Batteries a big win for Brighton Opting for balance in Commerce City wards

New COVID-19 restrictions will prohibit indoor dining, personal gatherings

Council approves new Ward map for municipal election, second reading April 6

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Commerce City councilors had a choice to make about the future of their wards and voting districts: should the redrawn wards balance the city’s population as evenly as possible or should they try to follow metro district boundaries within the city?

Councilors opted to balance the population as evenly as possible, even though it splits one metro district down the middle between the new wards 3 and 4, using the Second Creek Open Space as a boundary.

“I actually think east of Second Creek is the ow line,” Councilor Susan Noble said.

Lithium-ion cell manufacturer plans

775,000 square-foot facility

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A national manufacturer of the lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles and wearable battery packs will locate its gigawattscale manufacturing plant in Brighton, at 18875 E. Bromley Lane. e plans for the 775,000-squarefoot facility were announced by the company and Colorado Governor Jared Polis March 6. e company’s say the new plant should begin operation in 2025.

A long line of cars outside the city of Brighton’s rapid testing site at Riverdale Regional Park. The site has had to close early many days in recent weeks due to high demand. Adams County’s 14-day test positivity rate was 15.9 percent, as of Nov. 17, according to Tri-County Health Department. Brighton and Commerce City’s test positivity rates were both higher than 13 percent. Forty- ve people in Brighton and 29 in Commerce City have died from COVID-19 related health issues. To limit the spread of COVID-19, at least 15 counties moved to tighter restrictions that prohibits indoor and personal gatherings.

“We need more batteries to power the future, and now we will be manufacturing more of them right here in Colorado. We are excited to welcome Amprius to Colorado, bringing over 300 new good-paying jobs, and joining Colorado’s innovative and collaborative business community,” Polis said in a written statement.

Amprius, based in Fremont, California, began making silicon anodes for high-density lithium-ion batteries in 2008. e company holds more than 75 patents for the batter- ies, their parts and the manufacturing process.

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ose batteries are used for electric cars, trucks and electric drones, high-altitude gliders used for mapping called “pseudo-satellites” and electric air transportation vehicles. Customers included the U.S. Army, Airbus and BAE Systems.

As Denver metro counties continue to inch closer to local stay-at-home orders under Colorado’s system of coronavirusrelated restrictions, the state announced a new level of rules that prohibits indoor dining and personal gatherings — a change that applies to the majority of the Denver metro area and many counties in other regions.

e plant will replace the Sears/ KMart Distribution facility just north of the Adams County building. at facility closed in 2021. It’s just west of U.S. 76 Brighton exit.

county is required to follow based on the severity of a county’s local virus spread. e dial grew out of the state’s safer-athome order — the policy that came a er the statewide stay-at-home order this spring and allowed numerous types of businesses to reopen.

e council is scheduled to vote on the new ward district conguration again at their April 3 meeting. City Clerk Dylan Gibson said that once it’s approved, it’ll be used for the city’s municipal election this November.

“We’ll work with community relations on public education and social media and work to identify those a ected between the wards we have now and the wards councilors will adopt tonight so they are aware their wards have changed before the November 2023 election,” Gibson said.

Roughly equal

“ e selection of Colorado for our gigawatt factory marks an important e state’s COVID-19 dial, which has been in e ect since September, is the set of di erent levels of restrictions that each

SEE BATTERIES, P2 e state recently switched to color identi ers — levels blue, yellow and orange rather than numbered levels — to avoid confusion. Until Nov. 17, level red meant a stay-at-home order. Now, level red — “severe risk” — is the second-

Councilors last reviewed the work at their Feb. 6 meeting, with Gibson explaining that Commerce

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SEE BALANCE, P3