BLOCK PARTY ON!
Littleton’s Main Street — and back alleys — join the circus
GRADUATION DAY
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS | PG 9
SCHOOLS | PG 11
Tradition is key at Luke’s Piano
LOCAL | PG 2
S O U T H
MASTER AND APPRENTICE
M E T R O
Caps off at Cherry Creek High School!
VOLUME 35 • NUMBER 28 • JUNE 1, 2017
Since 1982
www.villagerpublishing.com
TheVillagerNewspaper
@VillagerDenver
IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME Family-run Koelbel & Company marks 65 years
A
half century ago when developer Walter Koelbel Sr. moved his offices from downtown Denver’s 17th Street to the boonies of I-25 and Yale Avenue, people thought
he was crazy. “Back then, there was no such thing as a suburban office,” his son Buz recalled. “He wanted to be closer to the communities and the projects he was developing, and he wanted to be closer to home. People just didn’t understand it, but it turned out to be very visionary.” Call it the chicken or the egg—but when Koelbel Sr. set up shop on the outskirts of southeast Denver, it signaled the embryonic vitality of the new Denver Technological Center and what Three would eventually become the most important generations business corridor in the metro area. of Koelbels: Koelbel was among a group of Colorado deWalter, Buz and velopers—most notably, George M. Wallace and Carl. The firm John Madden—who helped redefine the suburbs marks its 65th as something more than rows of houses, but an anniversary this economic engine fully integrated into post-war year. lifestyle. That movement would evolve over Courtesy of Koelbel decades into mixed-use development and transit& Co. friendly new urbanism. Ironically, Koelbel was a victim of his own pioneer spirit three decades later when his son Buz became heavily involved in light rail expansion along I-25, as chair of a fundraising committee for T-REX, the award-winning $1.7 billion multimodal transportation project that reinvented travel in and around the highway’s intersection with I-225. As it happened, Buz’s trips to Washington, D.C. and his local bond-election advocacy brought an unforeseen outcome when the Colorado Department of Transportation had to make room for the I-25 and Yale light rail station. “Our building was in the right of way, so we actually had it condemned away from us,” Buz said with a slight smile. “I say, no good deed goes unpunished. It’s the path to growth, and we ended up with a nice new building.” Today, as Koelbel & Company marks its 65th anniversary, the family-owned firm’s 21st century offices sit adjacent the bustling light rail station in an area that once had no future, but where Koelbel’s “folly” headquarters eventually gave way to progress.
Stirring a ‘Buz’ in development
Buz Koelbel and Koelbel & Company are almost like twin brothers. The mainstay Colorado development firm was founded by Walter Koelbel Sr. in 1952, the same year Buz was born, birthing parallel pathways in business and life. “Does it make me feel old? It does, as a matter of fact,” Buz said with a laugh. Although named Walter Jr. on his birth certificate, the name would not last for long. “Fortunately, my sister couldn’t say Walter and she called me her little baby buzzer—and it just stuck,” he said. “When I was learning cursive in first or second grade, I looked at it and I thought it sounds the same with one z as two.”
Decision makers many times are a little slower to understand where consumer preferences are going. -Buz Koelbel, CEO Koelbel & Company Buz’s father, born in 1926, came to Colorado from Muskegon, Mich. In the 1940s, after a stint in the Naval Reserve, he attended the University of Colorado School of Business and played tight end for the CU Buffalos. After a brief post-college job at the old Montgomery Ward on Denver’s Broadway, Walter landed a life-changing gig at Moore & Company, eventually setting up his own shop in the Equitable Building at 17th and Stout streets. “To get us kids out of the house, he’d take us on property tours,” Buz remembered. “But probably the most significant memory is when they started converting my grandparents’ Hereford cattle farm into what is now Pinehurst Country Club and community. We used to play in the cornfields out there as kids. That was our first big flagship community.” The family farm was just the beginning. If the in-laws were ready to sell the homestead, maybe other farmers would do the same if Koelbel put his vision for untapped suburbia into action. Continued on page 6