News At-A-Glance
Brighton, Colorado
Continued...Economic Development News
Article by Susan Stanton
A new Adams County government complex also is in the works, planned for the Adams Crossing project south of Brighton on land that straddles E-470. Developer Craig Carlson hopes to reunite the county’s offices there as early as 2010, bringing 2,000 employees to the site.
Prairie Center promises to bring waves of change, holding an expected 4,500 homes and as much as 6 million sf of retail at build out. Project manager Jim Lewis describes its future potential this way: “This will undoubtedly become the dominant retail hub for the entire northeast corridor.”
Carma Colorado also is shaping the future of Brighton with one of its largest residential developments in metro Denver, Brighton Crossings. CARMA was instrumental in creating the “Brighton Take a Closer Look” marketing campaign currently under way. Mayor Pawlowski agrees. “I view Brighton as the gateway, the initial shopping experience for the North and Eastern plains,” she said. With Prairie Center well on its way, her next goal is bringing that retail vitality to Brighton’s city core.
In its heyday, it provided residents with all their retail needs, and with the help of preservation guru Dana Crawford and dozens of local visionaries, it will soon step into a new role as the city’s entertainment mecca.
Brighton City Council is catalyzing a downtown face-lift through the Urban Renewal Authority granting property owners up to $15,000 each to improve their buildings’ facades. Urban Renewal also is working with private and public entities to mold downtown landmarks into a Civic Center that could include a library, a performing arts center and the Depot Restaurant.
Assistant City Manager Manuel Esquibel has been instrumental in lining up tenants for Platte Valley Medical Center’s outgrown hospital site. “Our primary goal is job creation,” he said. Esquibel is in talks with Front Range Community College to relocate its campus there, and Salud Health Care Center has agreed to operate there, meeting the health care needs of the indigent and uninsured.
“Brighton has been the beneficiary of some good leadership, which is critical or it could have been left behind,” said Byron Koste, director of the real estate center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “It has worked on managing growth instead of picking what came and saying it doesn’t matter.”