Latest news with #WheatRidge
CBS News
2 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Colorado neighborhood welcomes new housing development thanks to 2021 ordinance, demolition set for motel
The American Motel in the Denver metro area is boarded up and ready for demolition as the City of Wheat Ridge prepares for something new. "It's exciting to see permanent housing options go up in this area," said Wheat Ridge Communications Manager Amanda Harrison. Back in 2021, city leaders, hearing community concerns about increasing crime and decreasing standards of living at several hotels and motels in a concentrated area of Wheat Ridge, established new standards for business licensure. "Many of the hotels or motels have stepped up to meet our community values," Harrison told CBS Colorado. "They've installed fences, they've installed security systems, they've hired security forces." While it's led to the closure and demolition of properties like the American Motel, it's also opened the door for developers to build more housing in a community that sorely needed it. According to Cassie Ratliff, the Chief Impact Officer for the nonprofit Family Tree, there were 18 individuals living in the motel when the closure was announced. Through their organization, with funding from Wheat Ridge, they were able to find new permanent housing for those individuals before demolition began. "They could pay the rent," said Ratliff. "They could pay rent on an apartment because they could pay the rent on a motel. But they couldn't afford to move out. So we gave them a resource to move out. People wanted to find their new home or their next place and we were able to help them navigate that." Wheat Ridge police told CBS Colorado that the nine hotels and motels in the city accounted for roughly 10% of all calls for service before the ordinance took effect. By 2024, the calls for service had dropped to just 4%. "Calls for service in the area dropped 50%," said Harrison. "Calls for service at the hotels have decreased by almost 30 percent. That's significant. It's made for a much safer area, which has invited investment." A move that builds housing in a city that needs it while aiming to reduce crime for those living there. The motel is slated for demolition in the coming weeks, with the developer taking over the site to begin construction in the future.
CBS News
04-07-2025
- CBS News
Police in one Colorado city work with community partners, repurpose stolen bikes for those in need
Bike thefts are a bigger problem than you might think. Nearly 150,000 bikes were reportedly stolen across the country last year, and it's rare that an owner gets their bike back. A law enforcement department in the Denver metro area has started a program that hopes to solve an issue that has resulted from all of that theft. CBS The Wheat Ridge Police Department is not necessarily a very large police department, and when they come across bikes -- be they part of an investigation for evidence, whether it's because they are stolen or whether they're just found in unclaimed property -- they find themselves with too many bikes and nowhere to put them. In an attempt to fix that issue, they've partnered up with a couple of community organizations that are taking those bikes and giving them back to the community. Steve Selly works for the city of Wheat Ridge and is part of the group that loads up the bikes and gets them to the community groups. "It seems like there have been more and more bikes available over the course of the last, I'd say, two to three years," he said. CBS Kelly Blinn is part of one those community groups, and said the bikes sometimes go to students. "This can help us connect high school students or, you know, people who can't afford a bike without access to transportation," Blinn said. Wheat Ridge police spokesman Alex Rose said bikes are becoming a more common item picked up by police departments across the Denver metro area, and there's a question of what to do with them. "This is the best thing that we can do with these bikes and this property in general, to put it to good use," he said. "You collect a lot of evidence through the course of all of these hundreds and thousands of investigations that happen throughout the course of the year," said Rose. Rose said he's proud of the program that gets bikes back into the community and out of police storage. "We need to find homes for them, and so the more relationships that we have with folks in the community that are interested in transportation and interested in giving these bikes some TLC and giving them to families who really need them, or sending them to places where they could go to good use, that's a win win for everybody," he said. Rose says there are some things bike owners can do in the unfortunate case that a bike were to get stolen. "Write down that serial number, because if your bike gets lost or it gets stolen, that is a key to report that to your local law enforcement agency," Rose said. When the serial number of a stolen bike is shared with police, if it ends up in another Colorado municipality, there's a chance that serial number is going to pop up on another jurisdiction's database. That means there's a better chance a stolen bike might be found, even if it's not in the town or city it was stolen from.
