Colorado Real Estate Journal -
When Bill Mosher speaks, people listen. More importantly, when others speak, Mosher listens. That was apparent in the months leading up the Urban Land Institute’s fall conference in Denver, an event that brought more than 5,500 people from all around the globe to Denver in October, injecting more than $10 million into the local economy. Mosher, a senior managing director at Trammell Crow Co., co-chaired the Local Arrangement Committee for ULI Colorado. When Mosher convened the meetings leading up to the ULI conference, which included veteran developers as well as those just learning the real estate ropes, no one checked their iPhones for messages or made small talk with their neighbors seated next to them. Instead, they focused rapt attention on Mosher, who in turn made to-the-point observations and suggestions when given updates from the ULI volunteers. Following the ULI conference, Mosher received nothing but praise from local, national and international attendees for the numerous tours he led at Denver Union Station, where he serves as the owner’s representative. The redevelopment of Union Station is one of many high-profile projects that Mosher has had a hand in shaping. All told, Mosher has been involved in more than $3 billion in projects in Denver as a private developer. While at the helm of the Downtown Denver Partnership during much of the 1990s, he played crucial roles in such transformational deals as the redevelopment of the Central Platte Valley, the building of Coors Field and the development of Denver Pavilions. “Bill is a leader,” said Susan Powers, principal of Urban Ventures, an infill developer in Denver. Powers, formerly the executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (a job that Mosher initially declined and recommended Powers for), has known Mosher since they were graduate students at the University of Arizona in the mid-1970s. “He and I come from very similar life paths, professionally,” Powers said. “Bill has been very successful and is great at balancing private and public objectives,” she said. “He is a very level-headed guy and very smart. He has a great spirit and a great sense of humor. He is one of the good guys.” Mosher, 62, grew up in Denver. His father worked for the old Mountain Bell phone company. His family moved to Santa Fe at the end of elementary school. “I then went to Oregon for college and lived there for six years until I went to Arizona for grad school,” Mosher said. After graduating, he served as the executive director of the Downtown Development Corp. and the Industrial Development Authority in Tucson. He hit the ground running there, directing more than $75 million in private investment dollars for offices, retail, parking facilities and more than 1,000 new housing units. In 1990, he turned down a job as the executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, but soon after that he was hired as the president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership. He remained with the partnership for almost nine years before becoming a private developer. “It was not so much of a goal to return to Denver,” Mosher said, noting that most of his family members did not live in Denver. “After my kids were born in Tucson, I wanted to make a commitment to a city,” Mosher said. “I wanted to live in a more central location, with a more central hub and more potential for growth.” Weather was also a factor. “I wanted to get back to four seasons,” Mosher said. “It is hot in Tucson. From April to October it is over 90 degrees just about every day.” He was offered a job to build suburban townhomes, but that didn’t appeal to him. “The idea of buying 200- acre tracts of land and building townhomes year after year never caught my fancy,” Mosher said. Rather, he wanted to help breathe life into the urban core of a metropolitan area. “I have always been interested in center cities and urban redevelopment and mixed-use developments in the context of a city,” Mosher said. He has done just that since joining Trammell Crow in 2006. Recent and current projects with Crow include: •History Colorado Center; •Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Complex; •Denver Union Station Project Authority, owner’s representative; •Denver Health and Hospital Authority, medical office building; •DaVita’s build-to-suit headquarters; •University Physicians’ buildings at the Anschutz Medical Campus; •1900 16th Street, a three-phase high-rise, mixed-use office, retail and housing project in the Central Platte Valley; •Residential condominiums at Louisiana Station and in Lowry; •And predevelopment for the yet-to-be-started Tabor II. He also served as CEO of the Denver Convention Center Hotel Authority, the nonprofit corporation that financed, designed, constructed, furnished and owns the $285 million, 1,100-room Hyatt Convention Center Hotel. In 2003, he formed Mosher Sullivan Development Partners, whose projects included the Hyatt and what is now the Denver Post building, a 315,000-squarefoot building on West Colfax Avenue near Broadway. Prior to that, he joined forces with George Thorn at Mile High Development, where they developed about $500 million in projects, including