Commerce City leaders honored five local business all-stars at the seventh Business Appreciation Awards event March 19.  Held at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, the breakfast also featured a keynote from Colorado Rapids President Tim Hinchey, who highlighted the regional benefits of major league sports.

• Business on the Move Awards: Platte Valley Medical Center, Ziggi's Coffee

• Entrepreneurial Spirit Award: ACT Underground, LLC

• Pam Downs Lilac Award for Leadership: Rocky Mountain Recycling, Inc.

• Business of the Year Award: Suncor

Commerce City thanks all businesses, individuals and organizations that have made contributions to the economic vitality of the city.

The retail environment is quickly changing, presenting municipalities with new attraction challenges. During the recession, sluggish sales had many retailers pulling back on new locations, focusing their new investments on Internet stores rather than brick and mortar development. Cities, on the other hand, are looking to attract diverse retail projects to serve growing populations and increase tax streams to sustain community services. Since Internet stores currently do not provide sales tax revenue to Colorado municipalities, retail attraction becomes a very competitive environment. 

Market Validation
Retailers have very specific criteria for locating a project in a community, seeking data-driven market validation that includes significant trade area population numbers, appropriate income levels and housing values for the type of retail proposed, high area traffic counts, and studies showing existing retail shopping leakage to other communities.

So why are we not seeing some of the national retail brands desired by residents locate in Commerce City? Retail follows rooftops, and while the city is growing rapidly, it still doesn't meet all of the market criteria necessary to validate business investments. But continued growth will only make the city more competitive for retail projects. For example:

• In 2014, there were 353 new residential units added in Commerce City and 39 so far in 2015.

• New medical and dental offices opening near 104th Avenue and Chambers Road are important for continued retail growth. Customers and employees of these businesses create the traffic and daytime population figures needed to support other types of retail.

• Sit-down restaurants and larger retail stores typically enter a market after these businesses and fast food chains are well established and operating successfully.

 Learn more about retail attraction.  

 

Walgreens, the largest drug retailing chain in the United States, had their official grand opening March 13th at their new location on 104th Avenue and Chambers Road.

Perfect Teeth is under construction in Aspen Hills at 104th Avenue and Chambers. This is one of three new locations planned for the Denver metro area.

Construction has begun for Drake Real Estate Services' new inline center at Reunion Marketplace.  The center will be home to: