South Weld County luring employers

Proximity to Denver, Boulder and Northern Colorado attracts

What once was a quiet agricultural backwater is now well on its way to becoming a booming residential market and a magnet for new business.

Southern Weld County — particularly the southwestern portion — is exploding with housing and commercial growth. Over the last few years, the region has been viewed as a more attractive alternative to the hustle and bustle of Denver.

As Denver metro area businesses grow and expand, they are increasingly looking at southern Weld County as a friendly place where they can locate their operations without any problems that might short-circuit their growth. That’s resulted in more and more subdivisions and commercial developments sprouting up in fields that once grew corn and other crops.

Area becoming more diverse

“The farmers are growing houses now instead of crops,´ said Ron Klaphake, executive director of the Greeley/Weld Economic Development Action Partnership.

Indeed, Weld county, once one of the largest agriculturally oriented counties in the nation, is changing — particularly on its southern side.

“The area is much more diverse,´ said Klaphake. “There are probably a dozen to as many as 20 light industrial parks in the Del Camino area.”

The section Klaphake refers to is the Longmont interchange on Interstate 25, which is probably the biggest reason why businesses and subdivisions are coming to the area. Light industry wants to be near the interstate for the transportation advantages, a fact that’s reducing agriculture’s role in the region.

Klaphake said Weld county doesn’t have to hard-sell the area.

“It’s a variety of things,´ said Klaphake of what draws companies to south Weld county. “They are just looking for an area where they can create jobs. We aren’t advertising at all.”

Gerard’s Bakery LLC is a Longmont company that built a 27,000-square-foot plant near I-25 in November 1994 in order to be more economically feasible. The company makes bread, buns and baguettes for customers that include Quizno’s, which helps make it one of the biggest employers in the region.

Transportation a big factor

Transportation was the main reason for locating in the I-25 corridor, said company president Gary Knight. “We’re better located for our transportation,” Knight said. “Some of our products go as far as the East Coast. We’re also close to some of our flour suppliers in Platteville.”

Concepts Direct, a catalog and Internet marketing firm that has a branch in the Del Camino area, is another example of manufacturing companies moving into the area. Julie White, an associate to the chairman of the board, said Concepts Direct purchased 100 acres in the area in the mid-90s. Recently, it sold most of the land to a church group but still plans to build a new plant in the area at some point in the future.

Other south Weld county employers have been in the area even longer. Nichols Aluminum-Golden, for example, established a recycling plant in Fort Lupton in 1985. The reasons the company located there included access to transportation systems, proximity to Denver and a hard-working labor force that it could train.

The fact that the area had been declared an enterprise zone by Weld County Commissioners and came with a set of tax advantages didn’t hurt either. Prior to that designation, the company had been looking at locating near Grand Junction or Pueblo, said Joe Toscano, an executive in charge of business development.

Boulder county overflow

Applied Films, another Longmont company with a plant in the area, specializes in flat-panel screens and other applications for thin-film technology. CEO Larry Firestone said the company located in southern Weld county because it wanted to keep a presence in the area and because it wanted to retain its employees.

“I don’t think there were any of us here at the time we started up,´ said Firestone. “We began in Boulder County and we wanted an area close to the old plant. It’s not like you can go to LaJunta and keep your employee base.”

Bill Meier, an employee of United Power in Brighton and a member of the Southwest Weld Economic Development Group, said south Weld county is seeing a big influx of tech firms and plastic injection molding firms, particularly from entrepreneurs moving out of Boulder.

“There is a lot of business moving out from Boulder to Weld because there are a lot of opportunities out here.” Meier said. “They come out here to strike out on their own or do stuff they’ve been doing for somebody else.”

Meier says Weld is attractive because it’s close to Boulder county and because there is room for them to expand without a lot of the problems they might face in Boulder. “There are a lot of vacant buildings they can lease,´ said Meier. “Last year, there were corn fields. Now there are fields where they can build buildings.”

on Facebook on LinkedIn