Louisville moves ahead on revamping industrial district

LOUISVILLE — The city of Louisville is seeking a major conversion of one of the city’s oldest industrial districts into a new mixed-development neighborhood. The city’s Highway 42 Revitalization Area, bound by the highway and the existing Burlington Northern railroad tracks and located between the Little Italy and Miner’s Field neighborhoods, is being brought under a comprehensive plan developed by the city’s planning department.

?The industrial area was platted in the 1950s and formerly had some really large and heavy types of industrial developments,? explained Paul Wood, director of planning. ?Many of those facilities have since moved on. So, about two years ago city council directed that we start a revitalization plan, anticipating that the land would become too valuable in terms of its location to remain industrial.? Large facilities such as Alpine Lumber and Dynamic Materials are among those facilities.

Eventually, city leaders hope to see a mixed-use development in place that would include 40,000 square feet of retail space as well as 350 high-density housing units such as apartments, townhouses and condominiums.

The planners also are preparing for an eventual RTD commuter rail station, a 400-space parking lot, and an underpass at South Street to accommodate traffic between the neighborhood and downtown Louisville. Despite the sizeable scope of the project, though, the planning department is working hard to avoid major impacts on the two existing neighborhoods.

?The idea is not to drop all of this on them at once,? Wood said. ?I think at first there was a lot of worst-case scenario thinking by the residents, but one of the principles of this project is not to displace those neighborhoods and in fact, strengthen and reinforce them but otherwise leave them alone.? The city has held 10 public meetings with residents to address and incorporate their concerns.

?In our minds, it’s a matter of having uses that are more compatible,? said lead planner Kenneth Johnston. ?If I lived in Little Italy to the north, it wouldn’t be a pleasant walk to go through the concrete plan and cut by a lumber yard to get to a neighborhood that is only three blocks away. They should feel like they are much more integrated in terms of use as well as the physical connections.?

The city is taking a minimalist approach to the development with a plan to seed the area with design guidelines, street improvements and signalization of critical intersections to draw the interest of local developers.

?We didn’t want to get in the role where the city would be condemning all the parcels to assemble them and package them for the project. The new plan allows it to happen very much incrementally. Like any project, if a property owner or a developer wanted to assemble a plan, that would certainly make sense, but it doesn’t have to happen that way,? Johnston said.

The city also hopes to capitalize on the ongoing revitalization of Louisville’s downtown retail area and historic preservation efforts as part of the project. Plans for a pedestrian and eventual vehicular underpass will allow greater flow between the Highway 42 area and downtown Louisville.

?It certainly has some commercial potential given the access to Highway 42, the Northwest Parkway, and points beyond but also with the added benefit of hopefully having future access to commuter rail. We definitely see the area being an extension to our existing downtown which is maintaining its strengths and seeing quite a bit of redevelopment as well,? Johnston said.

The Planning Commission gave a solid endorsement at its May 22 meeting, approving the current document as the basis for a future amendment to the comprehensive plan. The Planning Department is working up a timeline for the project and will likely take it to city council for review in mid-June.

?We’re optimistic that it is a good plan for the future of the area,? Johnston said with confidence. ?We’ve tried to be very responsive to the concerns of the property owners in the area and make it a real asset to the neighbors, to downtown, and to the community as a whole.?PROMOTECH ARRIVES: A subsidiary of Ventiv Heath, a provider of sales and marketing solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, is opening a new facility in Louisville.

The 44,000-square-foot building will be dedicated for call center and marketing operational support, according to a company press release. Ventiv has hired Warren Merlino as general manager of the operation.

?The new facility and addition of Warren Merlino are part of Ventiv’s continuing commitment to provide quality service to the organizations with whom Ventiv partners,? said Terrell Herring, president of Ventiv’s sales in the United States.

In addition to a 60-station call center, the new facility also will house a secure warehouse that is DEA and FDA certified and has been designed for the inclusion of schedule III controlled substances.BOULDERSPYDER’S WEB GROWS: The Spyder Skiwear Brand has outgrown its humble roots in Boulder’s downtown. Due to its continuing growth in staff and physical assets, the manufacturer is moving out of the office space it has held for 18 years at 3600 Pearl St.

The new headquarters, at 4725 Walnut St. is nearly two and one-half times larger and is conveniently located just a block from its former home.

?We have finally gotten to the point where we can’t squeeze another body into this building,? said Doug Saunders, Spyder’s vice president of operations. ?We actually fast tracked this project about six months ago. We decided we were going to make the move with the start of our fiscal year so we were fortunate that everything lined up with the market.?

The new facility will house the bulk of the operation in 20,000 square feet that will include administration, customer service, production, development, finance, sales and marketing. The upper level will allow the company to open a 6,000-square-foot addition that will include conference facilities and a showroom, which Spyder has wanted for some time.

The company plans to add about eight new staff members with the opening of the facility in addition to its current roster of 55 employees. The move will be completed by July 1, and Spyder hopes to hold an open house by mid-August, when the sales season starts in earnest.INDUSTRIAL CONVERSION: Broker Andrew Freeman is finding an innovative new purpose for industrial buildings in Boulder. He recently completed a transaction to lease 11,000 square feet of the 42,000-square-foot industrial building at 2845 29th St. to Golazo, a provider of facilities for indoor soccer leagues. The lease term is five years.

