The development, called the Peloton, will be developed at the northeast corner of 33rd Street and Arapahoe Avenue. It will include 390 condominiums, most of them in four four-story buildings. They will range in size from 500 sf to 2,000 sf and will be priced from the $300,000s to the $800,000s. Units will sell for about $400 per sf, says Joe Lamkin, a principal of Bancroft. That is a far cry from some new units near the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, which are selling for north of $700 per sf, believed to be the highest priced in the Denver-Boulder MSA.

Lamkin says he believes the units are priced at the "sweet spot" of the market, above the entry level, but not at the super luxury level. He says he expects demand to come from empty nesters and move-up buyers who want a more urban setting. In addition, Peloton will include 17,000 sf of retail and office space on the 10-acre site, which used to be the R&D facility for Exabyte, a computer storage device manufacturer that moved out several years ago.

"The Peloton will be the cornerstone of an energetic new neighborhood, a community that will be completely unique within Boulder County," Lemkin says. He says a number of prospective buyers already have sent them e-mails and letters.

Lamkin notes that for years, Boulder has been challenged by an exodus of middle-income home buyers seeking attractive housing values in areas such as Erie, Lafayette, Louisville, Longmont and Superior. The impact of this flight to the suburbs has been heavy traffic into and out of Boulder, as well as a significant loss of retail sales taxes and property taxes, he says. While for decades Boulder was known as being anti-growth, city officials are now focused on promoting residential development in underutilized, former industrial areas, he says.

"From the city's perspective, the Peloton is a good example of the revitalization of [former] industrial lands to residential use," says Brent Bean, a senior planner for the city of Boulder. "We support this development, especially because it's going to provide housing that is within easy walking distance of the new 29th Street Mall."

Lamkin notes that Westcor's redevelopment of the nearby Crossroads Mall into a mixed-use community was instrumental in it pursuing Peloton. When all of the phases of Westcor's redevelopment are completed, called Twenty Ninth Street, it will have about 770,000 sf. He says that development sent a clear signal the city was finally welcoming redevelopment, shedding its anti-growth stance. His group, which owns about $80 million in real estate in Boulder, expects to open Peloton, which takes its name from the world of bike racing, to open in 2007. Although neither Lamkin nor his partners race bikes, Lamkin says has become a big fan of the Tour de France in recent years.