Colorado Gold Mart
Boulevard One Work Underway; Less Parking, Increased Heights Okayed
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nitial work — grading, installation of water mains, storm water, sanitary sewers and construction of new roads — is underway at Boulevard One, the Lowry neighborhood under development that was once the tail end of the historic Runway One at the former Lowry Air Force Base. Work was barely started when the Lowry Redevelopment Authority Board did an about face on plans to increase the amount of parking in the development. Instead of increasing parking to either two or 1.5 spaces per unit, the new code now only requires 0.75 or one space per unit. LRA also voted to include several “conditions” that will further modify the new development. They include an increase in lot coverage; an increase in heights; a decrease in setbacks plus decreasing the amount of parking.
The Lowry Redevelopment Authority is grading the Boulevard One site to create new roads and lots in the first phase of the residential site, south of First Avenue from Magnolia Street to Oneida Court. Five new streets are being graded and will connect to First Ave. They are Magnolia Street, Niagara Street, Newport Street, Oneida Street and Oneida Court. The First Avenue berm is being removed to accommodate the new streets.
Beginning in August overhead utilities on the south side of First Avenue will be removed, and new utilities buried. Then the south side of First Avenue will be improved, with a new sidewalk, street trees and bicycle lane.
The LRA is transplanting a number of mature trees from the First Avenue berm to the south side of First Ave. and to a new park within the Boulevard One site. The varieties include honey locust and Austrian pines. A full-time contractor is hand-watering existing trees throughout the Boulevard One site, including lindens, ash, crabapples, ponderosa pine, blue spruce and scotch pines. These trees will be either transplanted or kept in place. More than 2,500 new trees will be planted in parks and lawns at Boulevard One.
Approximately 130,000 cubic yards of soil is being graded and stockpiled near the center of the Boulevard One site. The stockpiled soil will fill the hole left by the former Defense Finance & Accounting Service Center building. A pavement-recycling program was started in April. There are about 24 acres of roads, parking lots, tennis courts and tarmac on the site. About 54,000 tons are being recycled near Lowry Blvd. and reused as road base and parks materials. More than 16 tons have been recycled to date. Finally, approximately 80 lots for single-family detached homes are being created. Information: 303-326-7102.
Why Didn’t Someone Warn Me Parenting Was Hard?
The best job I’ve ever had and ever will have is being a dad. I can insert hardest, most rewarding, most fun, exciting, before the word “job” in the previous sentence. We’re lucky. Our two sons are healthy, energetic (OK toddler app is energetic, baby app is only two-months-old) and very loving. Yet, there are moments each day that I wonder, “What is going through your head? It was not a good idea to kick the soccer ball off my French doors in the office! Why are you upset all of a sudden? Six hours of Disney Channel is more than enough.” I’m certain I’m not alone. We use as much positive reinforcement as possible. We reference Kiddie, an app based on positive parenting. More importantly, it gives us some ideas to encourage good behavior. It provides ideas around with being sweet, better eating habits and going to bed nicely for our three-year-old. Holy cow! Toddler App’s going to bed routine is an hour long coronation. We love our kiddos, but we’re always open to soaking up ideas around positive parenting. I just hope to keep ahead of my children because I’m certain there will be a day, in the not so distant future, they’ll find an app that will teach them how to drive us nuts.
Of course, we finished our tax return in the 11th hour. Typical procrastinator. Part of the delay was due to the recreation of 2013 data, such as mileage. Luckily, our friend Keith Hollingsworth suggested that we use an app to track our mileage. What? There’s an app for mileage? Genius, Keith! I should’ve known better. One may even call it, eating my own dog food. There is an app, Mileage Log+, which appears to be the most favorable based on features and reviews. I haven’t tried it, because I’m frugal and the app is $9.99. There are free mileage log apps, such as MileIQ, TripLog and Track My Mileage. I like the MileIQ app because it’ll run in the background based on actual mileage. No need to enter miles by trip. Thanks for the suggestion, Keith. My CPA will appreciate my preparedness on April 15, 2015.
