Craine Architecture

Craine Architecture is a Denver practice working in single-family and multifamily housing, hospitality and resort projects, mixed-use buildings and urban infill. The office sits on the ground floor of the Wheatley building on Welton Street in Five Points, which puts the firm inside the neighborhood where much of its work is. Its team holds licenses in nine states. The practice is an architect on the Rossonian Hotel restoration, the 1912 Five Points landmark being converted into a 126-room hotel with a ground-floor restaurant and live music lounge, a project the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission approved and that City Council backed with up to $15.5 million in tax increment financing in 2026. The firm participates in AIA, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Urban Land Institute.

Twelve people, licences in nine states, and a seat at the table on several of Denver’s design review bodies. That is a fair summary of how this practice is built.

Dan Craine, AIA NCARB, leads as principal, with studio directors Eric Bottenhorn and Brad Gassman, both AIA and LEED AP, and a Director of Operations and Finance handling the business side. The office occupies the ground floor of the Wheatley building at 2490 Welton Street, which puts the studio physically inside Five Points rather than looking at it from downtown.

Civic involvement is unusually heavy for a firm this size. Members hold positions on the Downtown Design Advisory Board, the Five Points Design Review Committee and the National Western Strategic Design Leadership Committee, and the firm belongs to the American Institute of Architects, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the Downtown Denver Partnership, the Five Points Business Improvement District, the International Code Council and the Urban Land Institute. For a client, that is worth knowing because it means the practice regularly sits on the reviewing side of entitlement processes as well as the applicant side.

Active markets run beyond Colorado into Utah, Arizona and Montana. Named projects include Riverwalk Castle Rock, SOVA, Brickyard Square, The Lydian, Timberline Farms, The Eddy Taproom, The Aspen House and Bears Den Ranch, which is a spread from urban infill to ranch property.

The studio runs an internship pipeline through the CU Denver College of Architecture and Planning, and supports the Denver Architecture Foundation, Denver Public Schools Career Connect, Historic Denver, Heart and Hand, The 98 Fund and Youth Roots.