Milestones Icon: Interlocken

The Interlocken Advanced Technology Environment was intended from the start to be more than a typical business park, and it has proved to be the case, emerging as one of the premier office parks in the Rocky Mountain Region in its nearly 30 years of existence.

The area is bordered by U.S. Highway 36 to the north and Colorado Highway 128 to the south. It contains more than 30 buildings and 4.9 million square feet of space, according to the city and county of Broomfield.

Construction of the office park officially started with a ceremony on Sept. 13, 1984, that featured a performance by a symphony orchestra and a fireworks display.

The money for the project came from companies owned by J.G. Boswell, a California cotton tycoon whose company has extensive real estate holdings. James Long, the longtime general manager of the park, was instrumental in its planning and finding tenants that would fit the area’s image.

The plan was to create an upscale area for offices capable of connecting them to state-of-the-art technology. The park would be master-planned to accommodate open space, three parks, trails and water features. It would be the U.S. 36 corridor’s rival to the Denver Tech Center.

It also was the then-city of Broomfield’s way to expand its economic base and transition from a bedroom community.

While Interlocken remains a thriving area, the park’s glory days were during the mid-1990s tech boom. Level 3 Communications Inc., a major telecommunications company, and office supply company Corporate Express built their headquarters in the area, and Silicon Valley-powerhouse Sun Microsystems Inc. built a division headquarters there.

The Omni Interlocken Resort, which features a 390-room hotel, conference facilities and a 27-hole golf course that winds through the office park, was built in that decade. So, too, was the Flatiron Crossing Mall, a 1.5-million square foot high-end shopping center just to the west of Interlocken.

Times have changed, and so have the names on many of Interlocken’s buildings. Sun was bought by Oracle, and Corporate Express was purchased by Staples. Companies such as Vail Resorts and Webroot Software Inc. continue to relocate their headquarters to the area, but the massive hundred-acre projects have fallen off.

The most recent major development was the construction of the Central Park Tower at Interlocken, an 11-story, 305,000-square-foot office tower that opened in 2010.

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