Heartbeat of business powers Sweetheart City
LOVELAND — The self-proclaimed “Sweetheart City” continues to earn the love of residents and businesses alike, luring new retail and office developments, residential projects and a continuing commitment to culture.
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.
Development plans are booming, especially on Loveland’s eastern edge. The Promenade Shops at Centerra, redevelopment of the Ranch events complex, and the promise of more development along the Interstate 25 corridor have boosted Loveland’s economic momentum.
The heartbeat is strong in the self-proclaimed “Sweetheart City” with new retail and office developments, residential projects and a continuing commitment to culture.
Centerra South, a planned unit development from McWhinney Real Estate Services Inc., has apparently survived a year of political and legal fireworks.
Nearby, online retailer Amazon is opening a 3.87 million-square-foot fulfillment and distribution facility — one of Loveland’s largest-ever developments and one of Amazon’s largest facilities — on newly annexed land, employing around 1,000 employees to work alongside robots to fill customers’ orders.
New arrivals include Scotland-based agricultural infrastructure company Intelligent Growth Solutions as well as a 123,000-square-foot, wind-powered production facility for snack-maker Bobo’s.
Loveland is world famous for its annual program in which valentine cards are funneled through its post office to have holiday postmarks added.
Largely driven by the arts, Loveland has poured money and time into renovating its downtown and supporting local business. Part of that downtown revival is embodied by the largest redevelopment effort in its history: the $76 million Foundry project. Minnesota-based nonprofit Artspace redeveloped 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.
On the city’s south side, the Forge campus — formerly home to Hewlett-Packard Co. — is becoming a hotbed for innovation, including a “Colorado Technology Center” being launched by Gillig LLC, a Livermore, California-based manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses, in part of the space that had been occupied by the collapsed company Lightning eMotors.
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 Ranch, and the annual Loveland Sculpture in the Park exhibit brings artists from all over the world.
A U.S. Customs office opened this spring at Discovery Air, adjacent to Northern Colorado Regional Airport. Jointly owned by Loveland and Fort Collins, the airport continues to watch the progress of an experimental remote air traffic control tower. Officials broke ground last summer for a $22 million,19,400-square-foot, two-gate terminal and will widen the main runway in 2025 in hopes of luring scheduled airline service back to the airport