Shops at Northfield: Stimulus Act stimulates the Central Park Boulevard Interchange

On a Labor Day detour from DIA, I spent a few hours wandering around the Shops at Northfield. It was a much more successful mission than my first attempt to reach this area, when I exited I-70 on what I thought was the right access road -- and wound up...

By Patricia Calhoun

September 15, 2010

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On a Labor Day detour from DIA, I spent a few hours wandering around the Shops at Northfield. It was a much more successful mission than my first attempt to reach this area, when I exited I-70 on what I thought was the right access road -- and wound up stuck in a hideous traffic jam on I-270 (where, Northfield's website notes, there is "no exit").

A sensible way to reach Northfield was an early casualty of budget-crunching. Since the development opened, the major access has been a circuitous, and confusing, route along Quebec Street.

But that starts changing today, when ground is broken for the Central Park Boulevard Interchange between Quebec and Havana streets, which will provide access both to the shopping development to the north and the Stapleton neighborhood to the south. The construction is funded by the Better Denver Bond Program and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- and this is one stimulus project that should really stimulate some business.

And at least save someone else from getting stuck on that "no-exit" I-270.

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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