Business

Although “Ditch the Ditch” protesters haven’t given up on stopping the sprawling and controversial Central 70 project, the Colorado Department of Transportation is moving full steam ahead, with a goal of getting underway in earnest this summer. To help prepare metro-area drivers in general, and especially commuters who travel along Interstate 70 east of I-25 on a daily basis, for what CDOT insists will be coming soon, we reached out to Rebecca White, Central 70’s communications director, who offers a preview of a process that’s expected to take well into the next decade to complete.

In 2016, Colorado voters passed Amendment 70, which established an incremental increase in the state’s minimum wage culminating in a $12-per-hour rate by 2020. But a proposal just introduced in the Colorado general assembly has the potential of giving that amount an additional boost in some locations. The legislation, accessible below, would empower towns, cities or counties in Colorado to set their own minimum wage based on how expensive it is to make ends meet there.

Catering workers at United Airlines, including a preponderance of Pacific Islander employees at the Denver International Airport, are trying to unionize to get better pay and insurance and keep the flight benefit they use annually to visit home.

Denver Public Schools announced Thursday that it has partnered with Landed, a startup based in California, and the Zoma Foundation to launch a down-payment assistance program that will provide up to half of a 20 percent down payment on a home, or up to $70,000 per household, to about 100 teachers the first year.

Investors approached Denver with $24 million for a community land trust. Now the backers behind the Elevation Land Trust are in discussions with other municipalities that seem more eager to become partners.

As of late last year, rent prices finally seemed to be moderating in Denver and its neighboring burgs following a long period in which rental costs continued to go up and up and up in the Mile High City’s red-hot housing market. But the latest data suggests that bargain hunters’ hopes have been squashed again, with rents across the metro area again heading upward, with many of the places analyzed notching double-digit bumps over this time in 2017.

According to a new report from California-based CoreLogic, homes in the Denver area are generally overvalued, meaning the price buyers are being asked to pay is simply too high. But while that’s bad news for house hunters right now, it could result in improvements down the line in the Mile High City and beyond.

In recent years, high costs have made home ownership seem like an impossible dream for plenty of people in Denver and other parts of Colorado despite the strong economy. And in the first quarter of 2018, the situation seems to be getting worse instead of better. According to a new study, the average wage earner in ten of eleven Colorado counties analyzed, including six in Denver metro, can’t afford a median-priced home in the area.

In July 2016, the Marijuana Industry Group, among the most powerful cannabis business organizations in Colorado and the country as a whole, seemed on the verge of collapse after the mysterious departure of Michael Elliott, its executive director. Less than two years later, MIG is back to being a powerhouse advocate for marijuana enterprises in the state, and much of the credit goes to current executive director Kristi Kelly, who’s helped change the tone of an outfit that was once vilified by boutique shops in the state.

A new unit for sale in the Four Seasons building, at 1133 14th Street, is going for $10,750,000 and is being touted as “DENVER’S BEST CITY PENTHOUSE!” Take a photo tour here.

After the Denver Post announced that it would be laying off thirty people, or around 30 percent of the newsroom staff, the Denver Newspaper Guild, which represents 25 of those getting pink slips, put out an open call for a wealthy benefactor to buy the publication from Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that’s been stripping it down like a stolen car for years. Billionaire Phil Anschutz seems to fit this bill, and he has a notable interest in newspapers, having purchased the Colorado Springs Gazette in 2012. But a story shared by Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn suggests that Anschutz may prefer to let the Post die in order to replace it with a resurrected version of the Rocky Mountain News, which was shuttered in February 2009.

Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency are ultra-trendy among investors, speculators and others who dream of making a quick fortune. But they’re also becoming increasingly mainstream, especially among the super-rich, as illustrated by what appears to be a first for the luxury home market in Aspen. One seller with a spectacular property in the exclusive Starwood development has announced that interested buyers can pay for it using this form of exchange, a digital asset that’s secured using cryptography.

The Denver Post announced thirty layoffs, or nearly one-third of its newsroom staff, on March 14. Just shy of two weeks later, we still don’t know the identities of all those who’ll be leaving, and that information won’t be made official for two more thanks to a complicated system that allows some laid-off workers to “bump” individuals who haven’t been notified that their positions could be in danger. But at present, no daily reporters are being targeted, with the layoffs focusing on what Denver Newspaper Guild administrative officer Tony Mulligan refers to as “the second set of eyeballs.”

The city is passing up on the opportunity to create 200 affordable-housing units within walking distance of Union Station despite an executive order issued by Mayor Michael Hancock in 2016 that says that affordable housing is a priority and that any land the city sells should be considered for that purpose.

A nonprofit created by the Metropolitan Football Stadium District, a political subdivision of the state, and the Broncos has been exploring creating a mixed-use neighborhood destination on the property, which is currently occupied by surface parking lots that are only used during games and special events.

If you’re selling a luxury home in Denver right now, expect to make a mint. In its recently published global luxury report, accessible below, Coldwell Banker calls the Mile High City the number one “power market” for luxury home sellers in the United States. And according to Chris Mygatt, president and CEO of Coldwell Banker-Colorado, transplants from major markets where prices are even higher than here represent a big reason why.

Despite having more than seventy years of combined experience working for United Airlines, flight attendants Ruben Lee and Jeanne Stroup were fired by the carrier for watching a video on an iPad for approximately fifteen minutes and failing to wear aprons during one flight in September 2013. But while folks at the company may have thought they’d save money by sacking two veteran employees, they were wrong. A jury has awarded Lee and Stroup $800,000 in damages, and attorney David Lane, who represents them, predicts the final tally will come close to double that amount.

The store will be called Humanity and will offer a fitting room and clothing off the racks that will range from street wear and cold-weather outfits to more formal interview attire. No payment is required.

After a fire at a construction site at 18th Avenue and Emerson Street on March 7 killed two workers, construction industry union reps are calling for more stringent regulations of an industry they say is stretched too thin and not regulated enough.

A half-century ago this month, in March 1968, Cinderella City opened in Englewood, and it was much more than a mere mall. An ad from the early days maintained that “Once Upon a Time…Is Now at Cinderella City,” where “Your Shopping Dreams Come True,” and for a generation of Denverites, as well as folks who traveled from all over the region to behold its marvels in person, these pitch lines were on the money. Those glory days ended with the edifice’s late 1990s demolition — but they’re set to make a virtual return. Denver designer Josh Goldstein is currently working on what he calls a “fully-detailed digital recreation of Cinderella City Mall for a Virtual Reality experience” he hopes to complete by the end of the attraction’s fiftieth anniversary year.

Our Souls at Night, a 2017 Netflix film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, was shot in Colorado, with communities such as Florence, Colorado Springs and Denver benefiting from the dollars spent by the production, which was lured here in part by a $1.5 million in incentives made available through the Colorado Film Commission. But right now, the commission’s funding looks likely to be limited to $750,000, the same amount to which its $3 million budget was slashed last year. That’s too low an amount to attract major Hollywood films, and as evidence, Donald Zuckerman, the state’s film commissioner, reveals that Redford wanted to make his next movie here but decided against it when he learned no economic incentives were available.

At a meeting this afternoon, on March 14, Denver Post editor Lee Ann Colacioppo announced layoffs for thirty employees, constituting nearly one-third of the newsroom staff. It’s the largest example of downsizing at the Post in recent memory and leaves the broadsheet with fewer than 25 percent of newsroomers employed during its peak. Less than a decade ago, around 300 journalists were on the job.