When Ron Fair opened an optometry practice in Brighton in 1959, the agricultural community north of Denver boasted a railroad stop and a population of just 7,000.
“Brighton was a nice, cute little historical place to live,” he said.
In the nearly half-century since he put down roots, Fair has watched the town mature. As recent demographic shifts have sent metro Denver’s growth northward, the pace has heightened.
“That area all through the northeast near I-25 and I-76 will be the big growth area for the next 20 years,” said Simon Montagu, director of the Denver Regional Council of Governments’ customer resource and support center.
Brighton now is home to 30,629 and is set to explode in the coming decades. As such, it provides a glimpse into the challenges and opportunities growth is bringing to small communities throughout the West.
By 2010, Brighton’s population is expected to be 47,300, and DRCOG estimates the town’s growth to continue the next 20 years at nearly twice the rate experienced by the rest of the metro area.
City leaders and some residents have generally embraced the growth and everything that comes with it. Yet some long-time residents say it is drastically changing their way of life.
Evidence of the city’s growth is everywhere. Brand-new homes on the outskirts of town stand in contrast to the older brick homes in the city’s core. Big-box stores are sprouting on the prairie, while the city is brainstorming ways to revive its tired downtown. A new regional hospital is being built on the city’s southeastern flank, a few miles from its smaller central-city campus.
“If you look at the attitude of who’s in leadership today, there’s a real sense that growth can be good – especially job growth that is bringing services and the ability to shop in Brighton,” said Susan Stanton, the city’s economic development director.
Better shopping isn’t simply a convenience for Brighton residents. It also attracts retail dollars from consumers in surrounding communities.
After decades of watching residents leave town to shop in newer retail developments elsewhere, Brighton is eager to bring them back home while also persuading others to stop off before they reach Denver.
Because Colorado’s municipalities rely on sales-tax dollars for a significant amount of their funding, competition for retail development is particularly intense here.
For every dollar of property tax a city brings in, it collects about $4 in sales-tax revenues, according to the Colorado Municipal League.
Years ago, Brighton’s leaders say they literally begged King Soopers to set up shop in the city, even offering the company free land. The offer was rejected. The grocer has since changed course and now operates a busy store in a newer center – on land it paid for.
What changed?
Montagu attributes much of Brighton’s past and future growth to the availability of undeveloped farmland and to Denver International Airport, which opened in 1995 just 15 miles south of town.
Others point to the strong transportation network that surrounds Brighton – two major rail lines for freight access and four major roads (E-470, U.S. 85, Interstate 76 and Colorado 7) that carry truckers and commuters into and out of town.
“It takes me 20 minutes to get to downtown (Denver) to hear the symphony,” Fair says.
E-470 was especially important, opening access from metro Denver that had been blocked for decades by the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Without it, Stanton said, city leaders had learned to fend for themselves, creating a city that is less reliant on downtown Denver for jobs.
“Unlike many bedroom communities, Brighton has a history of being a self-sustaining community for 140 years,” she said. “We have a traditional downtown and a good housing-jobs balance.”
Like other cities, Brighton has its challenges: a troubling foreclosure rate, an increasing supply of unsold housing and this month’s closure of Intertape Polymer Group’s plant, which left 89 people without jobs.
Even so, the city has done well, said Byron Koste, director of the real estate center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“Brighton has been the beneficiary of some good leadership, which is critical or it could have been left behind,” he said. “It has worked on managing growth instead of picking what came and saying it doesn’t matter.”
Nonetheless, he warned that fast-growing cities must take care to avoid certain pitfalls.
“You have to be careful not to compromise your future for short-term gain,” Koste said. City leaders must be careful that the costs of growth – including infrastructure and schools – don’t outpace the benefits it generates.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-954-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