Now that baseball is in full swing (yes, that is a bad cliché), I like to have the schedule built into my calendar. In the past, I would download the schedule into my Outlook calendar. It wasn’t ideal, because the download often recreated reminders that would annoy me by July. UpTo is a refreshing way to have the best of both worlds. It is a calendar app that syncs your calendar of choice (i.e. Outlook, Google) with your interests. You are able to add in your favorite television shows, sports teams or topics. At a daily glance, you can view your personal and work calendar along with that evening’s shows, the Red Sox (ok, Rockies) game and any relevant topic (i.e. movie or music releases, this day in history, etc.). Now, you’ll know what you’re up to at a quick view.
A smart practice prior to an initial meeting is to research the individual, learn about their background and find a commonality to break the ice. This requires some time to search each individual. Refresh is an app that syncs with your calendar. There are some similarities between Refresh and UpTo, however Refresh provides the background of your meeting attendees. This app parses multiple social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Twitter and then summarizes their history. Quickly, you can view their hometown, college, work history, interests, recent tweets and LinkedIn posts, your last meeting and mutual connections. I used this app during a phone call to drop a Boston reference knowing that person attended a Boston university. This broke the ice and our conversation around business flowed easily. Lastly, it provides a key tool that many miss, which is the follow up. The app can schedule follow up reminders with notes and list the follow up reminders.
A friend noticed the amount of junk mail on my desk. He suggested PaperKarma to reduce this pile. Thanks Jeremy Tasky! Take a picture of the junk mail address label using the app, and your contact information should be removed from that list. It will not work on labels addressed to “our friends or neighborhood.” I won’t miss the yellow pages. I’m glad Jeremy noticed the pile on the desk and not the pile of laundry outside the office.
I am a heavy user of the app Prezi. As a refresher, Prezi is a creative way to present material instead of using PowerPoint. One of my challenges with Prezi was the inability to advance the presentation without being at my laptop. This affects me because during a live presentation, I need to walk to the laptop to advance the presentation. I have used my iPad with a connection to the projector, however most conference rooms are not set up with an accessible cable. Apptui turns your mobile device into a remote and mouse. Connect your laptop and mobile device to the same wifi network and they’ll connect to each other. This allows me to advance the Prezi presentation from the device without walking back to the laptop. It also eliminates the need of the presentation volunteer that advances the slide for you based on a secret code, “hey, every time I touch my ear, advance the slide.” There are other applications for this app. Since your device is now a remote computer, anything streaming to your laptop can be controlled through the device. You can control Netflix, Vimeo or surf the web from the device.
Do you have a favorite app you’d like to share? Contact Brian at brian@brianzabro ski.com, on Twitter @BrianZab or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/brianzab.
Brian has focused on helping technology companies grow their businesses for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as the Director of Channel Management for a cloud-based software business, which specializes in network monitoring, phone system usage analytics and mobile device analytics. Simply put, if your business’ network, phone system and corporate cell phones are slow, have issues and are expensive, then his software reduces and eliminates these challenges. The software is resold through an international channel of technology partners. He travels across North America educating technology companies how they can increase their business value nearly five-fold through his hybrid managed service selling technique.
Dating Season
The sun is out, the laundry is coming off and hormones are flowing like a spring runoff from the glorious Rockies. In my last column, “Secret Fishing Holes,” I wrote about places where you can find single women who are ready to be reeled in by the guy who is aware of how to use an effective approach. So to sum it up, the last article was all about the catch and this one is to help ensure you don’t end up with a dead fish by night’s end (if you are sensitive because I used a fishing analogy as a dating comparison, you may want to discontinue reading any further).
Dating season is a very important time of year if you’re single. But it can be as depressing as waiting in line at the DMV for what seems like days only to be turned away because you failed to bring all of your documents, forcing you to repeat the process. Date like you’re going to the DMV — be ready and be patient.
