Grant McCargo — CEO of the Year 2022 Finalist

Colorado is full of devoted entrepreneurs, business leaders and tech-savvy visionaries who are constantly taking the business world to new heights. It’s no secret that here, at ColoradoBiz, we love the Colorado business community. That’s why, every year, we spotlight the most impressive CEOs throughout our Centennial state and give credit where credit is due — to the forward-thinking minds constantly chasing the next great idea and upholding their business practices to the most purposeful ideals. We’re proud to introduce our finalists for CoBiz’s prestigious 2022 CEO of the Year award.

READ: 2022 CEO of the Year — John Street

 

Grant McCargo 
Co-founder & CEO, Urban Villages 
Denver

Grant McCargo, 61, has been a pioneer in sustainability and development, leading the real estate industry toward a greener future. For more than 20 years, Urban Villages has been developing and operating projects across the U.S. that emphasize environmental stewardship while delivering strong financial returns. 

Urban Villages’ portfolio includes Populus, the first carbon-positive hotel in the country; Denver’s iconic Larimer Square, which successfully combined specialty placemaking and innovative urban farming; Denver’s Sugar Block, which blended adaptive re-use of the Historic Sugar Building with architecturally dynamic urban infill; West Village at UC Davis, the largest planned net-zero energy community in the U.S.; and RailSpur, a multi-project revitalization in Seattle featuring adaptive re-use of historic warehouses retrofitted for LEED Platinum certification.

Since co-founding Urban Villages, McCargo has led the company through significant growth, particularly in the last few years. To accommodate the increasing volume of new development projects, Urban Villages’ development team has grown 40% compared to 2021 and 100% since 2019. 

McCargo served a 10-year term on the board of directors with the Colorado chapter of The Nature Conservancy, an organization that focuses on conservation, ultimately aiming to discover paths in solving climate change and biodiversity loss.