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Jude Sandvall

City of Denver lends a hand to small business

An article from the Rocky Mountain News, reports that the city of Denver announced May 1 the Denver Neighborhood Marketplace Initiative, a pilot program from the Office of Economic Development aimed at strengthening neighborhood business districts and their surrounding communities and helping small businesses grow. According to the OED, more than half the city's general fund comes from retail sales taxes on small businesses and many of the retail establishments are in smaller business districts outside Denver's downtown core. Economic development administrator Bo Martinez said the city chose five districts to participate in the pilot program, using a set of performance criteria that categorized each district's current state of development as somewhere along the spectrum between challenging and thriving. The city is partnering with Social Compact, a Washington-based nonprofit that will help Denver develop a plan to be used to attract investment in neighborhood development. Also, the city has formed a Business District Alliance to represent the city's diverse group of small-business operators and property owners in the various districts, Martinez added.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/21/city-lends-a-hand-to-small-business/

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Exterior renovation complete on future home of Sage Hospitality

An article from the Denver Business Journal, reports that according to project architect, Klipp, the exterior renovation is complete on the historic downtown Denver building that will become Sage Hospitality Resources LLC’s new headquarters in early 2009. The Sage Building, more popularly is known as the Fontius building, has been largely vacant since the late 1980s, and became blighted over the years under previous ownership. Headed by developer Evan Makovsky, Shames-Makovsky purchased the 48,346-square-foot building in 2007 with plans of restoring it for office and retail space. Sage has leased the 4-story Sage Building’s upper 3 floors, which includes 32,000 square feet of space and hopes to move into that space in early 2009, with interior construction scheduled to be completed by next March. American National Bank has leased 4,500 square feet on the building’s ground floor.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/08/18/daily29.html?b=1219032000^1687999

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Martha Stewart drives home sales

An article from The Denver Post, reports that a few years ago, Martha Stewart teamed up with KB Home to design a line of homes modeled after her own residences. Last year, they brought the concept to Stapleton. According to MetroStudies, year-to-date sales at KB Home Martha Stewart are 38% higher than the 11 other builders in the Stapleton master plan. Since launching KB Home Stapleton: Homes Created With Martha Stewart, KB has sold 43 homes and will deliver 35 of them this year. Mike Rinner, a housing analyst at the Genesis Group in Arapahoe County said, "It's a unique product she lends her name to. If they built the same houses without the Martha Stewart touch and had standard finishes and decor without the additional stuff, it would not be as nice a home. It would not have the same cachet and appeal."
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_10248535

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Four homes going up for Habitat for Humanity Aurora, Colorado

An article from the Rocky Mountain News, reports that the busiest home-construction site in the Denver area this week may be a stretch of road east of Interstate 225 and north of Colfax Avenue in Aurora. As part of the Habitat for Humanity Home Builders Blitz 2008, Renaissance Homes started a seven-day project to build four starter homes along East 18th Place. In addition to Renaissance, others participating are Fuller Custom Homes, Sattler Homes, Malibu Homes, Austin Signature Homes and Harvard Communities. According to Heather Lafferty, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver, building the small, energy-efficient homes normally would take three months. In regards to the builders, she said, "On one hand, they are not quite as busy as usual, so it's easier to find the time to devote to this. But on the other hand, they have been hit pretty hard by this downturn, so they have smaller crews to call on. What they all have in common is they stepped up to the plate."
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/18/four-homes-going-up-for-habitat-for-humanity/

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Stapleton redevelopment on course for 15-year plan

An article from the Denver Business Journal, reports that according to the company and those monitoring the project’s progress, developer Forest City Enterprises Inc. is on track as they are nearly halfway through the expected 15-year redevelopment of Denver’s former main airport, Stapleton International. Dick Anderson, former CEO of the Stapleton Development Corp., said a variety of for-sale housing, despite metro Denver’s soft housing market of recent years, continues to be built at Stapleton, and industrial and retail development has been relatively strong. The 4,700-acre Stapleton project currently includes 3,200 single-family houses, rowhomes, condominiums and other for-sale housing as well as 400 apartments. Commercial real estate already built includes the 740,000-square-foot Quebec Square and 1.2 million-square-foot Northfield Stapleton outdoor shopping centers; the multiple-block East 29th Street Town Center with shops, offices and restaurants; and roughly 200,000 square feet of office space.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/08/18/story12.html?b=1219032000^1685222

www.judesandvall.com