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Colorado - Fri. 07/10/26 |
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DENVER UNVEILS $100 MILLION JOBS PLAN TO REVIVE STRUGGLING DOWNTOWN
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Denver’s mayor and economic development officials are trying to give Denver’s struggling downtown economy a shot in the arm via several programs totaling $101.5 million in investments to help create 10,000 jobs over the next three years, the mayor announced Thursday. A mix of existing and new programs has been combined into a collective blueprint dubbed the Denver Jobs Agenda. Designed to encourage new businesses to launch in Denver, grow existing small businesses, attract major employers from elsewhere and train and connect Denverites with high-quality jobs, the programs and their funding are as follows:
- Launch Denver: $6 million for Denver entrepreneurs to launch their businesses.
- BUILD (Business Investments, Loans and Development) Denver: $10.5 million in a revolving loan fund for Denver small businesses.
- Open Denver: $40 million to attract businesses, jobs and employees downtown.
- Work Denver: $45 million to provide training, credentialing and connection with jobs.
Out of the four programs, three were recently introduced and funded. In June, the Downtown Denver Development Authority approved $40 million for the Open Denver program and $4.5 million for Launch Denver (another $1.5 million will come from Denver Economic Development & Opportunity). Launched in early June, the BUILD Denver program is supported by the Herman Malone Special Revenue Fund, which was created in 2022. Most of Work Denver's funding comes from federal sources. About $1 million of the total funding comes from the city. The city also launched its Denver Green Workforce Hub, a $2 million-plus investment meant to train 750 residents for jobs in green construction, electrification, energy efficiency and resilience projects. The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Development Corp. reported that it is working with 52 active prospects considering moving to the Denver area, representing over 12,000 jobs and over $12 billion in investment.
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SCHOOL OFFERS AIRLINE PILOT TRAINING AT FNL
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ATP Flight School is expanding its Colorado footprint with the opening of a new airline pilot training center at Northern Colorado Regional Airport in Loveland. The new location at the airport codenamed FNL joins ATP’s existing Colorado centers at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Centennial Airport (APA) and Colorado Springs Airport (COS), expanding access to professional, airline-focused flight training. Both the school’s full-time Airline Career Pilot Program and part-time Flex Commercial Pilot Program are available at the airport. Students can begin with no experience and work toward an airline career, supported by ATP’s 38 airline-backed career tracks, access to every regional airline cadet program and structured career progression to major airlines such as American, Delta and United.
ATP, a 40-year-old company headquartered in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, is enrolling at Northern Colorado Regional Airport, with classes starting every Monday. Students can get started with a no-obligation introductory flight and explore airline pilot training firsthand by scheduling at ATPFlightSchool.com/schedule-flight.
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VICTOR MARX NARROWLY WINS REPUBLICAN PRIMARY FOR COLORADO GOVERNOR
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Victor Marx, the leader of a faith-based nonprofit whose unconventional campaign and hotly contested claims about his life have grabbed national attention, will be the Republican nominee for Colorado governor this November. The Associated Press called the race for Marx at 4 p.m. Thursday, July 9, nine days after voting ended in the state’s primary elections. Marx had been locked in a tight contest with state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer. While Kirkmeyer maintained a narrow lead over Marx on election night, Marx overtook her less than 24 hours later as ballots were counted. He currently leads Kirkmeyer by 2,515 votes, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office as of 4 p.m. Thursday. Marx was winning 39.87 percent of the vote to Kirkmeyer’s 39.39 percent, with 521,938 votes cast. Their other opponent, state Rep. Scott Bottoms, was in a distant third with 20.75 percent. Marx’s margin of victory is just outside the threshold for an automatic recount.
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ANOTHER RECORD YEAR FOR THE OUTDOORS AS PARTICIPATION SURGES PAST BOOZE
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It’s official: The outdoors beats beer. The outdoor industry counted 183.2 million Americans getting outside in 2025, or about 59 percent of everyone in the country older than age 5. “That’s more participation than booze,” says Kelly Davis, the data-crunching boss at the Outdoor Industry Association, pointing to surveys showing about 54 percent of Americans say they drink alcohol. “We are in a good place.” The annual Outdoor Industry Association participation report for decades triggered handwringing by outdoor boosters lamenting a lack of engagement. For years, they could not move the needle past 50 percent of the country playing outside. Now, for the fourth year in a row, record numbers of people are going outside.