?It’s interesting because I’m seeing this in a lot of my industrial buildings,? Freeman said. ?There are not as many manufacturers anymore, but we are starting to see a lot of use from indoor sports users such as gymnastics, soccer, batting cages and similar operations. They seem to be replacing the manufacturers that we lost because they need these kinds of big open spaces.

Another 10,000 square feet of the building has been leased to a Boulder partnership that is opening a startup manufacturing company in the next two weeks. Freeman is still seeking a single tenant for the remaining 20,000-square-foot area in the building.HOUSING DOLLARS INCOMING: The Boulder Housing Division received a federal grant totaling more than $1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The funds include money from Community Development Block Grant funds and HOME Investment Partnership funds. The grant will go a long way toward providing affordable income in Boulder County, according to Jann Oldham of the Housing Division.

?If you look at incomes in Boulder County, they are not rising, and they have not risen for some time nearly as fast as the appreciation of housing. The gap between the money people have to purchase homes and what is available for purchase continues to grow. Certainly, this need is ever-present,? Oldham said. She has assembled a complete list of the projects to receive funding at www.ci.boulder.co.us/hshhs.

?The housing funds will be used for a variety of activities. We will be allocating some of those federal dollars to Thistle Community Housing to assist them in the purchase of Mapleton Mobile Home Park. We also have allocated some dollars to our local housing authorities. They will be using those dollars to acquire existing housing throughout the community and making them available as rental units,? Oldham said.

Additional funds will be distributed to assist a mobile home rehabilitation unit as well as the Emergency Family Assistance Association, which will use its portion to rehabilitate three of the agency’s emergency shelter units.

?The demand for emergency shelter has increased significantly over the last year,? said Terry Benjamin, executive director of the association. ?This grant allows us to maintain our shelters while assisting families in reaching self-sufficiency.? Boulder’s mayor also lent his approval to the distribution process.

?Affordable housing in Boulder is a high priority in the city,? said Mayor Will Toor. ?These federal grants will help us to continue to work towards our affordable housing goals.?UPTOWN BROADWAY: Boulder’s newest urban community is on track to deliver its mixed-use complex by spring of 2004. Uptown Broadway, a joint project between Dean Callan & Company Inc. and developer Jim Loftus, will include 240 residential units above 35,337 square feet of retail development in four buildings at 4500 North Broadway.

?There is a tremendous amount of energy and exciting things that are happening in this area. It’s kind of a transformation of the North Boulder area,? said Becky Callan Gamble of Dean Callan & Company.

She already has signed several retail tenants for the project including Café Sole’, Brick Oven Pizza and Subs and John’s Cleaners. Deals with a bank branch and a spa are being finalized. Each building has walkways leading to a common plaza area as well as a landscaped waterfall feature. The development is also located proximate to a proposed north branch of the Boulder Public Library and nearby the Holiday Drive-In project, a mixed-use development on the site of the 1953 theater.

?It’s a lot of space, and we are trying to be cognizant of the retail mix that we put in here,? Gamble said. ?The city really likes it. It’s still a long process, but I think the quality of the project and what’s going on up here will not only please the city but I think everybody in the area will be happy and benefit from it. Particularly on the retail side, there’s really nothing around there to serve residents.?

The project, being built by Shaw Construction, is estimated to be completed in March or April of 2004.WEST END DEVELOPMENTS: Meanwhile on the west end of Boulder, Gibbons White Inc. is moving forward with two more mixed-use developments scheduled to be completed within the next year.

The West End Lofts, at 1905 9th St. will be completed by September, while another similar project at 900 West Pearl will be completed by summer 2004.

?We have three retail deals in negotiation,? said Lynda Gibbons of the West End Lofts, which house three residential units on top of 5,080 square feet of street-level divisible retail space. ?I can’t tell you what they are at this point, but they are very nice retail shops that are locally owned.?

The remaining project at 900 West Pearl St. is a diverse mix of office and retail units. The first floor retains three retail units of approximately 2,700 square feet each available for purchase at $1.3 million and $1.2 million or can be leased at $35 per square foot triple net. The office units range in size up to 3,390 square feet for lease at $26 to $28 per square foot.

?I have four retail condominiums, three of which are under contract or letter of intent,? Gibbons said of the hot west end location, which includes underground parking. 4240 Architects, formerly known as Urban Design Group, is designing both projects.LONGMONTMARVELL EXPANDING: The local office of Marvell Semiconductor, the large firm headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., appears to be expanding. Gary Aboussie of the Colorado Group confirmed that the company has leased an additional 8,752 square feet of space in the former Xilinx building at 1951 South Fordham Road in Longmont.

?They bought a division out in the Gunbarrel area and are moving some people and expanding that division,? Aboussie said of the deal.

Representatives from Marvell Semiconductor could not be reached at press time. The lease on the space is for a three-year term in the 200,000-square-foot building.

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