EDGEWATER MAYOR Edgewater Civic Center Opening, City Information Page 4
LOCAL NEWS Builders Top Off Lakehouse Residences Off Sloan’s Lake Page 5
NEIGHBORHOOD ARTS Sparkling Holiday Season In The Art District Page 9
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Gazette NEIGHBORHOOD
EDGEWATER
| SLOAN’S LAKE | WEST COLFAX | TWO CREEKS | WEST HIGHLAND November 14 – December 17, 2018 • ngazette.com • FREE
Behind The Scenes As Civic Center Nears Completion n By
Mike McKibbin
D
rills punched holes in walls, sanders smoothed steps and workers scurried hurriedly from room to room and fl oor to fl oor as Edgewater’s new civic center neared completion on a recent sunny Monday afternoon. City Manager H.J. Stalf happily looked around in anticipation of the local government’s new home, a 55,000-square-foot building at 1800 Harlan St. In November 2016, more than 80 percent of Edgewater voters approved building the civic center in Walker Branch Park, on the east side of Harlan Street between 16th and 18th avenues. Voters approved two questions: The fi rst allowed the use of the parkland and the second increased city debt by $7 million. The total cost will be around $12.5 million, Stalf said, and will be paid for through a 25-year lease-purchase agreement known as certifi cates of participation, or COPS, and marijuana tax revenue. The latter funding source is limited to capital purchases, Stalf added, so all the furniture and equipment A WORKER INSTALLS THE SIGN AT THE NEW LOCATION of the Edgewater branch of the Jefferson County was purchased with that money. Continued on page 2
Public Library on Nov. 5. The new library is part of the Edgewater Civic Center project, scheduled to open to the public after Thanksgiving. PHOTO: MIKE MCKIBBIN
Brewery Takes Joyride To The Next Level n By
P
Ken Lutes
atrons of Edgewater’s Joyride Brewing will have prime viewing of Sloan’s Lake and Downtown Denver from the rooftop deck nearing completion at 25th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. “The deck will comprise about 2,300 square feet, including bathrooms,” said Grant Babb, Joyride’s business developer, who co-owns the brewery with brewmaster Dave Bergen. Babb and Bergen expect the rooftop to be open to the public by the end of the year, depending on the weather. “We’re proud to be Edgewater’s fi rst, oldest and favorite brewery,” Bergen said. The rooftop patio will be another fi rst for Edgewater on Sheridan Boulevard. “Denver has such a great rooftop culture. People want to be outside. I don’t think you move to Colorado to spend time indoors.” Hanging radiant heaters and a gas fi re pit will take off the chill during winter months; misting units will operate in the summer, under a pergola that eventually may sport a retractable canvas top for sun protection. “We’ll have 12 taps for beer, same as downstairs, and we plan to plumb in some lines for kombucha as well,” said Babb. “With the deck, we can more than double the capacity of people we now serve,” Bergen added. More than 100 seats will fi ll the space, and there will be plenty of standing room. The deck is not actually built on top of the roof. Because of the lake and the ground water beneath this part of Edgewater, the rooftop is anchored with steel bracing into bedrock 20 feet under the building. “We ended up putting beams throughout the whole building, then placing a substructure on top of those beams,” Babb said. “Once that structural component was under control, everything else was classic building technique.”
“Our most popular social media posts are when we do construction updates,” Bergen said. “People have been waiting for this [deck] for four years.” As a manufacturing facility with a tasting room, Joyride’s license does not include food preparation and will continue its practice of bringing in food trucks. “We really don’t have a desire to do food – it’s a completely diff erent bear,” Bergen said. “We’ll concentrate on doing what we do really well, which is making beer, and we’ll let the food trucks do what they do
really well. It’s a great relationship.” As a board member of the Colorado Brewer’s Guild, Bergen claims the industry is changing a lot right now. “The consumer wants to go hyper-local. People want to have the experience of going out to a place, being social, and drinking a beer directly where it was manufactured.” The owners are confi dent this venture will be a success. The tap room model leads the majority of growth in Joyride’s industry right now, according to Bergen, with a majority of sales occurring right
in Joyride’s tap room, rather than the distribution model of bottling and canning by major beer manufacturers, such as Coors and Budweiser. Bergen said that major brewers can spend their profi ts on Super Bowl commercials, “but we’ll invest our money where we think it makes more sense, which is to make better beer, and to provide a world-class experience on a rooftop in beautiful Edgewater, Colorado. Contact Ken Lutes at ken.ngazette@ gmail.com.
N E I G H B O R H O O D F E AT U R E
A Gold Crown Clubhouse For Edgewater Kids n By
Ken Lutes
W
e believe in the power of one.” That’s the motto of the new Gold Crown Clubhouse in the heart of Edgewater, where individuals aged 10 to 18 can go to be creative and learn or improve technology skills. “We’re a completely free afterschool drop-in program for kids,” said Michael Nimmo, one of the Clubhouse facilitators. Each day, approximately 25 to 30 kids can be found in the Clubhouse, exploring or nurturing skills developed on the STEAM model of education, which uses science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics as access points for students to discover their ability to create and think critically. Clubhouse membership stands at about 200. Edgewater’s Gold Crown Clubhouse opened in January, after two years of renovations to the one-time community church at 2501 Chase St. “We couldn’t be happier with the location, because our program depends on kids getting to it on their own,” said Fran Baker, Gold Crown Enrichment’s director since 2003.
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YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS PREPARE A PROJECT at Gold Crown Clubhouse in Edgewater. PHOTO: GOLD CROWN FOUNDATION