North Boulder Village approved

Six years ago, Safeway was defeated in its attempt to build a mixed-use retail center in Colorado called the North Boulder Village Center. The outcome was a disappointment for designer Peter Calthorpe, who looked at the plan as a potential model for retail centers nationwide. Citizens feared the density and potential traffic impact of the project. Now the tide has turned. Another, denser new urban plan, called North Boulder Village, has been approved for the site and is scheduled to break ground by the end of 2002. The new plan includes no Safeway, but it does call for 35,000 square feet of retail and 223 units including townhouses, lofts, live/works, and carriage homes. The design by Van Meter Williams Pollack meets the requirements of a new urban zoning code that was created by Dover Kohl & Partners and approved by the City of Boulder in 1995. The site is split up into small blocks, and a pedestrian passage through the middle will serve as a public plaza. North Boulder Village will be built by Loftus Developments.