The DIA Partnership, founded in 1996 to help promote development opportunities on the vast expanse of land around Denver International Airport, will be folded into a regional economic development organization.

The executive committees of the partnership and the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. tentatively approved the move today, subject to final negotiations.

Officials from both sides said it will allow them to combine efforts — and investors — to more efficiently and effectively work on airport-related issues.

"We want to have one unified voice on issues such as expansion and international travel and to have a more efficient system of handling economic development prospects around the airport," said Tom Clark, head of the Metro Denver EDC.

Clark said the partnership will operate as a committee of the Metro Denver EDC, similar to the Colorado Energy Coalition. It will be renamed DIA Leadership, or DIAL.

Mary Rose Loney, an aviation veteran who took the reins of the partnership last fall, will work with the committee on a consulting basis. The EDC also will bring aboard one the partnership's administrative workers.

The partnership was created as a public-private entity shortly after DIA opened, with the goal of promoting both the airport and nearby development on what was then prairie land.

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