CREJ

March 2020 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \ 85 C annonDesign’s new home in the RiNo Arts District has roots stretching back more than 40 years in Denver. The history gets a bit labyrinthine, however: Denver’s Klipp Architecture opened its doors in 1979; California’s gkkworks acquired Klipp in 2012. Founded in Denver in 1989, Bennett Wagner Grody Architects joined CannonDesign in 2017. CannonDesign, first established in 1945 in New York, now has 19 offices and about 1,000 employees in all. The combined portfolio of these four firms has dots all over the Colorado map, from the U.S. Air Force Academy to Colorado Mesa University to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, as well as most major school districts in Col- orado. But this month, CannonDesign’s Denver office has cemented its new, singular identity with a new home in a slickly reno- vated ex-sausage factory in RiNo. All 41 employees made the move to the new office, which has space for 80. (Bowie, the office dog and “happiness ambassador,” made the move from BWG’s former home off Speer Boulevard in down- town Denver as well.) Denver Office Practice Leader and Senior Vice President Tim Barr joined CannonDesign in 2019 after working in business development for construction and architec- ture firms in Colorado and California for more than 20 years. He says he’s worked hard to foster an office culture that builds on the “three-way marriage” of the predecessor firms. “There’s a balance,” he notes. Education and health care “are our big anchors,” says Barr. In Denver, those two industry-leading WORDS: Eric Peterson CannonDesign in Denver Embracing its roots