Top White Elephant Gifts of 2017

Each year around this time since 2010, we’ve spotlighted the top White Elephant gifts as chosen by the folks at ARC Thrift Stores. And this year, the five selections, pictured below, contain a twist for yours truly. Turns out I already own an item just like the number one choice and consider it to be a treasure than transcends the White Elephant concept.

See the Most Expensive Homes for Sale in Denver Right Now

Over the years in this space, we’ve periodically offered mini-tours of the most expensive homes for sale in Denver. And comparing the six priciest listings at present to the ones in our previous roundup, published in October 2016, demonstrates that the prices for luxury properties in the Mile High City remain sky high, even if they’ve moderated a bit.

Denver Rent Increases in 2017 Were Even Worse Than You Thought

As we’ve reported, rent prices have finally started to moderate in Denver. But these shifts follow a long period in which rental costs have continued to go up and up and up in the Mile High City’s red-hot housing market. Even with recent improvements, rents for one-bedroom apartments during the course of 2017 have increased by well over 15 percent, a rate that’s the third highest out of one-hundred large and mid-size cities across the country.

How Long You Can Live in Denver on $1 Million

Once upon a time, the average person thought of $1 million as an enormous sum on which members of a family could live in luxury for the rest of their lives if only such an amount was within their reach, which it wasn’t. But times have changed. A new study suggests that $1 million is now a reasonable total to set aside for retirement, and even those who manage to do so may eventually run out of cash. That includes people who settle in Denver, which is ranked in the lower half of major cities when it comes to stretching these seven figures.

The Colorado Cities Home Buyers Would Rather Move to Than Denver

In recent years, people have been moving to Denver in droves, lighting an even larger fire under the already red hot housing housing market in the Mile High City. And even though local home prices have moderated to some degree in recent months, a new analysis suggests that Colorado Springs and Boulder are currently more appealing to potential buyers than is Denver.

How You Can Get a Black Friday Deal on a New House

Black Friday bargains don’t typically include discounts on real estate in Colorado or anywhere else. But one company is making just such an offer from Thanksgiving afternoon through Cyber Monday in Denver, where the head of the firm predicts costs will remain high for the foreseeable future.

Alan Roach Could Be Delaying the Departure of This Train

In mid-November, Denver International Airport announced a contest to find replacements for train announcers Adele Arakawa and Alan Roach. Just one problem: Unlike Arakawa, who retired this summer, Roach still lives in Denver, despite his high-profile gig as announcer of the Minnesota Vikings.

The One Thing Hyperloop Must Do to Avoid Becoming a Disaster

In September, Hyperloop One, whose high-tech tube transportation concept is central to a firm affiliated with billionaire Elon Musk, of Tesla Motors and SolarCity fame, identified a route largely based in Colorado as one of the ten strongest in the world and entered into a public-private partnership with the Colorado Department of Transportation to launch a feasibility study here. An author who promoted a similar concept in a book published fourteen years ago, cheers this development, but he argues that if the system is built above ground, as opposed to employing tunnels, it won’t succeed and could turn into a disaster.

RiNo Store Pops Up at the Source, Not Denver Airport

The RiNo Made Pop Up Shop just popped up at the Source, offering a preview of the goods that RiNo residents and businesses will be selling at a permanent RiNo Made shop, slated to open in early 2018 right next to a new RiNo Art District Office in Zeppelin Station…

Where You’ll Be Able to See Hyperloop-Inspired Arrivo Test Track and More

Mere months from now, Denver-area drivers traveling near the intersection of Interstate 25 and E-470 will be able to see construction getting underway on a test track for Arrivo, a hyperloop-inspired transportation system previewed in this space yesterday. Newly released images and maps shared here present visions of a future in which vehicles on a magnetic-levitation track will run alongside traditional roadways, except they’ll be moving at a speed of approximately 300 miles per hour, covering distances that currently take an hour or more to cover in mere minutes.

Why Today Is Not Accused Groper Jack Grynberg Day

On November 1, the Jewish National Fund announced an event scheduled for today in honor of oil tycoon Jack Grynberg, a past Westword profile subject. The release noted that Governor John Hickenlooper would officially declare November 14 “Jack Grynberg Day,” with his chief of staff, Doug Friednash, scheduled to present the proclamation in person. But the get-together has been called off at the last minute amid uncomfortable headlines about sexual-harassment accusations made against the 85-year-old Grynberg by former employees. And now, all parties concerned, including Hickenlooper, are trying to distance themselves from potential embarrassment over association with an alleged groper in the age of Harvey Weinstein.

Colorado Wins Hyperloop-Like Arrivo Test Track

Today, November 14, two months to the day since Hyperloop One named the Rocky Mountain Hyperloop proposal a winner of its Global Challenge to “identify the strongest new Hyperloop routes in the world,” the Colorado Department of Transportation is announcing that Arrivo, a hyperloop-like transportation system, has agreed to build a test track in the Denver metro area. The location will be revealed at a press conference this morning.