The three buildings that comprise the Colorado State University’s Spur campus would look a lot different without the expertise of Ashley Stiles (B.S., ’07) and her team at Tribe Development.
“It was important that each building related to one another but were unique in their own right and very welcoming,” Stiles said. “To accomplish that, we conducted tons of community engagement meetings, formed user groups, and created a lot of local partnerships and networks, all in relation to the surrounding neighborhoods. We wanted Spur to be additive to the community.”
If Stiles doesn’t sound like a stereotypical real estate developer, that’s because she’s not. She has poured her life experiences into a business that seeks to elevate communities one project at a time and to ensure each one builds upon the history of place, tells a collective story, and reflects the needs of local residents.
Discovering A Passion
Stiles, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, attended nearly 20 different K-12 schools in five states (one of which was Colorado) as her parents moved around to find employment. She finished high school in Wisconsin before beginning to study architecture at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse as a first-generation student. However, she soon discovered she lacked the passion she expected for her area of study, so she took a break and moved to Florida.
In 2000, while visiting some friends in Fort Collins one summer, she was introduced to Bruce Hendee, the then-president and CEO of BHA Designs, a landscape architecture firm. At the time, the company was working on the plans for Fossil Creek Park in south Fort Collins, and after Stiles toured their offices, her career light lit up. “I thought, this is it! This is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is all about creating community and places through natural landscapes. My heritage really spoke to that, and it just felt a lot more genuine to me.”
She transferred to CSU and began studying landscape architecture in the College of Agricultural Sciences. While in Dr. James Klett’s horticulture class, she met her future husband, John, and they have a daughter. After graduation, Stiles joined Morgan Wheelock, a landscape architectural firm with an office in Palm Beach, Florida, where she worked on various projects, including a public park and sculpture garden, resorts, and hurricane remediation and mitigation.
The family returned to Colorado in 2010 when Stiles joined the James Hyatt Studio, a landscape architecture firm headquartered in Denver specializing in high-end luxury resorts. She moved up quickly primarily because she was good at managing projects and clients.
The relationships she had cultivated throughout her design career motivated her to pursue real estate development. Stiles earned an MBA at the University of Denver, with concentrations in finance and capital markets, while working with two prominent Colorado-based development construction companies, Broe and McWhinney. She oversaw a range of projects from industrial and mixed-use to multi-family and hospitality and also observed how they impacted people and their communities, for better and worse.
Going Her Own Way
“I always had an entrepreneurial spirit about me, and I’ve always wanted to try and do my own thing,” Stiles said. “I reached an inflection point and asked myself, ‘Do I want to be part of something, or do I want to create something?’ I knew I wanted to start my own business and contribute to the Northern Colorado community, and I wanted it to be small because I wanted to be involved in everything.”
In 2019, Stiles founded Tribe Development, a commercial real estate development and consulting firm headquartered in Fort Collins. Soon after opening its doors, the firm partnered with CSU on the Spur campus to provide development consulting and oversee the project’s placemaking and public engagement components.
When they started, however, the project didn’t even have a name, but getting involved early was crucial to ensuring the concerns of stakeholders were heard and integrated into the project before draft renderings of buildings started being circulated.
Working alongside many talented people, Stiles and her team helped define what she calls their “North Star” – the campus’ target audiences, and its mission, vision, and brand. Slogans such as “We’re going to spur creativity” and “We’re going to spur thoughtfulness” were plays on the Western theme of the site’s other tenant, the National Western Stock Show.
Although a common practice in other industries, journey mapping was employed by Stiles to facilitate the design of buildings. The process involves putting yourself in the shoes of potential visitors attempting to accomplish specific tasks, and then changing the layout and design to ensure those activities can be performed as efficiently as possible. “A lot of massive changes came out of the journey mapping process, which I am really proud of.”
The Vida building, which focuses on animal and human health, opened in January 2022. The food and agriculture building, named Terra, opened in June 2022, and Hydro, the engineering and water building home to the new Water Quality Lab for Denver Water, opened last January.
Expanding the Mission
Stiles’ upbringing instilled in her a confidence that has made her less averse to risk, but she admits that it also made her crave community more. “When I look at the amount of outreach we do on our projects and how receptive we are to feedback, it feels different because I’ve always wanted to have that sense of belonging.”
In keeping with her commitment to cultivating healthy and resilient communities, she also established NoCo Trade Mission in 2019. The venture conducts annual trips to prosperous cities around the country to exchange ideas and learn what they are doing well. Representatives from key sectors in Northern Colorado, including government, businesses, education, tourism and hospitality, and real estate, are invited to participate. Past trips have taken groups to Austin, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Bosie, Idaho.
Stiles also gives back by volunteering with numerous organizations, including the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, the American Cancer Society, CSU’s Green and Gold Foundation, CSU’s Everitt School of Real Estate Center, and the Poudre School District Foundation.
Tribe is currently working on several real estate development projects in Fort Collins and Loveland, and Stiles is excited about the trajectory of Northern Colorado and her role in helping shape the future through community-based development.
“Not every project can be as catalytic and life changing as Spur, but every project should have that amount of conversation related to the community,” she said. “Developers are not always liked. Change is hard, and people understandably want to retain the character of their cities. There’s always this pull between not changing and creating really great, thoughtful change.”
Learn more about CSU’s Spur campus and enjoy project and events photos.
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When you join the Colorado State University Alumni Association, you become part of something bigger – a global community of green and gold that keeps alumni connected to the University and each other. Life member Ashley Stiles is making an impact on current students and future Rams through their volunteerism and donations; providing support for alumni programming, outreach, and nationwide engagement; and preserving time-honored traditions that bind us together as Rams. You can make a difference too, and gain access to benefits such as exclusive invites, bookstore savings, career services, and more. Become a member today!
