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Colorado - Tue. 05/05/26 |
A Free Business Publication from Alpine Bank
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HOTTEST TICKET IN TOWN? STILL COULD BE FOR THE BRONCOS
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Fans love a winner, and the resurgent year for the Denver Broncos last season proves the point as the deadline just passed for renewing season tickets and the 99.5 percent renewal was a team record. Bronco fans have always been in the top five for season ticket renewal but as team president Damani Leech said of the 99.5 percent renewal, “That’s an all-time record for the Broncos, which is great.” The record renewal rate comes despite the club raising season-ticket prices by an average of 9 percent for the 2026 season. That increase is in line with the league average and slightly below the average increase of postseason teams a year ago. The Broncos are set to host eight regular-season games and two pre-season games in 2026. In addition to AFC West division foes Kansas City, the Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas, Denver hosts Miami and then four 2025 playoff teams in Buffalo, Jacksonville, the Los Angeles Rams and Super Bowl champion Seattle.
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COLORADO FACING CRITICAL WILDFIRE SEASON: RESOURCES IN PLACE
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Gov. Jared Polis and top firefighting leaders unveiled Colorado’s 2026 Wildfire Preparedness Plan to the press Thursday at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, stressing increased resources while urging public vigilance to prevent ignitions:
- 95 percent of the state is expected to be in drought conditions in June and July
- Colorado typically sees 6,000 to 7,000 wildfires in an average year
- Mike Morgan, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, said state aircraft have dropped nearly 200,000 gallons of retardant in the first 117 days of 2026
Colorado wildfire aircraft:
- 2 Pilatus PC-12 multi-mission fixed-wing aircraft outfitted with infrared and electro-optical sensors for early detection, real-time fire mapping and intelligence gathering. These high-performance turboprops, equipped with Skylink Wi-Fi for direct connections to fire managers on the ground, can reach any fire in Colorado quickly at speeds over 300 mph after roughly two hours of preflight
- A large air tanker under exclusive-use contract for 120 days per year
- 2 AT-802F high-performance single-engine air tankers, each capable of delivering 800 gallons of retardant
- 2 Type 1 Firehawk helicopters; and 2 Type 2 helicopters - The Firehawks offer multi-role capability beyond wildfires, including search and rescue
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- Denver Gazette, 05.01.26
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CU-BOULDER TO OPEN ITS FIRST RESIDENCE HALL IN 7 YEARS THIS FALL
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In August, the University of Colorado Boulder will open Code Talker Hall, a 129,000-square-foot residence hall at Athens and 19th Street, the first new residence hall since 2019. The new residence hall is designed to meet the needs for housing returning students on campus and will feature an all-electric food service facility, the first of its kind at CU Boulder. The apartment-style units will include all-electric kitchens, and the design uses 23 percent less energy than CU Boulder’s average residence hall. The campus will also plant 600 new trees and native shrubs to landscape the exterior.
Code Talker Hall will have about 330 beds for returning students. In addition to this new residence hall, CU Boulder announced last year that it would enter into a partnership with a private developer to construct a roughly 1,650-person capacity student housing building on Colorado Avenue next to the University Heights neighborhood. The Colorado Avenue project will also be designed for returning students with suites and apartments.
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- Boulder Daily Camera, 04.30.26
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BLM: MORE OIL & LEASES TO BE OFFERED
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After receiving public comments on the proposed sale of oil and gas leases in northwest Colorado, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will proceed with the offering of 156,816 acres of leases in a June 16 sale. The initial proposal had 160,000 acres and the BLM has since removed four parcels from the June sale and reduced a fifth. The sale will include more than 100,000 acres in Moffat County; 27,107 acres in Rio Blanco County; 10,175 acres in Garfield County; and also 3,566 acres in Mesa County. The lease sale also includes acreage in Routt, Jackson, Weld and Arapahoe counties.
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- GJ Daily Sentinel, 05.02.26
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LUDWIGS HONORED WITH CATTLEMEN OF THE YEAR AWARD
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At the 76th annual banquet of the La Plata-Archuleta County Cattlemen’s Association, Gerald and Phyliss Ludwig were named the 2026 Cattlemen of the Year. The Ludwig family has a longstanding ranching history, dating back to the Pine River Valley in 1884, when the family first settled in what is now known as Ludwig Mountain in the Bear Creek area. Although their cattle ranch just outside of Bayfield is small, Wayne Jeffries, former president of the cattlemen's association said the Ludwigs represent the “very foundation of ranching heritage.” The size of the ranch is not what makes or breaks a potential award recipient, Jefferies said. The award is meant to celebrate dedication, stewardship and commitment to the preservation of the community agricultural traditions.
The Cattleman’s Association was founded in 1950 and has evolved to help ranchers address modern challenges such as drought and wolves. It regularly hosts speakers and clinics focused on solutions to common challenges facing local ranchers.
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- Durango Herald, 05.02.26
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USFS GIVES FINAL OK TO CONTROVERSIAL POWERLINE THROUGH MINTURN
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Last Thursday, April 30, the U.S. Forest Service announced its final approval for the Avon-Gilman power transmission line, which runs on Forest Service land for 3.3 miles north of Minturn. The final design of the 8.9-mile-long transmission line includes a mix of overhead and underground segments, with approximately 4.1 miles buried and 4.8 miles overhead across all land ownerships. While the project is described as an Avon-to-Gilman transmission line, it won’t actually run through the town of Avon. The line will start at a substation east of Avon, passing through Minturn and terminate at a substation just above Gilman. The approval is a long time in process, as the proposal first was generated in 2017.
It also has been controversial as well with concerns ranging from wildfire risk and scenic impacts to questions about emergency responses staging near Minturn and Homestake Peak School. Those concerns were apparent in the objections to the draft decision released by the USFS in September 2025. In response, federal reviewers later concluded that the agency had “adequately considered a range of alternatives, scenery, and safety issues associated with the transmission line,” clearing the way for final approval. In the final decision issued Thursday, Forest Supervisor Brian Glaspell said the project would not significantly affect the human environment and therefore did not require a full environmental impact statement.
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- vaildaily.com, 04.30.26
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SHOCK AT THE PUMP? GAS PRICES SOAR
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On Friday, the national average for regular gasoline hit $4.39 a gallon, a whopping 33-cent increase over the price on Friday, April 24. Americans basically spent some $125 million more at the pump on Friday than they did a week earlier, as on a typical day, Americans pump about 375 million gallons of gas. Gas prices have not reached historical highs, in fact just four years ago, June 2022, the price was $5.07 a gallon. However, the short, seven-day increase is unprecedented, and just nine weeks earlier, right before the Iran war started, the price of gas at the pump was $1.41 lower. Of course, gas prices are not expected to remain this high, but economists note that if gasoline stayed at $4 a gallon, Americans would spend about $90 billion more at the pump than they would were gas at $3 a gallon.
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- Wall Street Journal, 05.01.26
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GOV’T LOAN PROGRAM FAILS & JET FUEL COSTS SOAR: SPIRIT AIRLINES CALLS IT QUITS
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Spirit Airlines, the carrier with bright yellow planes and cheap fares, has been battling to stay operational, cutting flights, and considering bailout options while in its second bankruptcy since November 2024. In the early morning Saturday, Spirit Airlines ceased operations after the carrier’s bondholders could not agree to terms with a $500 million loan proposed by President Donald Trump which could have given the government up to a 90 percent stake in the Florida-based airline. The airline had expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection midyear before the jump in fuel prices but still had many of the same problems. Jet fuel costs have doubled in some places since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Dave Davis, CEO of Spirit, said that the “sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices in recent weeks ultimately has left us with no alternative but to pursue an orderly wind-down of the Company.