It breaks my heart when I hear from guys who tell me stories how “the big one got away,” meaning a woman they were really in to but she slipped through their fingers because they weren’t equipped with the proper technique. Yes, I said technique.
I hope the following dating techniques prove to be helpful to you, leaving your pond stocked for you to enjoy all summer long.
- Get your poop in a group. Personally, if you’ve read my column long enough you would know #1 should go without saying. But just like the DMV the smallest overlooked detail can send you packing. So for the sake of review make sure you are date worthy. Do what you can to be attractive and be aware of what attracts women. Get a haircut and get some color on your skin, it’s June for crying out loud, if you’re still pasty you scream inactive. Freshen up your summer gear and make sure the clothes you choose are geared toward the type of women you’re looking to attract. If you’re looking for an earthy stoner then buy some Birkenstocks and get a tie-dye. You get the picture. Obviously, not everyone can still have a body of a 21-year-old but do what you can to be healthy and feel good enough about the effort you put in, and that will translate into how you carry yourself. Women can sniff out an unconfident man in one-half of one second.
- Have options. Don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Speaking of confidence, I can’t impress upon you enough what confidence does to a woman. It’s a God-given aphrodisiac and it should be used to your full advantage. The key is building real confidence and keeping it while you’re battling all of the other fellow date warriors in this survival of the fittest world. You may say, “How do I build and sustain such confidence?” You’re good, that’s right, have options and lots of them, you’re dating after all. Don’t shoot the messenger but guess what, women like guys that other women want as well. Again, I didn’t write the book of nature, I’m just telling the story. I know it seems twisted and hard to wrap your mind around, but ladies don’t want “relationship guy” right off the bat. Unlike being in a relationship with a woman, when you’re dating she doesn’t want to feel like you need her. A needy guy who she knows will do anything for her at a drop of a dime is what she wants down the road, but not while she’s dating. Remember resistance causes attraction and women love a good chase. They can become more ferocious than men when they have their eye on the prize. Bottom line is having other options creates value and kills the needy bug in you. Remember this tactic only works if you are an open, honest gentleman. Word of warning, when you find a woman who is into you as much as you’re into her, you better start eliminating your rotation, quickly.
- Stay even. In other words, keep your cool. Here’s the deal: you will be tested whether it be by her or yourself. Remember guys, this is dating. This isn’t business where you can conduct yourself and make decisions in a logical, clear, fact-based thought process. Welcome to Emotionville, a town scarier to a man than living in New York, in the classic movie Escape From New York. First off, I say it time and time again; girls just want to have fun. Your biggest challenge while navigating the rough dating waters is to not let your emotions keep you from being upbeat or having a fun and even demeanor. These emotional obstacles could be as simple as having a bad day, perceived rejection, being shy, jealousy, non-ideal surroundings, the list goes on but you get the idea. She is going to test you as well, maybe not consciously, but your emotional limits and stability will be tested. A woman wants to know who she’s dealing with. She ultimately is looking for certain qualities in a man. They want to figure out if you can be strong in adverse situations as well as gauge your patience meter. A man that can take control of a situation with finesse and style wins every time.
If you can manage to go out there in datingland and arm yourself with those three techniques, you might just have yourself a fruitful summer and go into nesting season with quite a catch — no pun intended. If you get your poop in a group you will have more options allowing you to stay even so you can go have fun. Fun is the key boys, fun.
Shameless plug: If you want to read more of my musings or hear the podcast of my dating show “The Modern Dater,” which airs live Saturday nights live at 7 p.m. on 630 KHOW, visit www.themoderndater .com. Have fun and keep it classy!
