Denver – A fitness center with a spa will be the main tenant in the old Tattered Cover space in Cherry Creek.
Pure Vida Fitness and Spa will occupy about 30,000 square feet on four levels and will operate as a
membership-based health club and spa. It’s expected to open in January.
The facility will include a 4,000-square-foot spa, street-level cafe with health-conscious cuisine, locker rooms, individual Kinesis and Pilates studios, group cycling and exercise classes, and exercise equipment. Pure Vida’s yoga studio will offer hatha classes of all types, including hot yoga.
Pure Vida partners include J. Madden, the project’s founder and owner of the Greenwood Athletic Club, and investors Scott Schley and Larry Engelken. Molly Kemmer has been hired as general manager.
Pure Vida is leasing the space from Sturm Realty Group, which has begun renovating the building, including replacing the external skin.
Additional business news briefs:
STATEWIDE
State jobless rate drops to 6-year low
Colorado’s unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in March, down from 3.8 percent in February and 4.4 percent in March 2006, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Friday. The rate is the lowest since the summer of 2001. Nonfarm employment increased by 14,300 positions to nearly 2.3 million total in March. The advance was about normal for March as 10 of the state’s 11 major industry groups added workers.
DOUGLAS COUNTY
Liberty Global completes auction
Liberty Global Inc., the largest owner of cable-television systems outside the U.S., on Friday announced the completion of its modified Dutch auction self-tender offer to purchase up to 7.1 million shares of its Series A common stock and up to 7.6 million shares of its Series C common stock. The Series A shares, priced at $35 a share, were oversubscribed, according to preliminary tabulations.
JEFFERSON COUNTY
NASA modifies Lockheed pact
NASA has modified its contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. in Colorado for the Orion crew exploration vehicle.
The new contract is worth $4.3 billion and extends through 2013. Previously, the contract was worth $3.9 billion and lasted through 2011. The total multi-phase value of Orion work through 2019 is $8.2 billion.
The contract modification will have no impact on jobs in Colorado, said Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Joan Underwood.
About 450 people work on the Orion program for Lockheed Martin at its Waterton campus and at a building in Lakewood at West Hampden Avenue and South Wads worth Boulevard, which will eventually become the center of the company’s Orion work, with all Orion employees moving there.
Next year, the local Orion workforce will grow to about 600. In other locations, such as Houston and Florida, “we kind of slowed down the program a little bit so we didn’t hire as many upfront as we said we were going to do before,” said Cleon Lacefield, Lockheed Martin’s Orion program manager.
The updated contract adds two years to the design phase and adds two test flights of the Orion launch abort system. It also removes construction of a pressurized cargo carrier from the initial design phase, allowing opportunity for smaller commercial companies to do the work.
Another change will allow the use of surplus raw materials for Orion, such as materials from space shuttle fuel tanks.
CHICAGO
“Angry” United pilots reject offer
The pilots union at United Airlines voted to reject an agreement that would have raised the minimum number of hours certain pilots must fly each month in exchange for improvements in pilots’ working conditions.
About 68 percent voted against the tentative agreement.
The airline expected the changes to improve its reliability, after it canceled flights last summer because of a lack of pilots.
“Whenever something happens like the snowstorms or like is bound to happen with thunderstorms this summer … that’s when the operation tends to falter” said Steve Derebey, a spokesman at the Air Line Pilots Association at United.
In an e-mailed statement Friday, United spokeswoman Jean Medina said, “We are prepared to meet the summer travel needs of our customers.” She said the company “will continue to work constructively” with the pilots union.
“What we hear from our pilots is that they did not want to give any kind of relief to the company whatsoever,” Derebey said. “Pilots are angry.”
News about chief executive Glenn Tilton’s compensation package “gave the pilots a bad taste in their mouths,” Derebey said.
The pilots plan to picket at airports on their demands for contract changes.
