by Osman Parvez

What’s a Super Slab? Imagine a $2 billion high speed toll road stretching from north of Ft. Collins to south of Pueblo. Ray Wells is busy planning to make it a reality..

For the third year in a row Forbes magazine has ranked Denver-Boulder as the best city in America for singles. Let’s see, Louisville was recently named the best affordable city to raise a family. Ft. Collins was given the distinction as being the best place to live by CNN/Money magazine. And we’re still best for singles too. Here’s the article.

File this under Green Destinations. Broomfield based Vail Resorts is offsetting their energy needs by buying credits through Boulder’s Renewable Choice Energy, effectively putting the company on wind power. The decision will impact Vail’s 5 ski areas and more than 135 buildings. Vail Resorts is now the second largest purchaser of wind power after Whole Foods.

A $550 million, 1,400 home community is being planned for Lakewood.
The development, Solterra, is the first in the 2,000-acre Rooney Valley, which Lakewood and nearby Morrison have wanted to develop for almost 25 years. The area was plagued by a troubled metropolitan district, which tied up the land in a bankruptcy court battle for years.

Competing plans for Union Station in Denver have been revealed. The ~20 acre, $1 billion project may feature public space, a variety of housing, commercial and retail.

As the 29th Street development steams ahead, it’s also attracting more tenants.
Retailers have been pulling a slew of building permits authorizing work on the interiors of their Twenty Ninth Street shops, including 18 stores not previously announced for Boulder’s newest mall.



University Hill meanwhile is seeing a revitalization of its own.
“I think the Hill’s really starting to turn around; we’re getting the right businesses up here, which is key,” said Theresa Seiwald, owner of Sole, a shoe and accessories store that has operated for 10 months in the area.

Lyons is about to join the growing movement for New Urbanism.
The project, located at 422 Main St., will offer two levels of residential condominiums, one level of commercial space on the ground floor and underground parking.
The building, which at 39 feet will be Lyons’ tallest, will contain seven condominiums and between 7,000 square feet and 8,000 square feet of commercial space.
“We’d like (the building) to be the town’s hallmark,” said John Burke, a partner in Gavan-Burke Management LLC, the company conducting the project in partnership with Colomont LLC.

Downtown Boulder remains vibrant, with 20 new businesses opening shop this year.
What began in 1859 as a small group of log cabins at Pearl Street and Broadway has since become the lively and popular pedestrian Pearl Street Mall in the heart of downtown Boulder. Today, the area boasts 259 retailers and restaurants, with 85 percent of them locally owned.

Plans for Boulder Transit Village (now Boulder Junction) are continuing to develop. The reach of the project has shifted somewhat since we started looking at it last fall, with a major downsizing in the area plan.
Boulder residents might wish to start boning up on the “bones” of the Transit Village Area Plan soon, because outstanding citizen ideas might become part of the Area’s long-term anatomy.

Image: PhillipC

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