The Pikes Peak Club

Ryan McWilliams: Water Tower Restoration and Development in Pueblo

Oct 8, 2026 — Ryan McWilliams: Water Tower Restoration and Development in Pueblo

Bulletin for October 8, 2026

Featured Speaker: Ryan McWilliams

Water Tower Restoration and Development in Pueblo

OPENING

Following the official call to order, Benny led the group in prayer and Mike Bragg led the Pledge of Allegiance.

“The use of vulgarity to express yourself is proof that you have a small vocabulary.” Thank you, Dana.

CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPDATES

KEYNOTE: RYAN MCWILLIAMS — WATER TOWER RESTORATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN PUEBLO

Ryan McWilliams’s Pueblo

Ryan McWilliams was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado. He described Pueblo’s economic downturn after about 1980–81, when the steel mill, Rockwell, and Alpha Beta all shut down within a 13-month period. The loss of the city’s three leading employers left the community badly affected.

Community leaders responded by creating PEDCO, the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation, to diversify incoming industries. Present-day Pueblo is now more economically diverse, and the city builds large, tangible products.

McWilliams studied electrical engineering, automotive work, and mechanical engineering. He later attended TSU and MIT Sloan for business. His career began with the Transportation Technology Center, part of the Association of American Railroads. He worked in railway engineering, including structural, mechanical, and mechatronics work. Here is a summary of just some of his extensive experience:

Water Tower Restoration of a Burned-Out Packing Plant

McWilliams bought a former packing plant in downtown Pueblo that had been vacant and deteriorating since 1981. About 100 people were living in it when he acquired it. The property had experienced seven fires. During the last one, the fire department allowed it to burn because of the conditions at the site.

The building survived because it is a Type One Unlimited structure with a steel framework, multiple layers of one-inch rebar set six inches apart, and concrete floors ranging from about 9 to 33 inches thick. It is supported by columns, not walls, so McWilliams said the structure would remain standing even if all walls were removed.

The fire did not materially damage the building itself, but cleanup was extensive. The site contained 1.6 million pounds of debris from occupants alone. His team spent 18 months working with miner’s lights and generators because the property initially lacked power, water, sewer service, windows, and doors.

Project details include:

Green Roof, Rooftop Garden, and Water Assets

McWilliams said the project adopted a green roofing product developed by Peter Rosen, whom he identified as the inventor of Windows Media Player. After testing 30 to 40 roofing systems, McWilliams said the team found this one to be the best. It is made from castor oil and gypsum.

Rosen’s company now uses the building as an R&D facility. McWilliams said the project has drawn people and companies that are helping elevate the Pueblo community.

The roof is planned to include what McWilliams describes as the largest rooftop urban garden in the United States. The team is working with Tesla and another company on semi-transparent solar panels.

McWilliams said conventional solar systems face problems including lower-than-expected production, roof-related insurance issues, difficult lease and contract arrangements, and class-action lawsuits. He still considered solar viable when it solves several problems at once.

Planned Uses Throughout the Water Tower Complex

McWilliams said the redevelopment aims to preserve and honor what already exists. Its guiding principle is that every investment should be a “100-year product.”

Planned and current uses include:

McWilliams said Pueblo’s strength is making real and large-scale products. He said his own companies prioritize work that produces tangible results rather than overhead administration.

Manufacturing, Innovation, and Startup Support

McWilliams described Bonnie’s Boiler Shop and Metal Works, a Pueblo-area operation that has existed since 1946. He called it Southern Colorado’s most capable job shop outside Denver.

The shop handles work ranging from small community repairs to aerospace parts, dams, steel-mill needs, heavy industrial work, and architectural projects. McWilliams said one team member is a certified underwater welder. The shop recently made nuclear blast doors for submarines, a task he said only two other shops in the country could perform.

Southern Colorado Innovation Link operates in the Water Tower complex. It recently received a $1.2 million startup grant. McWilliams said the organization helps entrepreneurs pursue SBA loans, establish businesses, work with the patent office, and connect with engineers.

The building also houses a community maker space. Emergent Campus, which operates in Florence, Cañon City, and Trinidad, is setting up an office in the Water Tower and was expected to move in by the end of the year. McWilliams said the organization needed a larger market after its successes in smaller communities.

Food Market, Arts, Wellness, and Downtown Housing

The project’s “rational factory” name comes from its original Norwegian architect’s industrial design. Materials moved to the top of the factory, then gravity moved them through production. McWilliams said the redevelopment applies that same idea by using the site’s existing ecosystem.

McWilliams said the two strongest demands from the community were event space and walkable downtown living for retired couples. He initially did not want to develop residential space. After receiving 27 blank checks from interested people, he reconsidered.