— Sheik
Rite Aid Bulldozing Historic Portion Of Glendale For Drugstore
by Keith Thompson
Glendale is one of the oldest towns in Colorado formed in 1859 with the building of what is now called Four Mile House by the Bratner brothers who sought to provide meat and produce to the just established city of Denver. The building became known as Four Mile House in the 1860s as it was the last stop on the stagecoach route before Denver, and the house was located four miles from the stage terminus at Broadway and Colfax. Four Mile House is today a park located in both Glendale and Denver.
Rite Aid, the third largest drugstore chain in the United States, is in the process of bulldozing two of the most historic buildings remaining in Glendale to put up a drugstore.
On the chopping block is the 4500 block of Leetsdale Drive just west of South Cherry Street that contains two of the four single family homes in Glendale, and the historic Chicago Dairy barn that, since 1967, housed the oldest sports bar in Denver, Four Mile Bar.
Rite Aid’s History
Rite Aid was founded in 1962 by Alex Grass with the first store called Thrift D Discount Center. In 1968, the name officially changed to Rite Aid Corporation and they made their first public offering and started trading on the American Stock Exchange.
In 2004, Rite Aid’s CEO Martin Glass (son of the founder) was sent to federal prison along with other Rite Aid executives for accounting fraud relating to the company. The company also agreed to pay $7 million to settle allegations that it had engaged in submitting false prescription claims to the federal government relating to United States health insurance programs.
Martin Grass was released from federal prison on January 18, 2010. Founder Alex Grass died of cancer on August 27, 2009.
Historic Glendale
Long before Glendale became Rugbytown USA it was known as Cowtown for the extraordinary number of dairies within the community. At the entrance to the town was a sign on a gas station that declared “Welcome to Cowtown — Where the West Remains.” Among the houses to be bulldozed is the one built by Agnes Riddle, a German dairywoman who was the first female state senator in Colorado. She is also credited for coming up with the name Glendale for the town. Glendale’s prior Recreation Center was named in honor of her. The house sits directly across Leetsdale Drive from the old Glendale Grange building that was built in 1897 and now is a commercial property.
In addition to destroying the Agnes Riddle home the development of the area will also scrap the former Four Mile Bar. The bar was located in a historic barn of the Chicago Dairy founded in the late 19th century by Harvey Sender and built by C. W. Snyder. It was purchased in 1903 by Lee Gasier.
The Chicago Dairy was closed down in 1967 and the old barn was converted into one of Denver’s first sports bars — Four Mile Bar. It was operated by Jack Casey for the next 46 years as a bar until last year when repeated liquor license violations forced the city to revoke the establishment’s liquor license and the property was put up for sale.
The Rite Aid Look
Rite Aid’s at times imperfect reputation extends to the physical look of its stores. “drugstores have never been known for their beauty,” stated John Gay, downtown resident. “But Rite Aid seems to some at times to have almost an intentionally shabby quality to them. Just look at their stores around Denver including the one at University Hills South Shopping Center on Colorado Boulevard. Their seedy look makes you assume that the prices must be rock bottom whether they are or not.”
On the remaining undeveloped ground it has been suggested that a bank might locate on the property. But Gay states, “I don’t see a bank wanting to house next to a Rite Aid. Perhaps a pawn shop or a payday loan operation might be a lot more synergistic.”
After the destruction of the Riddle home and the old Chicago Dairy structure, historic Glendale structures within the city limits are limited to the old Glendale Grange and the manor home of the Cambridge Dairy which was originally located on Colorado Boulevard and Cherry Creek Drive South. When that property was developed in the 1960s the manor home was moved to South Dexter near the Bull & Bush Pub and Brewery.
Few experts believe that the city of Glendale could have done anything to save the historic buildings even if it wanted to. “The property owner gets to develop his property any way he wants within certain parameters and Glendale is in general a fairly libertarian city,” states John Gay. “A drugstore is clearly a legal use. If Leetsdale Drive is now going to be a denser, uglier place what do you think is happening in the Denver portion of that roadway? It’s a brave new world and that is just the way things are today in the area.”
Rite Aid is projected to open in Glendale sometime in 2015.
