Sweetheart City pulses with business heartbeat
LOVELAND — When Loveland’s Pulse municipal broadband service was rated best in the nation by PCMag this summer, it symbolized the Sweetheart City’s high speed of growth and development, from new retail-targeted efforts to residential projects and a continuing commitment to culture.
Despite its contentious politics and often heated debates among residents, Loveland works to lure business and industry to its central spot on the booming northern Front Range urban corridor and persuade tourists headed for Rocky Mountain National Park that this city “on the way up” is worth more than a brief visit or a pass-through.
Progress is happening downtown with the $24.5 million Heart Improvement Plan, locally known as the “HIP Streets” project, an initiative talked about for nearly 16 years that is designed to transform a five-block stretch of Fourth Street between Jefferson and Garfield avenues into a modern community hub.
Part of that downtown revival is embodied by the largest redevelopment effort in its history: the $76 million Foundry project. Minnesota-based nonprofit Artspace is redeveloping Loveland’s historic Feed and Grain building to provide live-work space for artists and others, and The Rialto Bridge Project included an expansion and renovation of the city’s historic Rialto Theater.
Progress is happening downtown with the $24.5 million Heart Improvement Plan, locally known as the “HIP Streets” project, an initiative talked about for nearly 16 years that is designed to transform a five-block stretch of Fourth Street between Jefferson and Garfield avenues into a modern community hub.”
On Loveland’s eastern edge, online retailer Amazon has a 3.87 million-square-foot fulfillment and distribution facility — one of Loveland’s largest-ever developments and one of Amazon’s largest facilities — waiting to come to life and employ around 1,000 people to work alongside robots to fill customers’ orders. Nearby, a new U.S. Customs office hit full stride at Discovery Air, adjacent to Northern Colorado Regional Airport. Jointly owned by Loveland and Fort Collins, the airport last fall opened a $22 million,19,400-square-foot, two-gate terminal, and will widen the main runway in 2026 in hopes of luring scheduled airline service back to the facility.
Just across Interstate 25, a 130,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shops megastore will soon join the area’s crowded cohort of outdoor retailers.
Meanwhile, one of the city’s most controversial projects, McWhinney Real Estate Services Inc.’s Centerra South, finally survived voter and council opposition and will add up to 2,277 housing units in the 150-acre South development. Just to its east, Evergreen DevCo Inc.’s partnership with Schmer Family Farm Inc. also won a green light to build a 30-acre commercial development, potentially including a King Soopers and a gas station, on the northwest corner of the 119-year-old farm.
Elsewhere in the city, a zoning change was approved that will allow the Loveland Housing Authority to build Legacy Crossing, an affordable-housing development on a 74-acre tract it bought in 2023 that includes the 16-acre Crossroads Church campus southeast of 57th Street and Taft Avenue.
To make more room for city services and departments, councilors approved the $12 million purchase of an 89,000-square-foot administration building and an adjacent 33,000-square-foot warehouse on Loveland’s west side, both of which have been used by Group Publishing Inc., a 51-year-old provider of curriculum materials for youth and adult Sunday-school and vacation-Bible-school classes. It also bought a 6,000-square-foot unit in the former outlet mall complex now known as Loveland Yards.
Loveland is world famous for its annual program in which valentine cards are funneled through its post office to have holiday postmarks added.
McKee Medical Center and the Medical Center of the Rockies — now designated a Level 1 trauma center — top the city’s employment charts. Banner Health is adding new mental-health services for older patients at McKee, while UCHealth made MCR the first hospital in the Rocky Mountain region to offer the implantable Remede System for patients with central sleep apnea.
The Colorado Eagles, a minor-league professional hockey franchise, play at the county-owned Ranch Events Complex — at least until a new home is built for them on the west side of Greeley — and the annual Loveland Sculpture in the Park exhibit brings artists from all over the world.