Monday Business Roundup

Small Towns Grapple With Success

By Richard Martin, 10-08-07

Across the West, small-town business leaders, city officials, and local residents are dealing with the consequences of success. Downtowns once marked by decaying storefronts, “For Sale” signs and empty apartments are now thriving, and the questions now are not about how to revive commerce and contemporary housing, but how to define the limits of growth.

In Golden, next month’s city elections will largely be a referendum on how to “balance Golden’s small-town feel with new opportunities to liven up the downtown,” reports Mile High News. Aiming to preserve a balance of local shops, popular national brands, and livable, pedestrian –friendly neighborhoods, the Golden Urban Renewal Authority’s “Downtown Character Committee” has hosted open houses to seek input from residents on preserving Golden’s small-town feel while keeping the economy vibrant.

Feeling the overflow from the tycoon’s paradise of Aspen, Basalt has successfully implemented a master plan that confines development to the town’s tiny downtown area. Currently under review are seven “significant developments” that would add 391 residences and 172,000 square feet of commercial space are currently under review by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission. Bill Maron, the commission’s chairman, calls the level of development applications “staggering.”

Lakewood, once your basic bedroom community for Denver, is now becoming a self-contained town of its own, and not all the citizens are thrilled. Lakewood’s downtown is now “burgeoning into a major shopping center for people from not only Lakewood but outside the community,” says the Mile High News, and some locals resent the changes.

In other business news: ski resorts pour billions into lavish makeovers; bid to amend outdated mining law gathers steam; and a constitutional amendment to make Colorado a “right to work” state nears the ‘08 ballot.

In other business news:

-- Buoyed by two years of abundant snow and record business, Colorado’s ski resorts are pouring money into renovations and upgrades. “Resort operators and investors are sinking $3 billion - a conservative estimate at that - into ambitious makeovers that involve everything from slopeside real estate development to mountain upgrades,” reports Joanne Kelley of the Rocky Mountain News. With demand for luxury accommodations peaking, major Western Slope destinations including Steamboat Springs, Vail, Snowmass and Winter Park “are practically reinventing themselves” with lavish base villages.

-- Backed by an unlikely alliance of environmental groups and Republican congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, the movement to amend the 1872 mining law – which still “allows foreign and domestic companies to take valuable minerals from public lands without paying any royalties, and still allows public land to be purchased at the 1872 price of less than $5.00 an acre,” writes Rebecca Boyle of Fort Collins Now – is gathering new steam. A bill to reform the law governing mining on public lands is currently in the U.S. House of Representatives.

-- The drive to make Colorado a “right to work” state, with a constitutional amendment barring compulsory union membership at workplaces, took another step toward next year’s ballot this week. The state Initiative Title Setting Review Board approved language for the measure this week. Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma all have right-to-work laws on their books.

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