Digital health hub to be built in Denver
Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation has purchased land to build a 300,000 square foot facility in Denver. The facility will act as a hub where technology startups can develop digital health products, the project currently has 30 tenants including Corvectra, Entrepy, Telespine and Premier Manufacturing.
Developers hoping to turn Colorado into the nation’s digital health capital have acquired an entire block in the sizzling River North district.

The goal? Build a 300,000-square-foot facility where competing health-tech firms, nonprofits and others solve problems and get things done. Together.

Called Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation, the project by developer Koelbel and Co. and entrepreneur Mike Biselli now becomes a partnership with Larry Burgess, whose family owns the 1½ acres at Brighton Boulevard and 35th Street where Catalyst will be located.

“Health care in the U.S. is truly in a crisis. It’s going to trend to a $5 trillion problem,” Biselli said. “The problem is so big we need a cooperative health environment.”

Biselli declined to put a price on the project. He said the deal includes a land exchange for equity for the Burgesses.

Colorado is home to 127 digital health startups — many starting within the past 12 months, said Jeffrey Nathanson, CEO of Prime Health, a local organization focusing on health company collaboration.

“We have a huge and growing tech community, and there is a large, installed health care industry,” said Nathanson, who is cataloging efforts and becoming the bridge to connect startups with traditional health firms.

Local companies, he added, have raised about $85 million in funding this year.

Biselli sits on Prime’s board.

Nationwide, digital health firms are attracting attention — and money. According to Rock Health, a digital health startup supporter and researcher, digital health companies attracted $4.3 billion in venture capital in 2014, a record year. This year, funding has been slower, coming in $70 million short from the same time a year ago, but Rock Health calls this “on pace.”

Catalyst will be located on the west side of Brighton Boulevard between 35th and 36th streets. According to city records, the land and improvements are assessed at about $4.2 million.

A few buildings and businesses are on the existing plot, including The Urban Cyclist Denver and Happy Leaf Kombucha.

With several commercial projects in the works, RiNo is a hot real estate market. According to real estate broker CBRE, land prices in RiNo jumped 50 percent to $59.27 per square foot last year compared with 2013. A recent project paid $97 a square foot.

Larry Burgess began investing in land along Brighton Boulevard in 1968, back when it was mostly run-down buildings and industrial space. Today, the run-down buildings are interspersed with new projects. The city also plans to complete a FasTracks station at 38th and Blake streets by next year.

“Our family has been patiently waiting for a unique opportunity, just like Catalyst HTI, for many years,” the Burgess family said in a statement. “We are excited and honored that our family’s resources will help ignite change for our ailing health care industry.”

Construction on Catalyst’s first phase of 180,000 square feet is expected to start in mid-2016, with 10,000 square feet reserved for retail and event space. Phase One should be ready by mid- to late 2017.

Bisilli started the digital health concept he called Stride while working with developers at nearby Industry, a collaborative space for tech startups. The two parted ways last spring, and Industry later broadened the focus of its new building, also in RiNo, to include clean-tech, creative and engineering firms.

Catalyst has announced four tenants —

Corvectra, Entrepy, Telespine and Premier Manufacturing, a Frederick manufacturer that will create a 3-D lab for tenants to build wearables and other prototypes.

“There certainly is enough interest in this,” said Biselli, adding that he has 30 tenants signed on but will announce only two per week.

Tamara Chuang: 303-954-1209, tchuang@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Gadgetress