Denver Business Journal
Greg Avery
Rally Software is more than doubling the size of its headquarters under a build-and-lease deal with a new landlord, the company announced Friday. The arrangement keeps the fast-growing company based in Boulder instead of moving out of the city in search of space.
Rally, which makes technology to help tech companies produce software, employs 200 people at its 65,545-square-foot headquarters at 3333 Walnut St. in central Boulder.
During the next two years, an 89,000-square-foot, three-story addition will be built, giving Rally Software room for a potential 375 more workers.
“It gives us some breathing room for the immediate future,” said Tim Miller, Rally Software CEO.
Rally went public in April on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RLY) in Colorado’s first successful software IPO in more than 10 years. It also has offices in Denver; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; London; Helsinki; Singapore; and in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.
Prior to leasing offices at 3333 Walnut, Rally had moved every couple years in Boulder as it needed more space. Two years ago, it began looking for a long-term home, tapping real estate expertise and the City of Boulder for help, but Rally couldn’t find another feasible alternative in Boulder that would keep the headquarters in one building, Miller said.
“We saw nothing,” he said.
Rally negotiated an expansion of the 3333 Walnut office building with MAVDevelopment, of Ann Arbor, Mich., which included having MAVDevelopment purchase the property in April, the companies said.
Bancroft Capital, of Manhattan Beach, Calif., had owned the property along with others in the neighborhood. In 2006, Bancroft led the redevelopment of the former Exabyte campus into the 390-unit Peloton condominiums off 33rd and Arapahoe, two blocks south of Rally’s headquarters.
MAVDevelopment owns other commercial property in Boulder and liked the chance to add to its Boulder portfolio with a long-term headquarters lease.
“We’re excited to expand this building and our relationship with Rally,” said Rob Aldrich, MAVD’s president. “Rally is one of the key fast-growth technology employers in Boulder, and we’re pleased that along with their growth, we can grow our investment in Boulder.”
Rally leased offices near Larimer Square in downtown Denver in 2011 as a way to accommodate some growth and recruit employees from other parts of the metro area. But Rally wanted its headquarters to stay in Boulder, where it can draw from a population of workers from a technology culture that’s cutting-edge, high-performance, transparent and, above all, collaborative, Miller said.
“There’s such a high density of like-minded software companies here that have relatively similar business models,” Miller said. “It’s great to be able to be connected into that network.”