Acquilano’s owners pose for a photo inside their existing Stout Street office. On top is Ashley Stinson, left, and Jill Taylor. Sitting below are Melissa Marlow and Drew Marlow. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Forty years ago, Donna Acquilano started her architecture firm in a subleased Larimer Square office, paying $350 a month for a single room.
“In the beginning, I had absolutely no work at all, so it took awhile … I was worried about that rent,” Acquilano said.
But the then-28-year-old designer, who “grew up on a drafting board,” persevered. She brought on her architect husband, Owen Leslie. And in 1991, the company moved into a small office space at 1600 Stout St., where the business has been ever since.
“We looked around in LoDo,” Acquilano said. “And we decided that we wanted to be uptown where we could have air conditioning and elevators and underground parking.
“We were right there in the middle of the 16th Street Mall, where it was really happening.”
Now 67, Acquilano no longer runs the company that bears her name. She sold it to four of her employees in 2019. And they’re moving out of Stout Street and into a new office in the only other place the company has called home: Larimer Square.
“We wanted a vibrant block. We want to be in a place that’s popping and feels safe and has a good buzz,” Acquilano co-owner Drew Marlow said.
The firm, which specializes in designing office space, will move into a 3,400-square-foot unit this summer on the second floor of 1407 Larimer St., above the old Ted’s Montana Grill. The search for office space this time around was the opposite of the one Donna Acquilano undertook in the late ’80s.
The four owners — Melissa Marlow, Ashley Stinson and Jill Taylor, along with Drew Marlow — sat down with BusinessDen last week and detailed their real estate hunt. The Highlands and RiNo were considered, but the core of the search centered around downtown — LoDo in particular.
“I’d say some of that is activity level at the present too, which is hard. I mean, we’re believers of downtown development. We know that this part of the mall, the construction will end, and it will be infilled with great retail again, but [we’re] getting into what’s buzzy now, down near Union Station,” said Melissa Marlow.
Besides location, the architects said that the investment from Larimer Square’s owner, North Carolina-based real estate firm Asana Partners, helped make the decision for them. Acquilano’s owners said they were given a healthy tenant improvement allowance to build out their new office.
“It was a good time because there was a lot of available space, but a bad time for interest rates. … Larimer was the perfect mix of new developer doing great improvements to that block and really updating all the second-floor, office-type spaces where they did a lot of infrastructure,” Melissa Marlow said.
Acquilano has had a hand in numerous high-profile Denver projects, like the interiors for DaVita’s two headquarters buildings near Union Station. Other past projects include offices for Kentwood Real Estate in Cherry Creek, Ent Credit Union’s headquarters in Colorado Springs and Re/Max’s 74,500-square-foot space in the Denver Tech Center.
“I think as an architecture firm, we run kind of tight, you know, it’s not like we’re going to be buying the law firm spaces on the top floor. But we also appreciate character and architecture, of course. We want something that you don’t have to do a lot to it to make it look cool,” Stinson said.
She added that the company briefly toured the Prism building at 999 17th St. But the space was a prebuilt speculative suite, and the owners wanted an office they could make their own.
“[The Larimer Square office] has the character component we were looking for. It’s exposed wood, timber ceilings and brick walls on the inside,” Stinson said.
There’s one downside to the new office space: It’s definitely more expensive than the $350 a month Donna Acquilano was paying in 1986.
“It was the fashion capital of Denver,” she recalled of Larimer Square back then. “They had beautiful boutiques there. It was where the hip met the trip.”
Acquilano’s owners pose for a photo inside their existing Stout Street office. On top is Ashley Stinson, left, and Jill Taylor. Sitting below are Melissa Marlow and Drew Marlow. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Forty years ago, Donna Acquilano started her architecture firm in a subleased Larimer Square office, paying $350 a month for a single room.
“In the beginning, I had absolutely no work at all, so it took awhile … I was worried about that rent,” Acquilano said.
But the then-28-year-old designer, who “grew up on a drafting board,” persevered. She brought on her architect husband, Owen Leslie. And in 1991, the company moved into a small office space at 1600 Stout St., where the business has been ever since.
“We looked around in LoDo,” Acquilano said. “And we decided that we wanted to be uptown where we could have air conditioning and elevators and underground parking.
“We were right there in the middle of the 16th Street Mall, where it was really happening.”
Now 67, Acquilano no longer runs the company that bears her name. She sold it to four of her employees in 2019. And they’re moving out of Stout Street and into a new office in the only other place the company has called home: Larimer Square.
“We wanted a vibrant block. We want to be in a place that’s popping and feels safe and has a good buzz,” Acquilano co-owner Drew Marlow said.
The firm, which specializes in designing office space, will move into a 3,400-square-foot unit this summer on the second floor of 1407 Larimer St., above the old Ted’s Montana Grill. The search for office space this time around was the opposite of the one Donna Acquilano undertook in the late ’80s.
The four owners — Melissa Marlow, Ashley Stinson and Jill Taylor, along with Drew Marlow — sat down with BusinessDen last week and detailed their real estate hunt. The Highlands and RiNo were considered, but the core of the search centered around downtown — LoDo in particular.
“I’d say some of that is activity level at the present too, which is hard. I mean, we’re believers of downtown development. We know that this part of the mall, the construction will end, and it will be infilled with great retail again, but [we’re] getting into what’s buzzy now, down near Union Station,” said Melissa Marlow.
Besides location, the architects said that the investment from Larimer Square’s owner, North Carolina-based real estate firm Asana Partners, helped make the decision for them. Acquilano’s owners said they were given a healthy tenant improvement allowance to build out their new office.
“It was a good time because there was a lot of available space, but a bad time for interest rates. … Larimer was the perfect mix of new developer doing great improvements to that block and really updating all the second-floor, office-type spaces where they did a lot of infrastructure,” Melissa Marlow said.
Acquilano has had a hand in numerous high-profile Denver projects, like the interiors for DaVita’s two headquarters buildings near Union Station. Other past projects include offices for Kentwood Real Estate in Cherry Creek, Ent Credit Union’s headquarters in Colorado Springs and Re/Max’s 74,500-square-foot space in the Denver Tech Center.
“I think as an architecture firm, we run kind of tight, you know, it’s not like we’re going to be buying the law firm spaces on the top floor. But we also appreciate character and architecture, of course. We want something that you don’t have to do a lot to it to make it look cool,” Stinson said.
She added that the company briefly toured the Prism building at 999 17th St. But the space was a prebuilt speculative suite, and the owners wanted an office they could make their own.
“[The Larimer Square office] has the character component we were looking for. It’s exposed wood, timber ceilings and brick walls on the inside,” Stinson said.
There’s one downside to the new office space: It’s definitely more expensive than the $350 a month Donna Acquilano was paying in 1986.
“It was the fashion capital of Denver,” she recalled of Larimer Square back then. “They had beautiful boutiques there. It was where the hip met the trip.”
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