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Page 16AA — COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL — January 7-January 20, 2015
Taylor Stamp joined Quan-
tum Commercial Group, a
full-service commercial real
estate company, as a licensed
broker associate specializing
in office and industrial leasing
and sales.
Stamp has a Bachelor of Arts
from the University of Colo-
rado Colorado Springs. For the
past two years, Stamp was a
golf professional and played
on several minitours across the
United States.s
Gene Commander, manag-
ing shareholder of the Denver
office of Polsinelli, announced
his planned retirement after
more than 35 years of service
to the legal and civic commu-
nities.
Commander was named
managing shareholder of the
law firm’s Denver office in
2011 and has worked to help
grow the firm on the local and
the national level.
He is planning to transition
his law practice and retire in
July to pursure other oppor-
tunities and spend more time
with his family.
He intends to work inde-
pendently and continue to
provide mediation and arbitra-
tion services to resolve busi-
ness disputes, which he has
done over the past 15 years in
proceedings administered pri-
vately and through the Ameri-
can Arbitration Association.
He also intends to increase
his commitment to the com-
munity.
During Commander’s time
as managing shareholder, Pol-
sinelli’s Denver office achieved
major milestones in growth,
nearly tripling the number of
Denver attorneys as part of
the firm’s national growth into
an American Lawyer Top 100
law firm. Working with firm
management, he also oversaw
a new lease announced in 2014
to become the anchor tenant
in a 22-story downtown office
building, which will nearly
double the size of the firm’s
Denver office when Polsinelli
takes occupancy in 2016.
In addition to his years of
service within Polsinelli, Com-
mander served as chairman
of the board of directors for
Denver Civic Ventures from
2004 to 2006. Commander also
chaired the Downtown Denver
Partnership from 2007 to 2008,
while serving on the manage-
ment group from 2003 to 2009.
Commander also participated
on the executive committee for
the Metro Denver Economic
Development Corp. from 2010
to 2011, and he has served on
the board of directors for the
Associated General Contrac-
tors of Colorado since 2013.s
Brendan Clarke joined NAI
Highland LLC as a broker
associate.
In this role, he will engage in
brokerage services in the Colo-
rado Springs market, includ-
ing leasing, sales and advisory
services.
Clarke joined real estate firm
NAI High-
land LLC
from O’Boyle
Real Estate
Group,
where he
closed more
than $6.5
million in
commercial
real estate
transactions
in just under eight months.
Before that, Clarke was a mili-
tary fighter pilot with both the
Royal New Zealand Air Force
and the Royal Air Force; there-
after he was an international
airline pilot with Air New
Zealand on the Boeing 777.
He has owned, managed and
consulted on investment and
commercial real estate both
in New Zealand and, more
recently, Colorado after relo-
cating to Colorado Springs in
2013.s
Daniel L. Ritchie joined the
Fitzsimons Redevelopment
Authority board of directors.
Ritchie serves as chairman
and CEO of the Denver Center
for the Performing Arts.
Before assuming his role
with the DCPA, Ritchie was
chairman of the board of the
University of Denver, where
he served as the institution’s
16th chancellor from 1989 to
2005. During his tenure, the
university completed the larg-
est fundraising campaign in
its history, raising more than
$270 million for university
projects and renovation pro-
grams. Ritchie also was CEO
of Westinghouse Broadcasting
for eight years before moving
to Colorado in 1987.
Ritchie currently serves as
president of the Temple Hoyne
Buell Foundation and is a lau-
reate member of the Colorado
Business Hall of Fame. Ritchie
earned both his undergradu-
ate and Master of Business
Administration degrees from
Harvard University.
The FRA board of directors
supervises
the 150-acre
Fitzsimons
Innovation
Campus and
is made up
of leaders in
the biosci-
ence indus-
try, local
business
community,
University of Colorado, Chil-
dren’s Hospital Colorado and
the city of Aurora. The prop-
erty sits on a portion of the
former Fitzsimons Army Base
to the immediate north of the
Anschutz Medical Campus,
which includes the University
Hospital, Children’s Hospital
Colorado, and University of
Colorado Medical School and
Research Programs. It is home
to more than 22,000 life science
professionals and students
working within the 12 million-
square-foot medical complex
that accommodates 1.5 million
patient visits annually.s
Adolfson & Peterson Con-
structionpackagedanddistrib-
uted more than $15,000 worth
of nonperishable food items,
toys and monetary donations
for Food Bank of the Rockies
as part of an annual Holiday
Giving Drive.
The A&P Mountain States
Region sponsored the drive
and committed to matching
dollar for dollar, toy for toy
and can for can all donations
that were brought in. A&P
employees and industry part-
ners participated in the effort.
In excess of 300 boxes were
packaged to give each of 300
families in need a box of non-
perishable food items and
common hygienic items. More
than 50 A&P employees pack-
aged the boxes into a semi-
truck using lean methods.
“It was amazing to see
everyone become passionate
and fully involved in help-
ing out,” said Tom Horsting,
A&P’s regional vice president.
