Denver Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Meeting: SBE Contracts and Welton Study - August 19, 2026
Denver Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Meeting - August 19, 2026
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the Denver City Council met on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, at 1:30 PM. The meeting covered action items for small business enterprise (SBE) contract amendments and a briefing on the Welton Street Next Steps Study. Consent items were also approved.
Consent Calendar
- Approved a grant agreement with USDOT Federal Highway Administration for $8,444,524 (Federal share: $6,755,619; CCD share: $1,688,905) for Denver's Safety Revolution (SS4A) program, citywide (26-0830).
- Dedicated city-owned parcels as public right-of-way near North Josephine Street and East 6th Avenue (26-1173) and a public alley bounded by North Lowell Boulevard, West Colfax Avenue, North King Street, and West 14th Avenue (26-1177).
- Relinquished two easements at 1086 N Meade St (26-1175).
- Approved contracts for Denver International Airport: a $2.5 million contract with Birdair, Inc. for tent roof maintenance (26-1178); amendments with Airline Fabricare Systems LLC ($4,542,253), AECOM Technical Services (five-year extension), HNTB Corporation (five-year extension), and Jacobs Engineering Group (five-year extension) for various airport services (26-1179 through 26-1182).
Discussion Items
Action Items: SBE Prime On-Call Contract Amendments (26-1057 through 26-1062 and 26-1067 through 26-1074)
- DOTI and DSBO staff presented two packages: SBE Project Management Services (six firms, term extension to 10-12-2028 with no increased capacity) and SBE General Civil Construction Services (eight firms, term extension to 11-15 or 11-18-2028 with capacity increases totaling approximately $16.2 million).
- Councilmember Hinds questioned the decision not to re-bid, expressing concern that other small businesses might be excluded. Staff explained that a re-procurement would be resource-intensive and that the current set had substantial unused capacity.
- Councilmember Flynn asked about the 30% self-performance requirement and certification status. Staff confirmed monitoring and that firms retain SBE credit through the amendment period even if they have graduated from the program.
- Councilmember Hinds also inquired about prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements. Staff noted that the construction contracts comply with prevailing wage ordinances but workforce requirements apply only to projects over $10 million.
- Councilmember Romero Campbell (online) had no further questions.
The committee voted 5-0 (with Gilmore and Lewis absent) to approve the block of resolutions as presented.
Briefing: Welton Street Next Steps Study (26-1198)
- DOTI Transit Director David Krutsinger, Strategic Advisor Alaina McWhorter, and Senior City Planner Phoebe Gryzlo presented the study timeline, engagement strategy, and alternatives analysis. The study is funded by a $964,000 FTA grant passed through RTD and led by consultant HDR. It aims to develop a vision for transit on Welton Street and the planned Downing Street rail extension.
- Councilmember Watson praised the process and the involvement of the Community Advisory Group (CAG) and RTD, noting the long history of discussion since the 1990s. He stressed that connectivity to the A-line is essential.
- RTD Director Michael Guzman (District C) highlighted that the Welton line is the oldest light rail in the city and requires full-depth reconstruction. He noted that RTD has federal funds allocated for this work but must make a decision by September to avoid losing the grant. He also emphasized the need for a regional perspective beyond just the immediate neighborhood.
- Councilmember Hinds emphasized the importance of mode shift and connecting transit-dependent populations. He noted high percentages of car-free households in nearby neighborhoods.
- Councilmember Flynn shared his long history with the project and urged maintaining connectivity at 38th and Blake.
- Council President Romero Campbell (online) reflected on her involvement in original outreach before the light rail was built and appreciated the multi-modal analysis.
- Chair Alvidrez asked about decision-making authority and small business support. It was clarified that the city controls the right-of-way, but RTD decides on rail infrastructure. No specific funding is yet allocated for business disruption mitigation, though the Department of Economic Development may provide support through existing funds if needed.
- The briefing was for informational purposes only; no vote was taken.
