Marks of distinction: developers Mark Smith and Mark Falcone pooled teams, talents on massive Union Station project.

• Author: Romig, Suzie
• Position: CEOs OF THE YEAR - Cover story

Nine years ago, a group of about 75 architects, engineers, contractors and developers gathered in LoDo to answer a call for potential developers capable of spearheading an urban project of nearly unprecedented scope, complexity and stakeholder interest: redeveloping--reinventing, really --the historic Union Station area in downtown Denver.

Mark Falcone was there when his friend Mark Smith walked in, scanned the crowded room and sat down next to him. At one point Smith turned and asked Falcone if he was going to take a run at the huge project.

"I think so," Falcone answered. "You?"

"I think so," Smith replied.

The downtown developers looked at each other. "Why don't we just do it together?" Smith recalls suggesting. "We said 'OK,' and that was it."

Thus the two men joined forces through their respective real estate development companies--Falcone's Continuum Partners and Smith's East West Partners--to create the Union Station Neighborhood Co., master developer for the project.

Smith and Falcone are co-winners of this year's ColoradoBiz CEO of the Year award, a nod to their teamwork and leadership on the landmark transportation, commercial and residential project. Naming dual winners of the award is nearly unprecedented--Trinidad's husband-wife team of Mark and Annie Danielson were co-winners in 2009--but the shared honor seems fitting in a year marked by Union Station's grand reopening, given the collaboration and teamwork that characterized the undertaking from the outset.

The two Marks, as they are often called, had worked together on a downtown project at 15th and Delgany streets years earlier and became friends--both single, living downtown and exploring the emerging Denver nightlife scene.

"By the time we showed up in that room together, we had a lot of trust in each other," Falcone says. "We just realized that we could operate off of a handshake. It was that simple. Mark and I recognized so many common interests in the way we approach things."

Chris Frampton, managing partner at East West who has known both Marks for years, points to the joint venture agreement for the massive project between the Marks' companies that sounds tantamount to a handshake. "It was four pages long with signatures, which is pretty crazy," Frampton says. "We've got joint venture agreements that are hundreds of pages long. But the agreement between East West Partners and Continuum for the development of the station, for our master developer role, was four pages. And that's because there's an incredible amount of trust between those two guys."

That agreement between two driven, admittedly impatient entrepreneurs grew into a successful partnership for eight years--and counting--on the complex, 19.5-acre, multi-billion dollar project. Frampton calls it the most significant development in the city in the last century.

"It's a close battle between that and DIA," Frampton says. "And I would actually suggest this one (Union Station) is more important. This was a one-time opportunity. One piece of land; it was next to downtown--and today it is downtown--and if it was done wrong, that would have been that. There was no recovering. The airport could have been five or six places; it wasn't as location-important. The airport's a big deal, but in terms of downtown, (Union Station) is clearly the most...