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SPAWNED FROM ECONOMIC CHAOS, GJ’s BUSINESS INCUBATOR STILL A WINNER
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It was 44 years ago, May 2, 1982, that Exxon announced it was abandoning its oil shale operations near Parachute, laying off more than 2,000 workers, and plunging the entire Western Slope into an economic depression. Following that Black Sunday and its consequences, in 1985, leaders in Grand Junction, Mesa County and across the Western Slope worked for a year on a plan to create a means for supporting and building businesses across the region. What emerged in 1986 was the Western Colorado Business Development Corporation, better known as the Business Incubator Center (BIC). The BIC had a five-part orientation: Business Development, Space & Tools, Capital & Business Loans, Grants & Incentives, and Innovation & Labs.
Now, 40 years later, the BIC 47-acre campus has more than 165 startup businesses incubating at any time and works with more than 1,000 existing small businesses and entrepreneurs in Mesa County annually. BIC officials say they’ve helped launch 2,284 companies from their bustling warehouse on Legacy Way in Grand Junction, 86 percent of which are still in business after five years. They’ve generated more than $357 million in direct revenues, created or retained more than 14,000 jobs, deployed 676 loans and leveraged more than $80 million in capital as administrators of the Mesa County Enterprise Zone that was created through the state’s Office of Economic Trade and International Development and examined every decade to make sure they’re still needed based on economic factors of the area such as unemployment, wage growth and population data. Go to gjincubator.org/ for complete information on BIC's services and operations.
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DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL: BEST PLACES TO WORK 2026
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The Denver Business Journal teamed with Quantum Workplace to identify the region’s Best Places to Work. The 2026 list includes 65 companies from across the Denver-metropolitan area, judged by those who know the organizations best: their employees. Each company nominated as one of Denver’s Best Places to Work administered a multiple-choice survey to all of its employees through Quantum Workplace. The survey measured 10 key engagement categories. They include team effectiveness, trust in senior leaders, feeling valued, manager effectiveness, compensation, benefits and more. The top places to work, in each category:
- Small: Keller Williams Integrity, Denver
- Medium: High Country Search Group, Denver
- Large: Kind Home Painting Company, Denver
- Extra-Large: RefiJet, Centennial
- Giant: Plante Moran, Denver
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- Denver Business Journal, 05.01.26
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COLORADO LOST MORE JOBS IN PUBLIC LANDS THAN ANY STATE IN THE WEST
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Prospect Partners, a consulting firm that works with mid-sized and growing businesses, produced a study of government workforce data that documented the number of public lands jobs eliminated last year as a result of Dept. of Government Efficiency cuts. Overall, DOGE cut nearly 300,000 federal jobs, which included 6,000 public lands jobs at 10 federal agencies in six Western states.
The public lands jobs cut in Colorado in 2025:
- U.S. Forest Service: 337 jobs; 19 percent of USFS workforce in Colorado
- Bureau of Land Management: 336; 36 percent of BLM workforce
- Bureau of Reclamation: 317; 27 percent of workforce
- National Park Service: 294; 28 percent of workforce
- U.S. Geological Survey: 282; 26 percent of workforce
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LOOKING FOR AFFORDABLE PLACES TO LIVE IN COLORADO…GO EAST
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Niche, a website that analyzes real estate and community data, ranked thousands of cities across the U.S. based on their relative cost of living. It considered the consumer price index and access to affordable housing (defined in part by the ratio of housing costs to income) in making its picks. Walsenburg, sitting where the Front Range and Eastern Plains meet, was named Colorado’s most affordable place to live. Six of the top 10 places were on the Eastern Plains.
Niche's most affordable places to live in Colorado 2026:
- Walsenburg
- Friendly Village (neighborhood in Aurora)
- Lamar
- La Junta
- Brush
- Rocky Ford
- Monte Vista
- Las Animas
- Federal Heights
- Burlington
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- Yahoo Finance, 04.29.26
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MARKET UPDATE - 05/04/2026 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 04/30/2026)
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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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