CBS News
12-06-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Wheat Ridge to allow freestanding emergency care facility to be built on Wadsworth corridor in the Colorado city
At June 9's Wheat Ridge City Council meeting, an ordinance was passed that effectively paved the way for freestanding emergency departments to be built and operate within the city limits. CBS One such area is slated to be on the corner of 38th Street and Wadsworth Boulevard. "(This) for the first time allows freestanding emergency departments to be built in mixed use zones," said Dan Larson, Wheat Ridge's District 4 Councilor. Freestanding emergency departments -- also known as freestanding emergency rooms -- are effectively emergency care facilities not attached to a hospital. If someone is dealing with a life threatening condition, first responders can take them to a facility like this before deciding if they will send them further to a full-service hospital. The condition of giving this lot of land to HCA Healthone, who operate Rose Medical Center in Denver, is that the freestanding ER also be a part of a larger medical campus in the adjacent plaza on 38th. The total size of the lot is about 5 acres. While the ordinance passed in a council meeting on Monday, it wasn't without some resistance from residents and health care professionals. One big issue revolved around individuals' understanding what freestanding ERs actually are. "It cannot and does not provide a level of care to the level of a real hospital and many of your elderly especially at Wheat Ridge," said Douglas Martel, a former cardiologist at Intermountain Lutheran, during public comment. Critiques like his specifically revolved around cardiac emergencies like heart attacks or strokes. Freestanding ERs, he argued, were not capable of handling those types of emergencies the same ways that full service hospitals are and thus might confuse potential patients and lose them precious time to be treated. "If you want to keep excellent care in your community and for your constituents you will oppose this ordinance," Martel advocated. Other issues from residents included billing and insurance coverage as well as accessibility. Freestanding ERs built a reputation in the early 2010s for "being predatory," as Larson put it, to patients with exorbitant costs that they didn't account for until after treatment. Councilman Larson told CBS Colorado that a big reason the freestanding ER was on the table was because of Intermountain Lutheran's move to the west side of town, creating a need for an emergency care center on the east side. Additionally, Larson said, the regulatory standards for these types of clinics had been changed, allowing Wheat Ridge to not worry about having too many of these services in ways others have. "The regulatory environment in the state of Colorado in terms of licensing, in terms of building practices has changed," Larson said. "The city of Wheat Ridge has changed."
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Colorado can still lead on harm reduction. First we need to fix this new law.
A laptop displays the website of an online kratom retailer. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) Imagine you're a veteran in Wheat Ridge, or a single mom in Lamar living with chronic pain. You've finally found something that works: a legal, plant-based supplement that helps you stay off opioids. But then, just as things start to stabilize, the state passes a law that could complicate how you access it. That's what just happened to thousands of Coloradans. On Thursday, Gov. Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 25-72 into law. We appreciate his commitment to public safety and consumer protection. But this law makes things more confusing, not safer. For the people who rely on kratom-derived products to manage pain or recover from addiction, it's a major step backward. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX I've worked in public policy for over 20 years, and I represent the Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust (HART), a nonprofit advocating for science-based kratom regulation (to be clear, we don't sell or profit from these products). We've been trying to get rules in place that protect consumers and reflect real-world use for years. This bill doesn't get us closer to that goal. Kratom is a plant-based supplement long used in Southeast Asia and now increasingly used here in Colorado. One of its natural compounds, 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, is found in products that patients say have helped them avoid returning to painkillers or heroin. Especially in rural and low-income areas, where access to traditional treatment can be limited, these products can mean the difference between stability and relapse. In 2022, Colorado's own state feasibility study laid out a clear, science-backed path for regulating these products. It advocated setting dosage limits, requiring testing