“We are humbled by the out-
pouring of donations from our
subcontractors as well as our
employees to make a memo-
rable impact.”
The 2,000-plus pounds of
donations were delivered to
Food Bank of the Rockies,
which provides food for more
than 411,000 people annually
and is one of the largest private
hunger relief organizations in
the Rocky Mountain region.
Delivering the donations to
the Food Bank of the Rockies’
warehouse saved the nonprofit
hundreds of dollars in fuel and
labor costs.
The A&P Holiday Giving
drive is an annual event, and
the 2014 drive was the most
successful to date.
Adolfson & Peterson Con-
struction is a U.S.-based, pri-
vately held firm that is con-
sistently ranked among the
top 50 construction managers
and general contractors in the
nation. s
A&P collects & distributes food, toys
for families with annual holiday drive
Cody Kisler, A&P field engineer, helps load boxes for distribution
to families in need.
High Fives! recognizes good deeds and accomplishments
by companies and individuals in the Colorado commercial
real estate industry. Please share your good news
and photos with us by emailing .
Submissions should be 200 words or less.
Brendan Clarke Daniel L. Ritchie
restaurant was gushing red
ink.
“We were open for 13
months and every month it
was in the red,” he said.
“It was a commercial failure,”
Thompson said. “It was my first
taste of failure. I got my teeth
kicked in.”
Not only that – he had invest-
ed all of his own money into it.
“Instead of a using a syndi-
cation, it was self-financed,”
Thompson said. “I lost close to
$1.5 million. I was wiped out.”
He said there are several theo-
ries why it failed.
“One theory is that from a
culinary standpoint, we were
ahead of our time,” Thompson
said.
“Denver was really not ready
for what we were offering,” he
said.
“The other theory was the
location,” he said. “No doubt
it was a very challenging loca-
tion.”
He said it provided a great
learning lesson, though.
“Before that, I was certain I
could take my conceptual abil-
ity and my design skills and
find success no matter where
we were located,” he said.
“But I learned that sometimes
in real estate, you can’t over-
come the location,” he said.
On the other hand, he admits
that he hasn’t given up on his
core belief that an “A” concept
can overcome a “C” location,
which is a premise of the Punch
Bowl Social.
“I was snake-bitten (in the
Brasserie Rouge) but I’m right
back in the snake pit,” he said.
However, he makes sure he
structures the Punch Bowl deals
in a way to minimize his risk,
he said.
He found the Broadway site
in Denver in 2010, but it didn’t
open until 2012 because the
building needed an extensive
renovation, which included
removing asbestos, he said.
But it has proven to be a big
hit.
“I’m a concept guy and this is
really the evolution of a concept
I’ve had for 15 years,” he said.
He said the “high capital costs
to entry” and his focus on the
“integrity of the food and bev-
erages” are big barriers to entry
from competitors.
“No one in this space is really
providing the elevated food
and drink, with craft cocktails
and great food the way we are,”
Thompson said.
“We don’t want to be a Dave
& Buster’s or a Jillian’s with
their virtual games,” he said.
“We are the antithesis of that,”
he said. “We don’t have any of
that crap.”
Instead, entertainment at
Punch Bowl comes from bou-
tique bowling alleys (usually
eight lanes), darts, pingpong,
pool and even marbles.
“We want games you can do
while having a beer,” he said.
In the next 60 days, he plans
to announce a second Punch
Bowl in Denver.
The next one will be a bit
smaller, with 16,000 sf and a
rooftop deck, he said.
“I would love at some point
to do a ground-up Punch
Bowl,” he said.
“Since I really love the design
aspect, I would love to start
with a blank piece of paper,” he
said.
He also likes the challenge of
taking an underutilized build-
ing and transforming it, he said.
He is doing one in Wicker
Park, Chicago, for example, and
another in Schaumburg, in sub-
urban Chicago.
“Chicago and Schaumburg
are A locations, but we are
doing another one in Cleveland,
which is more of a C location,”
he said.
There is no shortage from
developers who want a Punch
Bowl, he said.
“I’m getting calls from nation-
al developers from Sacramento,
California, to Sawmill, Florida,
to Massachusetts that want
Punch Bowls,” he said.
“We check off a lot of boxes
for developers,” Thompson
said.
“For one thing, we are big, so
we soak up a lot of space,” he
said.
“We also activate the space for
long period of time,” he said.
For example, it’s not unusual
for Punch Bowls to be packed
for dinner and then replaced
by the bar clientele after dinner
hour “who are there for our
craft cocktails.”
When not working on his res-
taurants, Thompson, who has a
19-month-old son, often can be
found running on the hills and
up and down flights of stairs
near a large retention pond near
his southeast Denver home.
“I have mapped out a pretty
cool course near my house,”
said Thompson, who has run
four marathons.
On his long runs, his thoughts
drift to the restaurant business.
“Whenever I am stuck on a
problem, the first thing I do is
lace up my running shoes and
hit the trails,” he said.s
When I was
25 years old,
I decided that
I had a really
keen interest
in the business
side of
restaurants.