Company Culture
ULI's Holiday Volunteer Opportunity: The Gathering Place
This morning Paul, Desirae, Derek and myself (Gina) participated in the ULI Holiday Volunteer Opportunity at The Gathering Place. The Gathering place is a drop-in center that provides services to children, women and transgender individuals experiencing poverty or homelessness. They offer three meals a day, children's center, employment assistance, counseling and medical care among many other programs and services aimed at helping these individuals get back on their feet. ULI's Outreach Committee organized the event where we cooked and served breakfast a hearty breakfast of pancakes, sausage and scrambled eggs. We also prepped for the lunch meal and packed additional sack lunches that will be distributed throughout the day for anyone who needs one. For more information on The Gathering Place or for volunteer opportunities visit their website at: http://tgpdenver.org/
Studio PBA's Movember Challenge
Studio PBA staff took the opportunity to compete against one another to grow some facial hair in name of Movember. We documented a few of the staff members before and after pictures throughout the month and as you can see, we grew a couple very nice mustaches. Thanks to the men and women of PBA who took this opportunity to grow some awesome mustaches. The winner of this office challenge is Ahmad Aryan who is pictured above in the forth row, farthest to the right. He won the title and bragging rights of 'Best Studio PBA Mustache 2016' and following with a close second is Chris Fuller (top right).
PBA at the ULI's TOD Marketplace and Tour
Studio PBA team members Kathy Parker, Derek Westby, Desirae Zamora and Edwin Mocke had a great opportunity to participate in ULI's TOD Marketplace and Tours last week. The RTD Light Rail offered Wednesday afternoon guided tours to explore some exciting new developments in the surrounding area. Kathy took the B Line tour, Westminster's Urban Future, that highlighted Westminster’s ambitious journey to become the next urban center on Colorado’s Front Range. Derek rode the W Line to Lakewood, Emerging West Colfax, where the 40 West Arts is working to champion the renaissance of historic West Colfax, and Edwin rode the new A Line toward Denver International Airport's tour, Infill to Innovation.
Thursday was ULI’s marketplace where guest speakers from various city offices including Denver, Boulder, Greenwood Village and Westminster and influential people in the real estate and development industries around Colorado shared their thoughts on Denver as a successful model city. The marketplace also featured various building vendors and projects under construction around the Denver-metro area. All in all, the event was beneficial in promoting and marketing the many new projects happening in the area, highlighting the improvements in transportation, and the importance of sustainability in the future of design.
For more information about the ULI tours and transit-oriented developments in Denver, click on this link from The Denver Post and see if you can spot Kathy on her tour: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/12/first-generation-tods-lessons-transit-oriented-projects/
Friday Morning Site Tours
Studio PBA staff had a great opportunity today to visit and tour a few of our projects in construction phase thanks to our construction administration team led by Andrew Hjelmstad, Matt Baron and Brian Dunn.
The first tour was The Wolff Company's Havana project also known as Elevate at Innova which is a garden-style apartment community consisting of 10 buildings over 8.04 acres in Centennial expected to be completed in Fall 2017. The benefit of touring this project was the 10 different building styles, all in different phases of construction from setting up the form work for the post tensioned slab to applying interior finishes to a newly enclosed clubhouse.
The second site toured today was AMLI Dry Creek located in the Inverness Business Park at I-25 and Dry Creek, a 257 unit multifamily project. This development is at 50% completion and we were able to see multiple phases of construction on this wraparound apartment complex. This building features an internal 4-story parking garage that will house 428 parking spaces. This tour allowed us to view the finished roof air condenser units, internal roof drains and scenic mountain views.
An additional team toured a third project, Alta Pinehurst in Lakewood. This is a multifamily garden-style community with developer, Wood Partners consisting of 13 separate buildings and 726 units. Construction is well underway and this project is expected to be completed next fall.
It was a great learning opportunity for the staff and a excellent way to see the progress of our projects.
