Parker Colorado Growing Up!

The natural evolution of the local economy is stretching Parker's borders and piquing the interest of office developers.

The Parker Economic Development Council is planning for the future and wants to strike a balance between residential, retail and office uses."We're at the point where we are large enough that office uses are in demand," said Ben Snow, executive director of the economic development council. "Office developers are taking notice because Parker is just at the threshold [of homes] needed to support that kind of development."The economy follows a natural progression that starts with a housing boom, Snow said.

People are soon followed by retailers and service providers and finally office buildings. But as it stands, Parker loses about 75-80 percent of its population every workday, resulting in a lagging daytime economy."The best places to live have good jobs, quality schools and a low crime rate," he said. "The quality of life things don't matter if there are no jobs. Jobs are the linchpin of the economy."Furthermore, as traffic congestion increases there needs to be alternatives for the local workforce, including an option to not commute out of Parker, Snow said.In the last six months, there has been an increase in the number of inquiries to the economic development council from large corporations interested in basing their headquarters in Parker, Snow said. As far-fetched as it might have sounded 10 years ago, there is a high probability Parker will be home to a large company.

The development council helped shape the economic development section of Parker's 2025 master plan, which the town updated in 2006. The document maps out land uses, including future commercial centers in Parker. Town council has pushed to make Parker a place where people can live, work and play.The largest amount of commercial growth is expected to happen along the E-470 corridor at the Chambers Road, Jordan Road and South Parker Road interchanges.

Parker is planning to annex American Furniture Warehouse in the ComPark development on the north end of town and has already annexed about 300 acres in the commercial hub.Retail and office developments will follow a path from I-25 to the E-470 corridor, Snow said. Several mixed-use developments will crop up along the toll road in the next five years, especially in the Crown Point development, which houses Parker Adventist Hospital and the largest office building in Parker, the 85,000-square-foot medical office building attached to the hospital.

The developments will include retail and office uses, and some will have residential spaces in the form of lofts. The development council helped plot out employment centers on E-470 that could provide a close workplace for Parker residents. Half of the 1,400 acres still available for commercial development is along E-470. Snow said that both sides of South Parker Road are largely undeveloped. The economic development council will reach out to local executives and ask them to consider the benefits of establishing offices in Parker, Snow said.

The town's proximity to two major highways and a highly educated population are selling points for enticing office developers. Parker's quality of life, executive housing and workforce housing are also attractive attributes."This has never been done. Parker has always been known as a place to live, a bedroom community," he said.Future offices could be scattered throughout Parker, and there are no immediate plans for "another Denver Tech Center," Snow said. Many of the office buildings in Parker would be smaller than those along the I-25 corridor, which average about 55,000 square feet in size.

A majority of the buildings would be between 20,000 and 30,000 square feet and have two or three stories.Medical office buildings will play a large role in the expansion of offices in Parker. There are preliminary plans to build a Kaiser Permanente facility on the northeast corner of South Parker Road and Stroh Road.

It will not be part of a larger office development; rather, it will have adjacent retail storefronts along the roadway.Parker has roughly 2.9 million square feet of retail space, 500,000 square feet of office space and 1 million square feet of industrial uses. The economic development council is expecting office uses to catch up in proportion to retail space but lag behind the housing numbers."It would be foolish for us to lose out on an opportunity to develop offices by just building more houses and more retail," Snow said.

Contact Chris Michlewicz at 303-841-5497 or cmichlewicz@ccnewspapers.com.

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