- The outdoor recreation movement has added more than 30 million Americans since the pandemic. Americans age 65 and older are among the fastest growing demographic in outdoor recreation, up more than 12 million in the last decade.
- And kids are fueling the boom too, with 22.6 million youngsters between 6 and 12 heading outside, up 5 percent from 2024.
- But the pace of growth is slowing. The association counted Americans going outside 11.9 billion times, or an average of 65.2 times a year for those outdoor participants. That’s down from more than 87 outdoor excursions a year in 2012.
- Young adults are not heading outdoors like they did coming out of the pandemic. The 18-to-24 and 25-to-36 cohorts are the only age groups to report declining outdoor participation in 2025.
- For several years in a row, the most popular activities have remained hiking, running, fishing, camping and biking. Camping is what outdoor-recreation boosters call a gateway pursuit. A person spending the night outdoors tends to be participating in a lot of other activities, and there’s growing recognition that getting more people outside for a night can be the key to even more surging participation.
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PITCO COMMISSIONERS SEEKING TO POOL ADDITIONAL WATER RIGHTS
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The Pitkin Board of County Commissioners is moving forward with another water rights acquisition that could bolster streamflows in the Roaring Fork River. On the table this time are 4.68 shares in the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Company for $441,000, plus $1,500 in closing costs. That’s in addition to 60 shares the county bought from the same company earlier this year, in a package deal that also included 34 shares from the Fountain Mutual Ditch Company for $6.8 million with commission and transaction costs factored in. In both cases, the money comes from the county’s Healthy Rivers and Streams fund, which is backed by a 0.1 percent voter-approved sales tax. This latest purchase would pull directly from the fund, while the bigger purchase draws $1 million from the fund with the rest covered by a bond paid back over time with the sales tax revenue.
The water from these 4.68 shares is currently diverted from the Western Slope to the other side of the Continental Divide, stored but unused in Twin Lakes. If Pitkin County goes through with the purchase, this water would be “captured and released to the Roaring Fork River during the irrigation season and then ferried down the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers for subsequent use,” according to a memo from Deputy County Attorney Anne Marie McPhee and Healthy Rivers and Streams Manager Lisa MacDonald. County commissioners approved both the acquisition itself and the budget allocation to pay for it on first reading Wednesday, with a second reading and public hearing set for July 22 and a closing date anticipated Sept. 5.
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STEAMBOAT SPRINGS AWARDED $2.7M GRANT FOR HOUSING SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
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The city of Steamboat Springs has secured a $2.7 million grant from the Colorado Energy Office’s Local IMPACT Accelerator Program to support housing, sustainability and climate-related efforts. The funding is aimed at strengthening long-term community resilience through expanded housing access, improved energy efficiency and more sustainable public infrastructure. City officials plan to use a portion of the funding to revise land use codes in ways that promote a broader mix of housing types, such as accessory dwelling units, multifamily developments and mixed-use projects. The effort also includes a regional housing land analysis focused on identifying underutilized parcels across the Yampa Valley that could be viable for future affordable housing.
Together, the initiatives are intended to guide growth while increasing availability of housing options for local residents. Additional funding will support design and planning work for energy upgrades at the Parks and Recreation Campus and Howelsen Ice Arena. Proposed improvements include exploring a geothermal heating system and transitioning to more efficient electric heating and cooling technologies. Those investments are expected to reduce overall energy consumption, cut greenhouse gas emissions and deliver long-term operational and environmental benefits.
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COMMERCIAL VACANCY STUDY SHOWS OVER 12% OF DILLON TOWN CORE BUSINESS SPACE IS UNUSED
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Dillon Town Council members in May asked town staff to conduct an audit of available commercial space in the town, and at the council’s July 7 work session, staff presented the results. The study broke the town into four commercial areas, including the town core, which has been the focus of redevelopment efforts in recent years. In that area, which is within and around La Bonte Street, Buffalo Street and Lake Dillon Drive, vacancy rate as a percentage of available commercial square footage sits at just over 12 percent.
The area with the highest vacancy rate was Little Beaver Trail, which includes the Super 8 motel as well as one building that has one vacant unit with a rough square footage equal to 22 percent of the leasable square footage in the area. Anemone Trail, an area that includes Christy Sports and Saved by the Wine, has a 4 percent vacancy rate, with three available units across two of its 11 buildings. The final area, the Dillon Ridge Marketplace, had the lowest vacancy rate at 1 percent. Two of its 20 buildings have four total vacant units. Overall, the town’s vacancy rate sits at 6 percent, with about 52,000 square feet of available space across 26 open units. The Town Council had requested the audit to inform its efforts to fill vacancies.
