July 23, 2010

Hoff & Leigh’s Weekend Market Report
Hoff & Leigh, Inc.
Leasing, Sales, Management, Buyer Representation
4445 Northpark Drive, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO USA 80907
07.23.10

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All Market Average Office Building Sale Price PSF = $102.72 (UP $0.39 from last week)
We are currently tracking 89 office buildings for sale.
This is 817,118 square feet, which represents a total market value of $83,938,436.

All Market Average Industrial Building Sale Price PSF = $89.33 (UP $0.16 from last week)
We are currently tracking 71 industrial buildings for sale.
This is 905,614 square feet, which represents a total market value of $80,898,406.

Tim’s Market Report

I’ve been traveling this weekend to Gunnison country to see where the wild flowers grow. So please enjoy this week’s whimsical, short read, mostly from Count James Pourtales’ book, “Lessons Learned from Experience”. There’s a timely message contained in his writing for our time.

Colorado Springs was founded on the idea that it would be a World Class Destination and Count James Pourtales moved from Glumbowitz, Prussia to take advantage of the great economic opportunity he saw in this venture. Pourtales is the guy who founded the Broadmoor; 1st as a dairy farm and then when that didn’t work-out so well, a real estate development. Along the way he devised a scheme to build the original Broadmoor Lake to store and provide critically needed, scarce water to his new development, and to allay potential lot-buyer’s fears that the dike holding-back the water would fail releasing a torrential flood, he devised a further scheme to construct a World Class Casino on-top of the dike which served, “Oh, behave!” alcohol.

From Pourtales’ journal, ““It was my intention that the barroom should serve as a great attraction, for Colorado Springs is a temperance city. . .

He continues, “As is well known, certain states in North America have introduced what is called “prohibition”; that is, in such states, alcoholic beverages may not be sold openly and there are no taverns or saloons. A citizen is allowed to bring liquor in from other states only for his own use or he may – and this is in some cases made clear in the law – go to a drug store with a doctor’s prescription and buy alcoholic beverages or wine as medicine. (Hmmm . . . )

The prohibition movement is rather widespread over the whole of the United States and even has its own political party which always presents a candidate at the time of presidential elections in order to make propaganda for its own cause. Prohibitionists know that they can never get their candidate elected, and after proposing their candidate they usually make a compromise with either the democratic or republican candidate for president who in turn promises to support their platform. In the individual states, the legislature is able to introduce prohibition, and so it happens that actually several states in the west have enacted so-called “temperance laws”. In spite of the law, there is still drinking and it is often stated that there is more drinking in the temperance states than in the others where the individual can still order a drink legally. That this movement has gained such force is explained by the fact that many American families have been ruined by over-indulgence of the men.

We in Germany are also very fond of our drink – the ancient German used to lie on his bear skin and get drunk, but the modern German takes his drinks more slowly than the Yankee; he usually sits down in a tavern and drinks, be it schnaps or beer.

The American has other habits. The American barroom is furnished with a long table like a shop counter, which is set up along one side of the room and behind this stands the man who serves the drinks, the “bartender”, and here also the various drinks are kept. The American steps up to the counter and orders his drink and when he has swallowed it, he takes a 2nd and ad 3rd and leaves the shop – only to seek out another similar place at first opportunity and repeat the same rapid process. Usually several guests come into a bar together. Instead of sitting down in a comfortable fashion to converse while they drink one of them calls out, “Take the orders!” and the bartender then asks each one what he wants. The drinks are ordered and prepared by the bartender; the guests regard one another and say, “My regards” or “Hallo” or Here’s how” and empty the glasses at one swallow. If, for instance 4 men have come into the tavern together and one of them has ordered and the drink has hit-the-spot then the next one feels obliged to take his turn and he says to the bartender, “Take the orders!” and so it goes until each of the 4 has stood his turn. If one enters a tavern in a group, one expects as many drinks as there are people in the group. One can imagine that such a custom does not always bring good results and naturally a large share of income goes down the throat and the family suffers for it.

The women are very active in their efforts to check this habit. To drink at meal t time, as we do in Europe, is not the custom; the man drinks before meals and after meals, but during the meal ice water is usually served.

When the Colorado Springs Company formed their city they wished to have a place which would serve chiefly as a health resort for consumptives and those suffering from other ailments; so the stipulation was included in the statues that, whenever a title was granted, the “temperance clause” should be included as a restriction so that no alcoholic beverages could be sold within the original limits of the city. The subsequently elected city officials included this stipulation in the police regulations.

In Colorado Springs one could obtain alcoholic beverages only in drug stores with or without a prescription of a doctor. To procure a license to sell alcoholic beverages, the drug store proprietor had to pay at first $1,500 and later $1,000 yearly to the city. There are 10 or 12 such drug stores in Colorado Springs, which fact offers some proof that the temperance is not actually very widespread there. The efforts of the temperance people usually lead in my experience to hypocrisy, because the desire for drink is not done away with by forbidding it, especially if there are loopholes left. Drinking is done in secret and associates itself with false pretense and deceit.

Through the county commissioner, with whom I necessarily had to deal, I arranged so that I was allowed to install a bar in the Casino, for which privilege I paid the county $500 yearly. As might have been expected the news that a restaurant, which could serve alcoholic beverages and with the bar connected, was being built raised a storm of protest from the temperance followers and especially from the ministers of Colorado Springs. I was convinced that if the drinking could be well handled, the serving of drinks would be of greatest advantage to the Casino itself and to the land speculation.”

If we look to our past, we’ll find our future . . . .

Keep it real.

Sincerely, TJL Tim Leigh 719-337-9551 Tim@HoffLeigh.com