and labeling, and establishing strong oversight. But SB-72 doesn't follow that roadmap. It was rushed through in the final days of the legislative session and now leaves Colorado with a fragmented and unclear system. Safe products could be sidelined while dangerous ones remain on shelves. Consider the facts: Claim: The bill bans unsafe high-potency products. Reality: It doesn't. The most dangerous products — high-mitragynine shots and kratom/kava blends — are still on shelves. Meanwhile, safer products made by responsible companies are pushed out. Claim: It regulates 7-OH. Reality: The law sets a 2% cap on 7-OH but excludes anything above that threshold from regulation altogether. That leaves patients, businesses, and law enforcement in regulatory limbo. Claim: It adds safety and labeling rules. Reality: The bill makes only minor changes for kratom and none for 7-OH, even though that's often the compound patients rely on most. There's also been public discussion tying this bill to the tragic death of Daniel Bregger. We deeply respect his family and their advocacy. But the facts matter: At the time, 7-OH products were not commercially available. Using that tragedy to justify this law distracts from the real dangers SB-72 fails to address. The law now excludes many 7-OH products from the definition of a 'kratom product,' but offers no clarity on how they should be regulated. 7-OH remains legal in Colorado, but SB-72 creates confusion instead of guidance. That helps bad actors more than consumers. Retailers don't know what they can sell, patients don't know what they can trust, and law enforcement doesn't know what to enforce. We want regulation. In fact, the brands we work with already follow many of the rules this bill should have required, such as limiting dosage based on science, testing products, and labeling ingredients. These are basic protections. But SB-72 doesn't ensure they're followed by everyone. It's a major missed opportunity. Colorado has built a national reputation for bold, evidence-based leadership on cannabis, psychedelics, and public health. SB-72 doesn't live up to that legacy. But it's not too late. Let's come back to the table, this time with patients in the room. We can still build a framework that's clear, fair and focused on safety. Colorado can still lead. We just have to choose to. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
CBS News
21-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
New owner and future of Lutheran legacy campus unveiled in Colorado
For decades, a 100 acre property in the center of Wheat Ridge operated as a medical campus. Now the former Lutheran hospital property is changing. "We want to get going just as quickly as we can," Chris Elliott Principal of E5X said. On Tuesday, Intermountain Health announced that E5X, a Colorado based developer, would be taking over as the new owner. At an event unveiling the future of the site, Elliott shared some personal history about his connection to the site. "A couple of stories of my own: I let an abdominal pain go for too long and I spent three weeks in this hospital and had my appendix out. My mother worked here for 20 years. So, there's a deep personal connection here," he said. That's part of the reason Chad Moynahan, real estate Director for IMH, said they stood out among other interested buyers. "After thoroughly evaluating 10 distinct proposals, we finalized terms and conditions and are under a contract to sell the property to E5X," Moynahan said. "This ensures that redevelopment will be handled by a team dedicated to the community's well-being." E5X The development design will be in line with the city's master plan. Low density housing will fill the outer edge while higher density and taller buildings will be in the center, up to the five-story maximum approved by voters. Lauren Mikulak, Community Development Director for the City of Wheat Ridge, says it's the next chapter for the community. "It's essentially a new neighborhood. 100 acres is essentially 12 city blocks. It's not just new homes. It's new sidewalks, it's new bike lanes, new parks," she said. Included in the master plan are requirements for green space and preservation of two historic buildings on the property: the blue house and the chapel. Elliott says they are working on how best to incorporate the old with the new. "Do you have any ideas yet.?" CBS Colorado Reporter Karen Morfitt asked. "We have a couple of parties interested in doing a restaurant in here and then we've talked to others that maybe will build an event space. The library district. ... we've talked to a lot of people who could make use of it and preserve the integrity of the space," he said. For everyone, including Elliott, the hope is a future that will last for the next 100 years. "We want something that stands the test of time," he said. Moynahan says they are still in the closing process, and both IMH and E5X declined to discuss the sale price of the property.