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JUNE HOME SALES DISAPPOINT AS PRICES REACH AN ALL-TIME HIGH
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High mortgage rates coupled with record-high prices are causing homebuyers to pull back. Sales of previously owned homes in June dropped 2.4 percent from May to 4.09 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Housing analysts were predicting a slight gain month over month. June sales were, however, 2.8 percent higher than the same month a year prior. This count represents closed sales, so contracts that were likely signed in May, when the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was still moving higher. It began rising sharply at the start of March at the beginning of the Iran war.
- Inventory at the end of June was 1.56 million units, down 0.6 percent from May but 1.3 percent higher than June 2025. At the current sales pace, that represents a 4.6-month supply. The market is considered balanced between buyer and seller at a six-month supply.
- With the market still lean, prices continue to rise. The median price of an existing home sold in June was $440,600, an increase of 1.8 percent from the year before and the highest on record. June is usually the strongest month for both sales and prices.
- Sales continue to be strongest on the higher end of the market. Sales of homes priced below $100,000 were down 1.7 percent from a year ago, and sales of those priced between $100,000 and $250,000 were up less than 1 percent.
- Sales of homes priced between $750,000 and $1 million were up nearly 14 percent from the year before.
- Sales of homes priced above $1 million were up 18 percent.
- Regionally, home sales were down in June month over month everywhere except in the Northeast.
- One quarter of all sales were all-cash, down from 29 percent last year. First-time buyers made up 33 percent of sales, up from 30 percent a year ago.
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SOLO TRAVEL SOARS: RECORD-BREAKING INTEREST LEVELS REPORTED FOR 2026
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This year has seen the largest increase in interest in solo travel ever, with 1.6 million searches of “solo travel” during the month of January alone, according to The Luxury Solo Travel Report just issued by safari company Go2Africa. Based on an analysis of Go2Africa’s proprietary customer data, along with third-party search data, the report also shows that searches for solo travel terms have increased 230 percent in 10 years, with the highest searches around travel tips, female solo travel and group solo travel. There’s serious money to be made by catering to solo travelers. In the U.S. alone, the solo travel market was valued at $95 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach over $190 billion by 2030, according to separate data published by Research and Markets.
Here are some of the additional solo travel highlights from the Go2Africa report:
- In the United States, the highest current searches for ‘solo travel’ happened in June of 2025. However, this accomplishment is expected to be beaten in June 2026 with monthly searches predicted to reach over 8,000.
- Search interest was strongest in a number of states, including North Dakota, Vermont, and Arkansas.
- On a per-person basis, solo travelers actually outspend couples, spending 42.8 percent more on average.
- 30.1 percent of solo travelers prefer to travel for roughly 10 days.
- Solo travelers are more intentional in their planning, often researching their trips in advance and arriving with a clear destination in mind.
- Solo travelers are a highly decisive group, with 81.18 percent having a clear idea of where they want to go before booking a trip. This is up from 72.83 percent in 2024.
While solo travelers can be found exploring the world in many different ways, internal data from Go2Africa reveals that this demographic is especially interested in pursuing safaris. In fact, solo globetrotters were the only type of traveler to show an increase year-on-year within Go2Africa’s customer base, rising from 13 percent of inquiries in 2024 to 15.42 percent in 2025. And there’s yet another interesting takeaway from the Go2Africa analysis. Solo travelers from the U.S. make up the biggest number of globetrotters interested in safaris. They amounted to more than 50 percent of Go2Africa’s customers. Moreover, there was a 26.26 percent increase in this customer segment for Go2Africa between 2024 to 2025.
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MARKET UPDATE - 07/09/2026 Close
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(Courtesy of Alpine Bank Wealth Management*)
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Canadian dollar (per U.S. dollar)
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Mexican peso (per U.S. dollar)
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30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac 07/09/2026)
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*Not FDIC insured. May lose value. Not guaranteed by the bank.
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Alpine Bank is an independent, employee-owned organization with headquarters in Glenwood Springs and banking offices across Colorado's Western Slope, mountains and Front Range. Alpine Bank serves customers with retail, business, wealth management*, mortgage and electronic banking services. Learn more at alpinebank.com.
*Alpine Bank Wealth Management services are not FDIC insured, may lose value and are not guaranteed by the bank.
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