the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building. During his almost nine-year tenure at the Downtown Denver Partnership, one of the things he is most proud of was helping to guide the transformation of the Central Platte Valley from desolate, abandoned rail yards into what became Riverfront Park. “Two of my primary motivations were to bring more housing development to downtown and to really make it more of a 24-hour city,” Mosher said. “I had great people working with me like Brad Segal,” who now has his own consulting firm, PUMA, Progressive Urban Management Associates, Mosher said. The balancing act for the Central Platte Valley, however, was to see that it was developed in a way that it wouldn’t become a second downtown, but instead would complement the central business district. He worked closely with Jennifer Moulton, then the city’s planning director, as well as Trillium Corp., which later sold the CPV land behind Union Station to East West Partners, to make sure the property wasn’t filled with high-rise buildings that could steal the tenants and thunder from existing downtown office buildings. “That area is so hot right now that some people think it is going to be a second downtown,” Mosher said. “But it is only going to have 3 million square feet of commercial space when it is completed, which is only 10 percent the size of downtown,” Mosher said. “We were very careful that tenants would not just vacate downtown buildings for the Central Platte Valley. We put in height limits that allowed taller and more dense buildings than found in LoDo, but not as tall as the biggest buildings in downtown.” Looking back, it is possible if previous plans to make the Central Platte Valley a second downtown with high-rise office towers had moved forward, there might not have been room to make the Denver Union Center the transportation hub for FasTracks, he said. While many take Riverfront Park for granted today and believe it just happened, Mosher said many people might not realize what the secret sauce was for its success – Commons Park. The three ingredients for a successful residential community are parks, a grocery store and schools, he said. There was no way a grocery store or a school would open before rooftops were built, he noted. Developing a park, however, was also a roll of the dice. Giving the green light to Commons Park “was a very gutsy move. When Mayor Wellington Webb agreed with us that a park would be the primary engine to spur housing development, it was crucial. it took a big leap of faith. There was no housing to support a park, but it allowed Riverfront Park to happen.” Webb was caught by surprise when Mosher announced he was leaving the partnership in 2009. “The '90s have been good to Denver,'' Webb said at the time. “But downtown's renaissance would not have taken place without the partnership and collaborative relationships Bill was able to build.” For his part, Mosher had only intended to stay with the partnership for five to seven years, so if anything, he was there longer than he planned. He thinks it is important groups such as the partnership have new blood. “It was a great job,” Mosher said. “It was nice that I wasn’t forced out. But I think it is really important that new leadership steps in from time to time, to bring new energy and fresh ideas. Anne Warhover (his immediate predecessor) and Tami Door (the current partnership CEO) have done just that. Look at what Tami is doing right now to really make Denver the center for start-ups and entrepreneurs and making it more open and welcoming to small businesses.” Asked if he had ever thought of running for a political office, he laughed, but admitted that he had been approached about running for mayor of Denver. “I had been approached about running before (John) Hickenlooper was running. It was something I thought about and gave serious consideration to. I thought it would be interesting.” He was also approached to run for mayor when Hickenlooper was elected governor. After some soul searching, he decided it was not for him. “Politics is kind of shark infested waters,” Mosher said. “But deep down, I don’t think I have the passion and the drive for the job, the way Hickenlooper and (Michael) Hancock do.” Over the years, both in Colorado and even in Arizona, he has worked closely with politicians at the local and state levels. “Honestly, it takes a toll on people and you lose a lot of your private life.” Also, he said he thinks he has been able to be “pretty influential in helping to achieve civic goals” by serving on boards of groups such as the Denver Housing Authority and Civic Results Inc. Mosher is happy with the path he has taken. “It has been a great run,” Mosher said. “I feel so blessed to live in this city and have had the opportunity to work with so many great people and great organizations. When I first came back to town in 1990, it was a dicey time, but then we benefitted from a great economy. But I think Denver benefitted more than a lot of cities, because we made a lot of the right moves, whether it was bringing new sports venues to downtown or supporting FasTracks. I feel fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time.”