Up from the ashes, city looks to future
LOUISVILLE — It takes years to recover from a disaster such as the 2021 Marshall Fire. Many of the destroyed homes still haven’t been rebuilt. And Louisville endured a fiery debate about city codes and the cost to rebuild versus the desire to protect properties.
What wasn’t lost in the fire is Louisville’s prime location, its foundation of quality housing, and its dedication to being a great place to do business. But the blaze also ignited an ambition to build back better, more affordably and more sustainably.
The City Council in May adopted a sweeping plan focused on having 12% of Louisville’s housing stock be “permanently affordable” through zoning and fee policies designed to increase residential development opportunities, expand access to affordable housing and diversify the city’s housing stock. A month earlier, the council set a goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, partly by reducing all of its municipal, residential, commercial and industrial energy-related emissions 60% below a 2016 baseline level by 2030.
New shops are popping up downtown, redevelopment projects abound throughout the city, and a public-private partnership is remaking the face of Centennial Parkway.
In December, Louisville received a $500,000 grant from Great Outdoors Colorado to help restore parks impacted by the fire.
Many businesses that put down roots in the city are following their dreams and achieving sparkling success – much like the space-systems division of Sierra Nevada Corp., maker of the reusable Dream Chaser orbital spacecraft.
Three Louisville-based companies — Sierra Space, Infleqtion and EOI Space — are among the nine Colorado companies that made the NatSec100 list from the Silicon Valley Defense Group, a Virginia-based nonprofit that seeks “to align and connect the people, capital, and ideas that will ensure allied democracies retain a durable techno-security advantage.” Infleqtion makes software-configured, quantum-enabled products, and EOI Space builds low-flying satellites to collect ultra-high-resolution imagery.
Solid Power’s pilot production line is making silicon, solid-state battery cells to be delivered to its partners Ford Motor Co. and BMW. Quicksilver Scientific Inc., a developer of delivery mechanisms for CBD and other supplements, is bringing its technology stateside as part of a new line of CBD-infused sparkling water made in part by beverage giant Molson Coors Beverage Co.
JumpCloud left Boulder for a new Louisville facility at 361 Centennial Parkway. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. acquired Loxo Oncology Inc. in 2019 in an $8 million deal, and in 2022 the merged companies opened Loxo@Lilly, Lilly’s oncology business unit, in Louisville’s Colorado Technology Center.
The city has two major business parks, with a range of buildings for high-end corporate use such as industrial research and development. Both parks have room to grow. Louisville also serves as headquarters for notable companies such as Gaia Inc., RGS Energy, GHX and many others.
pComing in early 2025 is what is billed as Colorado’s biggest indoor pickleball center when Relish Food Hall and Pickleball opens with 80,000 square feet in a former Sam’s Club building. The new business is expected to feature 20 indoor pickleball courts, two outdoor courts, a food hall with eight different restaurants and plenty of space for the community to gather.