Downtown Boulder’s Haas resigns as executive director

BOULDER – Marilyn Haas has seen Boulder’s downtown area through many changes since she joined Downtown Boulder Inc. as executive director in 1988.Now after 12 years at the job, she’s moving on.
“It’s time for new blood,” she says.
Banana Republic, Laura Ashley, Abercrombie & Fitch and Haas were all new to downtown Boulder in 1988. “We had a lot of space – particularly in the 1400 block,” she says. “It was really not thought of originally as a retail area. But we became more vital.”
Haas, 60, says she’ll most miss the people she’s worked with over the years, including people who helped to create the downtown Boulder mall, putting up their money and flying all over the country for ideas for the mall’s design.
Renae Foxhoven, formerly DBI’s event coordinator, is DBI’s new executive director. Haas will work as DBI’s interim executive director of the business improvement district until a permanent director is hired.
Haas says she’s most proud of DBI’s and the Downtown Alliance’s work in rezoning the downtown area in 1997. “It was a real joint effort of all the groups downtown,” she says. “We all reached agreement on what downtown should look like at buildout. That was very rewarding and certainly successful because everything that we presented to (the Boulder city) council was part of the comprehensive rezoning plan.”
Another initiative to ban sitting or lying on the Pearl Street Mall, however, wasn’t as successful. But Haas doesn’t mind. “Probably, in hindsight, it’s good that we weren’t successful. There were other ways to deal with that.”
Haas says she will pursue “other career opportunities” in the future, though she couldn’t provide details. “I have a dream, but whether it really becomes a reality, it’s way too early to tell,” she says.

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