PBA at ULI's Annual Fall Conference
This past week, PBA project managers Edwin Mocke and Cris Torres flew out to Dallas, TX to attend the Urban Land Institute's Annual Fall Meeting. Over 3,000 ULI members attended the 4 day conference to network with other leaders within the real estate and land use industry. These events discussed innovative building techniques, industry trends, global connectivity and the changing face of real estate among other topics. Our PMs were also able to relax a bit away from the office a bit and explore Dallas-Fort Worth's growing city infrastructure.
PBA Volunteering with Food for Thought
What a great morning! Studio PBA's team along with many other volunteers worked to fill grocery bags with food and prepping bins to be delivered to over 9,000 kids who would otherwise not have a meal this weekend. Food for Thought is a fantastic organization that we are lucky to be able to work with, ZERO overhead, run by volunteers and feeds Denver's Title 1 elementary school kids in need. It is hard to believe that just here in the Denver-metro area over 30,000 kids would go without food for a weekend due to poverty. Thanks to Food for Thought there are 9,000 less that will go hungry this weekend as a result of the Powersack packed this morning.
Food for Thought organizes this every Friday during the school year. Every single penny of every dollar donated goes towards purchasing food while all of the supplies are donated. The food gets packaged up, loaded into containers and distributed by volunteers. Bob Bell and John Thielen founded Food for Thought in 2012, originally delivering food to two Denver elementary schools and have grown their impact to currently serve 7 schools with the hope of expanding as soon as possible. We thank Food for Thought for allowing us to volunteer and investing in Denver's elementary students.
If you are interested in learning more about Food for Thought or volunteering visit: http://foodforthoughtdenver.org/
PBA at Colorado Housing's NOW! Conference
A few team members, Kathy Parker and John Payne are attending the Annual Housing Colorado Now! Conference in Beaver Creek participating in workshops, networking and listening to speakers discussing job and housing growth, politics and policy and economic trends affecting Colorado. "Housing Colorado’s signature event is our Annual Housing Colorado NOW! Conference, a three-day event drawing over 660 participants throughout Colorado and across the U.S. This event, guided by the Conference Planning Committee, showcases 35+ educational sessions, and is one of the largest of its kind. In 2016, the conference will be celebrating its 28th anniversary." http://www.housingcolorado.org/
Alta Cherry Hills Apartment's Grand Opening Celebration
Last night Wood Partners and the management team at Alta Cherry Hills hosted the Grand Opening of the Alta Cherry Hills Apartments! In attendance were members of the Studio PBA team, along with Norris Design, HKS Architects and many other contributors and investors for this project. This project is located on South Broadway and Hampden which provided a great view of downtown from its roof top patio. The tour showcased the two-story gym facilities, residential units, resort-style pool and community rooms. The project turned out wonderfully and PBA was glad to be a part of its development and celebration.
Paul's Ball Army's Inaugural Kickball Season Comes to an End
Last week, Studio PBA’s kickball team, Paul’s Ball Army completed its inaugural playoff game in the “Spring” Citywide Architect Kickball League. Due to a mid-game weather postponement the week before, PBA’s match against Barker Rinker Seacat resumed after two completed innings, with Team Orange ahead 9 runs to 5.
PBA’s representation resembled a sea of orange, and the team was firing on all cylinders. Team Orange cruised to a 27-12 defeat of Dog & Pony Show (Barker Rinker Seacat).
Being a win-or-go-home scenario, Paul’s Ball Army then advanced to face the Goliath of the league; Davis Partnership (The Kittens). PBA was narrowly defeated in the opening chug-off and therefore served as the away team, setting up the Kittens to kick last in the game. Stifling defense by the Kittens and a treacherous bottom of the second for the Soldiers flipped the game in Davis’ favor. PBA’s 2-1 lead swung to a 10-2 deficit after two innings. However, the deficit proved to be too difficult for the double-header team to overcome. Paul’s Ball Army fell to the Kittens, 18-10. Meow.
The season is now over, but going .500 in the playoffs proves our team is heading in the right direction. We now have the off-season to practice our splash-catches, head-first dives, and beer chugging.
Thank you to everyone who played and supported the team by cheering us on!