Key Outcomes
- Action Items (26-1057 through 26-1062 and 26-1067 through 26-1074): Approved on a motion by Vice Chair Flynn, seconded by Councilmember Hinds. Vote: 5 ayes (Alvidrez, Flynn, Hinds, Sandoval, Romero Campbell), 0 nays, 2 absent (Gilmore, Lewis).
- Consent Items (26-0830, 26-1173, 26-1175, 26-1177, 26-1178, 26-1179, 26-1180, 26-1181, 26-1182): Approved without discussion.
- Welton Street Next Steps Study: No action taken. The next public meeting is scheduled for the following week. The team will present draft alternatives and results of the initial screening at the RTD board meeting in late September 2026.
Meeting Transcript
Welcome to Hey Denver. It's time for this biweekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. My name is Flora Alvidres. I have the honor of chairing this committee. We'll start with council member introductions, and we'll start on my left with our council member from the I won't say what you're thanking, Committee Chair Darrell Watson. Chris Hines from the even finer, some say perfect district 10. Kevin Flynn, uh council district two, home of the highest natural point in the Mile High City. I won't tell you where it is, though. It's not all that dramatic. It's not the most beautiful scenic site. Do we have anyone online? No. Okay. Well, while we wait for getting to quorum, we'll go ahead and get started. Elena, if you want to talk about our first item and introduce your team, that'd be nice. Yes. Thank you, Councilwoman Alvides. I'm Elena McWarter, Dotti's legislative liaison here with my team to talk about uh small business enterprise or SBE Prime on call contracts. So you may recall that uh back in December we were here talking about horizontal on call contracts, and then in April we were here again talking about vertical on call contracts. And so today we're excited to talk about the SBE Prime and how those are different from our other on calls. Um I'll let my team introduce themselves and then we'll dive right in. Go ahead, Travis. Hello, everybody. I'm Travis Bogan. I'm the director of the Special Projects and Initiatives Division with Dotti, and I'm uh grateful to be here. Thank you. My name's Aaron Croak. I'm with the Division of Small Business Opportunity. So I'll be speaking to the SBE element. My name is Amy Foreman. I'm a uh senior engineering manager uh in Dottie for the Transportation Division. Thanks, Amy. So today you'll see a similar format of the slides where we will present on the purpose of why the department uses on call contracts, the benefits of SBE primes or small business enterprise prime contracts specifically, and then we'll go into two different packages we have. The first being SBE project management on calls. So those are resolution requests 26, 1057 through 26, 1062. And then we'll talk about the uh SBE General Civil Construction On Calls, which are resolution request 26, 1067 through 1074. Uh just a refresher on uh on call contract uses and and why we have on calls. We we like to have uh an established pool of pre-qualified contractors to help uh and consultants to help us address uh urgent needs and provide some additional staffing capacity and resource leveling and and capacity to hit some you know seasonal timeline-based projects. Um this helps uh us deliver our capital projects and run our programs. Um what we're really proud of is that this these sets we're talking about are small business enterprise sets, so you have to be certified as a small business enterprise with Disbo to be awarded one of these on calls, and then once you're in the pool, the uh competition for work is really only between uh the consultants or contractors that have that set. So it's more uh even playing field for SBEs to grow capacity and get really good project experience while um you know uh having them help grow their business. Um we uh, you know, the these are just great contracts. I'm gonna go to the next slide here, talk a little bit about the prime set. So, you know, we are committed to promoting um equity in our project opportunities and helping to grow uh grow capacity of our consultants and contractors, and so we're really proud of the great work that we get to do with Disbo and our industry partners in this SBE set or these SBE sets are a great demonstration. As Elena mentioned, um we brought other contract sets on call sets uh to committee and council for large vertical construction or large civic civil construction or uh you know uh program and project management, uh transportation design, all kinds of different sets. Well, these sets are complementary to some of those, but really targeted for the SBEs, right? And so there's three three types that we have for the SBE sets.
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