Up on the roof: condo developer selling rights to build penthouse atop building.

• Author: Caley, Nora

Real estate investor Kerry Blasdel thinks Denver is running out of land, and he's happy about that.

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A few years ago, Blasdel sold his architecture practice in Beverly Hills, Calif. He traveled for a few years, then moved to Denver and bought a 100-year-old building across the street from St. Joseph Hospital, near downtown. He turned the building into the nine-unit Bethel Condominiums and kept two of the units for himself.

He also kept the roof, and the right to build on it. Now he hopes to sell the 1,688-square-foot roof to a buyer who would then build a luxury penthouse. The penthouse could be one to two stories high and measure 1,985 square feet. Construction will cost about $850,000 for the standard package, which includes two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large deck with a fireplace, indoor and outdoor kitchens, and other amenities.

Since people are living in the building and in the houses and condos next door, he plans to build an exoskeleton that would hold some of the weight of the rooftop condo and also decrease construction noise. The exoskeleton will stand on eight points in the ground. The new condo will also have a pneumatic elevator.

"It'll be like the Jetsons," Blasdel says of the elevator. "It moves people with the very same concept as the pneumatic tubes at drive-in banks."

He says the target buyer would be a single male or an urban couple who relocate from New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

"This sort of thing has been around mostly in expensive high-density markets," he says. "Denver is the most expensive city without a coast."

Barbara Mickelson, the Prudential Colorado Real Estate agent who is marketing the property, is getting the word out about the unusual opportunity. She mailed marketing materials to 800 readers of Denver Builders News and to 400 Prudential agents. She also listed the property in the Denver and Beverly Hills Real Estate Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

She also organized an open house--and open roof--in June. Although many of the attendees were news media, curious neighbors and workers from nearby Einstein's Bagels delivering the event's catering order, Mickelson says there...