2025 Mountain States Best Projects
Project of the Year Finalist, Best Specialty Construction: Populus Hotel
Populus Hotel
Denver
PROJECT OF THE YEAR FINALIST and BEST PROJECT, SPECIALTY CONSTRUCTION
Submitted by Hunt Electric
Owner Urban Villages
Lead Design Firm Studio Gang
General Contractor The Beck Group
Electrical Contractor Hunt Electric
This 13-story hotel in the heart of downtown Denver features a biophilic design with a distinctive form resembling a grove of aspen trees.
As the electrical design-build partner on the project, Hunt Electric worked closely with the Beck Group and Urban Villages to deliver a full power and lighting system aligned with the hotel’s ambitious sustainability goals. Intelligent lighting controls, daylight harvesting systems and guest room energy management systems reduce energy use all while maintaining a seamless guest experience. These systems exemplify how technology can work quietly behind the scenes to minimize a building’s carbon footprint.
Delivering the carbon-negative hotel on a tight, triangular lot demanded creative solutions. The structure’s unique architecture, with radius concrete walls, exposed structural elements and one-of-a-kind guest room windows designed to mimic the “eyes” on aspen trees required exacting infrastructure placement.
Photo courtesy the Beck Group and Hunt Electric
With no room for rework, Hunt Electric relied on detailed building information modeling, daily coordination with the design team and Trimble GPS layout tools to ensure electrical devices and conduit stub-ups were precisely installed within concrete walls, ceilings and columns. The electrical rooms were purposefully located within a radius of concrete at the building core to preserve structural integrity and ensure clean aesthetics, while advanced energy management and lighting control systems minimize the building’s environmental impact.
Photo courtesy the Beck Group and Hunt Electric
Additionally, limiting impacts of long lead times required the design team to release equipment before the final design was complete. However, due to site limitations, the switchgear had to be broken down and carefully lowered into the building section by section through elevator shafts using detailed rigging plans and specialized hoisting equipment. Setting the generator posed similar challenges. It was offloaded using a carefully sequenced pick plan and maneuvered into place with no impacts to the public or project schedule.
Photo courtesy the Beck Group and Hunt Electric
The hotel’s small urban footprint, busy surrounding streets and tight working conditions demanded elevated attention to site safety. With minimal buffer zones between trades, daily huddles and ongoing coordination were essential to mitigate risk.
Hunt developed detailed fall protection plans for working along unprotected edges and upper levels and secured tools and materials to prevent dropped-object hazards.
As a result of these and other efforts, Hunt Electric helped bring this project to life safely, efficiently and with zero recordable injuries over more than 55,000 work hours.
