Places are powerful. Places will take front stage at the four-day Saving Places conference that kicks off Jan. 31 at the Colorado Convention Center. Last year, the Saving Places conference, sponsored by the nonprofit Colorado Preservation Inc., drew about 750 people. Architects, developers, planners, preservationists and others came from 40 Colorado counties and 17 states.…

In August 1990, I walked a desolate row of Lower Downtown Denver scattered with broken wine bottles scattered by street people, warehouses, auto body shops and brown fields that would have been green if anyone cared enough to water them. It was part of my Who Owns the Block series at the Rocky Mountain News.…

Union Denver, a luxury apartment community anchored by a long sought-after downtown Whole Foods Market, is scheduled to be completed in February, when the third residential tower opens. The first residential tower opened in May and the second tower in September, but it was the flagship, 50,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market that opened in mid-November that…

Downey and Disney. Tim Downey is a huge fan of Walt Disney. Downey, the founder of Nashville-based Southern Land Co., even knew that Walt Disney was a major investor in the former Celebrity Lanes, a massive entertainment center with an 80-lane bowling alley, indoor swimming pool and restaurants that once stood at South Colorado Boulevard…

Partners Group is on a roll. The global private market management firm, based in Baar, Switzerland, has more than $66 billion in assets under management. Its latest financial report shows the Partners Group, with investments in private equity, real estate, infrastructure and debt, booked a 24.75 percent year-over-year increase in revenues and a 41.6 percent…

Zuni Street is the north-south artery running through the heart of LoHi. Next week, investors will have the opportunity to bid on a rare find along Zuni Street – just shy of an acre at Zuni and West 31st Avenue, a block south of the main east-west corridor through Lower Highland, one of Denver’s hottest…

Green roofs were on developer Kyle Zeppelin’s radar screen long before the initiative to require them on some buildings in Denver surfaced. The green roof initiative was adopted by Denver voters last month by an 8.6 percent margin. It was widely opposed by Denver’s development community, with Zeppelin being the most high-profile exception. “Denver developers…

Tryba time. I recently wrote about a proposed rezoning of at least three parking lots along a swath of Sherman Street at the edge of the central business district proposed by well-known architect David Tryba on behalf of Denver’s Dikeou family. Wednesday night, Tryba, one of Denver's most high-profile architects in Denver, unveiled what he…

Kentwood Commercial is not just the latest commercial real estate brokerage launched in Denver. “Commercial real estate for me has always been a huge passion,” Peter Niederman, CEO of the new firm as well as the residential real estate firm that also shares the Kentwood name, told me last month. “I didn’t start Kentwood Commercial…

Sherman Street at the edge of downtown Denver would be allowed higher building height limits and more density under a proposed rezoning. The Sherman Street North Redevelopment Vision has been presented by Tryba Architects to a number of City Council members and neighborhood groups. Tryba Architects is representing the Dikeou family, which owns six parcels…