He said data shared by Dana Crawford suggested that about 10% of Pueblo’s population would like to live downtown. In a city of 150,000 people, that would be about 1,500 residents. McWilliams said downtown then had about 200 residents, leaving roughly 1,300 people actively seeking downtown housing.

Dana Crawford’s Placemaking Lessons

McWilliams credited Dana Crawford with teaching him about placemaking. He described her as a leading figure in the field and said he participated in hundreds of meetings with her and her team.

Her principal lesson, he said, was that successful downtown redevelopment starts from an existing core amenity. Communities without a core generally failed in the examples she studied. Building isolated assets in a struggling area did not create the same outcome.

For Pueblo, McWilliams identified the Riverwalk and the state park and reservoir as core amenities. He said the park draws 4.1 million visitors a year. Downtown density and an established amenity are necessary, he said, and quoted a lesson from another adviser: “Your amenities need amenities.”

Film Production and Cycling Event

The Water Tower has hosted film and television production. McWilliams said ABC, Discovery Channel, and about a dozen production companies have used the property. One production arrived with six semi-trucks of equipment and modified part of the warehouse for filming.

The building also hosted an indoor and outdoor cycling event. Riders came from 17 states and used ramps, stairs, industrial features, the building’s historic hide slide, and tracks inside and outside the facility. (Kevin sent out a link to this race, which was fun to watch.)

McWilliams said nearly every rider called it the coolest race they had done and expressed surprise that Pueblo allowed it.

Power-Plant Hotel and the Lost Pueblo Gondola Project

McWilliams said he and Dana Crawford had the downtown power plant under contract with Black Hills Energy. The project ended after Black Hills withdrew from the arrangement without explaining why.

The proposal was a 13-acre railcar-themed hotel campus. The power plant would have housed reception, restaurant, common space, and businesses. A three-story, 227-room tower would have resembled historic trolley-car sheds. McWilliams said 23 railcars in the rail yard were intended to become suites, allowing guests to stay in boxcars, cabooses, or locomotives.

He also described a proposed gondola connecting downtown to the Runyon Sports Complex, Runyon Lake, and nearby trails across I-25. The city was asked to conduct its own study and decide whether the idea made sense.

McWilliams said the project did not gain support from Pueblo’s mayors and bureaucracy. The investment instead went to Idaho Springs, for a $75M gondola that opened on Mother’s Day. He said it was producing more than $1 million a month in profit.

A Critique of Government and Development Barriers

McWilliams argued that Pueblo and Colorado face development barriers created by bureaucracy, local politics, and resistance to risk. He said it can be difficult to get officials to say yes to projects.

He described Pueblo County’s decision to end its regional-building arrangement with the city and bring building services in-house. According to McWilliams, the county building department began in January and was the only regional government department operating in the black after six months.

McWilliams said the county plans to reduce staffing by about 200 to 300 positions during the next several years as part of what he called right-sizing. He said county commissioners and the business community would need to withstand criticism to make that happen.

He said he had received about 10 to 12 stop-work orders and municipal demands related to the Water Tower project. He called none legitimate. He said similar problems affect developers in Colorado Springs, Steamboat, and Crested Butte.

McWilliams cited a dinner he attended with about 17 business leaders. He said everyone there had discussed with family whether to leave Colorado. One participant had recently sold a company for $600 million. Another operated 11 businesses. This is a concern because business owners may stop investing in Colorado or leave the state.

Proposed Business-Led Response

McWilliams said Pueblo is small enough to solve its development and governance problems, then demonstrate a model for the rest of Colorado and possibly the nation. He said Colorado Springs would be more difficult but still manageable if business and civic leaders organized.

His proposed first step is to collect concerns from business owners and residents. Each participant would write down:

McWilliams said the group had reached a couple hundred participants. His aim is to involve 1,000 business people and community members and focus collective work on solutions rather than complaints.

CONCLUSION

Club members thanked McWilliams and asked about visiting the site. McWilliams said site visits were welcome at any time.

McWilliams joined the club because of Walt, whom he credited as one of the best people the Water Tower project brought into his life. A member also praised the Crawford Hotel, where Dana Crawford’s work is reflected, and described its character and quality.

It is heartening to see how passion, organizational ability, creativity, intelligence and expertise can transform the world.

I wanted to find a good quote to encapsulate all the creativity, passion, intelligence and accomplishment that Ryan brought to this project, but I could not capture what he has done in just one quote. So here are quotes from two of my favorite people:

“Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.”

— Elon Musk

“Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world.”

— Isaac Asimov

Thank you, Ryan, for everything you have done in the past and everything we know you will do to create a better future for us all.

We are all lucky to have people like Ryan. But no one was as lucky as John P, who won both prizes. Congratulations, John.

Have a great week. See you next Thursday.

Barbara

The Pikes Peak Club · pikespeakclub.com

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