Steel Yards project under way on 30th St.

BOULDER – The white tent pulsed with the Western band’s beat. The tables groaned with food and more coming from the barbecue grill outside. The cause for celebration was the groundbreaking of Steel Yards, a 10-acre mixed-use development at 30th and Bluff streets, south of Valmont Road.

Bill Coburn Sr. and Bill Coburn Jr. of Coburn Development Inc. were clearly elated to have the project under way. Who wouldn’t be after 13 years? “The city has been a little difficult to get along with,” the elder Coburn said. The city ultimately did a good job, added the younger Coburn.

When the property was purchased more than a decade ago with the expectation that a Cub Foods supermarket would be completed within two years, the elder Coburn said the city told them no big boxes. “They blew about $1 million in sales taxes,” he said. Other proposals also met with a thumbs down until finally the current project was approved in 1998.

When completed in the next two to three years, the $27 million development will add 140,000 square feet of commercial space and 90 residential units to the city. Twenty-seven units, or nearly 30 percent, will be permanent affordable housing.

In conjunction with its live-work philosophy, Steel Yards designed Frances Park, which will sit on two-thirds of an acre in the center of the development. A preschool with a day-care facility will be situated near the residential buildings.

The first structures to go up will be Market Place A and B on the northeast corner of 30th and Bluff streets; the Mercantile, south of the Market Place; the Professional Offices, southeast of the Mercantile; Business Studios east of 30th Street; and Bluff Street Business Lofts, east of 30th Street on Bluff.

“Frances Park, the preschool and day-care facility is a maybe for the first phase,´ said John Koval, vice president of Coburn Development. “But the rest of the development will follow closely after the first phase.”

A unique feature of the project is the plan for artisan studios with separate living quarters above the work space. “They would provide two divergent uses in a vertically integrated structure,” Koval said. The idea is for people such as cabinet makers, inventors

and glass blowers who provide community services to be part of the development.

Loft units are designed to be live/work environments, as well. They also are affordable housing. The lofts offer the opportunity for painters, sculptors, photographers and the like to have studios within their living space.

Brent Bean, Boulder senior planner and case manager for the Steel Yard development, said the 13 years Coburn development said it spent negotiating with the city to get Steel Yards approved is a little misleading. “A couple of things were going on with the property,” Bean said.

Coburn Development was trying to pass uses that were not supported by the current zoning, he said. One idea was to place a big-box development on the site. That development was not supported by the zoning at that time.

Bean said Coburn also was caught up from 1990 to 1995 in planning for the area called Boulder Junction, of which Steel Yards is a small part.

“They were looking at the area for mixed use, commercial, industrial activities with houses associated with it and were very supportive of that zoning. In 1997, the city rezoned the area and put industrial mixed-use zones on the property. That allowed them (Coburn) to do the residential housing with the industrial, commercial activities they have out there now,” Bean said.

“A number of things have been slow. It took some time to get it through the process because the city had to develop some new regulations. Then the city had to deal with the new development proposal. Coburn had to understand how the new codes worked and determine what they wanted to do with the property,” Bean said.

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