will be aided by a grant from the Downtown Development Authority, which Reece said is “for exterior improvements that they offer to beautify downtown. So we’ll be taking advantage of that.”

She said the Business Incubator may deliver another grant for downtown core businesses, so “there’s a little bit of help for us to transform that building.”