Monday Business Roundup
‘New Urban’ Islands Dot the West
By Richard Martin, 9-24-07
Despite its sprawling geography and its reputation for car-oriented, Phoenix-style suburbs, the Mountain West is in reality becoming an ocean of thinly populated rural areas and small towns dotted by islands of dense, “new urban” centers.
In Idaho, reports Lee Vander Boegh in IQ Idaho magazine, “Thirty-three years after being compared to a bombing range, downtown Boise is driving commerce and the community.” “More and more people are wanting to live closer to the downtown core, if not right in it, to limit their commute times, be closer to the arts and cultural aspects of a city and practice better environmental living,” says David Hale, who has redeveloped the Linen District, a six block parcel downtown. In Bozeman, the Story Mill project is an urban infill development “led by a socially responsible developer with a vision that provides an alternative to sprawling fields of high-priced, single-family homes,” observes Kath Williams, a member of the Story Mill Center Development Team, writing in the Daily Chronicle. Even Cheyenne, not exactly an exemplar of a thriving downtown, has been recognized by the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations with two consecutive “National Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning” for cities under 200,000 in population.
In Denver, meanwhile, developers can’t build enough high-priced downtown condos. The latest is the $165 million Pinnacle at City Park South luxury condominium development, three separate buildings on the on the former Mercy Hospital site with a total of 271 units – a significant number of which have been pre-sold. “Buyers [are] showing the most interest in the biggest and most expensive units,” reports Margaret Jackson of the Post.
Of course, the opposite trend is also strong: buyers moving to big lots on vast rangeland being developed as “ranch communities,” complete with working cattle operations – and plenty of amenities. The Sandstone Ranch outside Larkspur, south of Denver, will have 106 luxury houses on 2100 acres, with 65 head of callte grazing on 1400 acres of permanent open space – not to mention swimming pools, a “luxury yurt,” and an $8 million equestrian facility. No word on where the neo-ranchers will buy their groceries.
In other business news:
-- Though a slowdown in the national economy could “creep into Colorado,” the state economist reported in his September forecast, the Centennial State’s economy “remains healthy.” Todd Saliman, director of the Office of State Planning and Budgeting, said that unemployment is well below the national average and many local economies, including Boulder and some of the Western Slope towns, are booming.
-- Colorado has surpassed Texas, home of NASA’s legendary Houston flight control center, as the No. 2 state for the aerospace business, according to a new report from the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. California remains No. 1. “Colorado’s space economy got a big shot in the arm from Lockheed Martin Corp.’s $8.2 billion NASA spacecraft contract and United Launch Alliance’s decision to put its headquarters here,” reports Roger Fillion of the Rocky Mountain News.
-- As more details filter out about the future of Wild Oats businesses under its new ownership, Whole Foods says it will shutter the Wild Oats market in Jefferson County at the end of October. Boulder’s Wild Oats has not been slated for closing, but the new Wild Oats store planned as a cornerstone of the Twenty Ninth Street mall will not go forward.
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