Dueling developers: students compete for best Gates plan.

• Author: Fulford, Martha
• Position: Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge

CU business graduate student Kiely Wilson stood in front of about 200 real-estate developers--his future colleagues--in the United Center at Invesco Field at Mile High.

With a full view of the Denver skyline from the eastern wall of windows, it was the perfect place for a gathering of developers. Wilson's team from the Real Estate Center at CU's Leeds School of Business was making its final presentation of its plans for redeveloping the old Gates Rubber company site near downtown Denver.

It was a big moment. Wilson presented second, explaining his team's market analysis for the development plan.

Joe Blake, an accomplished developer of Highlands Ranch and now president of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, was hosting the night.

The presentation pitted Wilson's business school against the University of Denver's in the first ever Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge, sponsored by the local chapter of NAIOP, the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.

Reputations were on the line. And reputations are very important in Wilson's chosen line o[ business, commercial real estate. "They were just aware of the competition, aware of the winners and aware of me because of the competition," Wilson said of the people from Alliance Commercial, his future employers.

Wilson says being a member of the winning team helped him get his current position.

Cherokee Denver LLC, a subsidiary of Cherokee Investment Partners, purchased the Gates site used for the competition in late 2001.

The 65.44-acre former industrial property is located at the intersections of Interstate 25, South Santa Fe Drive and South Broadway. Plans for the site focus on transit-oriented development because it is at the meeting point for two light-rail lines, the Littleton/Mineral Avenue-Downtown line and the Lincoln Avenue/Douglas County line being built along 1-25 as part of the T-Rex project. The light-rail intersection serves as an RTD bus terminal as well.

While the graduate students who were entered in the contest prepared their own site plans for the development, Cherokee was also preparing to bring its initial plans to the Denver City Council. In June, the council approved the Cherokee site for transit mixed-use zoning and designated the development as the Cherokee Urban Redevelopment Area. By creating the redevelopment area, the City Council opened the door for Cherokee to apply at a later date for tax-increment financing of the project. That means the city would...