ULI Spring Meeting, Denver (May 2025)
WDC in Denver - Women Building on Dana Crawford's Downtown Legacy
WDC’s Denver program began on Sunday afternoon May 11 next to Union Station at the Van Meter Williams Pollack studio. The program honored the 60-year development legacy of Dana Crawford and feature women leaders who continue to preserve Denver’s rich historic fabric and enliven its neighborhoods including Laura Aldrete of Hatch Urban Solutions, Donna Blair of Pacific Retail Capital Partners, Amy Cara of East West Partners, and Susan Powers of Urban Ventures. Laura Aldrete and local historian Steve Turner of CU Denver Historic Preservation Group guided our downtown tour showcasing Dana’s most iconic developments– Larimer Square where her preservation journey began, Oxford Hotel, Flour Mill Lofts, and the Crawford Hotel in Union Station. We returned to VMWP to toast Dana and share our collective development stories over delicious appetizer boards by Wander + Graze.
WDC in denver - Women Transforming Denver and Auraria
WDC’s Denver program on Monday 5/12 continued our journey into Denver’s unique development history, which includes a tale of two cities– Auraria and Denver. Our afternoon began at the 16th Street office of the Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) where visionary city builders have collaborated for more than 60 years on downtown initiatives including the current activation and rebranding of 16th Street. We then explored how Auraria’s historic center has been transformed into the Auraria Campus, a tri-institutional higher education center, and how groundbreaking public private partnerships are invigorating the Campus and nearby riverfront and stadium properties. We began our afternoon tour on 16th Street and follow Larimer Street into the Campus to see first hand how Denver is creating living streets and strengthening community connections. Our Campus tour started at the historic Tivoli Brewery building, and we visited innovative Campus developments that surround Auraria’s historic center. Our tour finished at the Convention Center overlooking the landscape of Campus and Downtown developments. Monday’s program featured dynamic women leaders including Britt Diehl of DDP, Colleen Walker, Robin Becker and Holly Hall of Auraria Higher Education Center, Martha Nelson of MSU Denver, Audra Johnson of CBRE, Shannon Cox Baker of Pennrose, and Meredith Wenskoski of Livable Cities Studio.