BOULDER — Arch 11 Inc., a commercial and residential architecture firm with offices in Boulder and Denver, has been selected by Christy Sports to renovate its flagship store in Boulder to provide nearly 16,000 square feet of retail space in two stories.

The new Christy Sports retail space at 2000 30th St. will have 12-foot windows to create naturally lit showrooms, two main entrances, high ceilings and an expansive mezzanine. The store will offer additional retail selections while maintaining an open, spacious feel for shoppers.

"This project is special to us," said E.J. Meade, Arch 11 principal and an avid skier, in a press statement. "So many of us in Colorado grew up with Christy Sports."

The store will be closed during the remodeling process. A temporary Boulder store location is open across the street at 2071 30th St. in the Aspen Plaza. The newly renovated store will reopen this fall.


ZAYO LEASES ON 29TH: Telecommunications firm Zayo Group LLC has a new home in the Twenty Ninth Street shopping district.

Zayo, which said in December it would open a new office in Boulder, has leased a 15,520-square-foot space at 1805 29th St. for its new corporate headquarters, the company said in a press statement. About 100 Zayo employees will work at the new office, which is expected to be ready by the end of April.

Zayo will maintain its offices in Louisville and the Denver Tech Center, officials have said.

Zayo, which has operations in 45 states and in Europe, has more than 1,000 employees. The company was founded in 2007 and has grown aggressively since then through purchase of other telecom companies. Probably the most well-known was Zayo's purchase of AboveNet Inc. (NYSE: ABVT) last summer for $2.2 billion.


OFFICE SPACE PLANNED: A former auto dealership on a busy Boulder thoroughfare is being marketed as an office redevelopment.

The building at 3200 28th St. is owned by 3200 LLC and being marketed by the Boulder-based Freeman Myre brokerage, whose sign now is posted on the building. Managing broker Andrew Freeman said space from 9,000 to 45,000 square feet will be available for office or flex use.

"The plan is to remodel the outside, expand the second floor from a partial to a full second floor, and turn the garage space in back to an open office-flex configuration," Freeman said. "We also want to add a rooftop deck to take advantage of the spectacular views." The roof had been used for parking.

CCM Construction of Denver has been retained to do the remodeling, but Freeman said work wouldn't begin until tenants were secured. "We'll sit tight in case a tenant wants a design done differently," Freeman said.

The building once housed Champion Ford and Anderson Kia, and has 22-foot-tall glass walls in the showroom area in front. It was purchased in January 2010 by 3200 LLC, which leased parts of the space to tenants.

The Tire Source Inc. occupied the building for a time, but the business was purchased by Primoris Energy Solutions Inc., doing business as Green Garage. That business operated there until it moved in November 2012. Optibike LLC, a manufacturer of electric bicycles, opened a 7,500-square-foot retail store and manufacturing facility in the showroom area and continues to operate there, as do other tenants including Boulder Hybrid Conversions LLC and Blue Spruce Auto Sales. Existing tenants have short-term leases.

The Colorado Secretary of State's online database lists Harris Faberman as registered agent for 3200 LLC, and a 2010 press release named him as owner when the building was purchased.


BROADBAND BUYER: Applied Broadband Inc., a Boulder-based provider of broadband service engineering and software, purchased a 4,750-square-foot building on Mapleton Avenue near 28th Street in Boulder.

Applied Broadband, headed by founder and principal Jason Schnitzer, bought the building from 2741 Mapleton 1 & 2 LLC, a group of local investors, for $950,000.

Schnitzer said the company will move from 1881 9th St. in Boulder to the building at 2741 Mapleton Ave. sometime during the fourth quarter of this year, after the building has been renovated to accommodate the company's growth.

Privately held Applied Broadband, founded in 2004, conducts research and development and provides service providers, product vendors and research consortiums with network designs and software.

Applied Broadband has 11 employees in Boulder, three at an office in Vancouver, British Columbia, and four working remotely from the East Coast. Schnitzer expects to add more employees in the next 12 to 24 months.

"The type of work we do requires a certain level of expertise, and we will grow that expertise slowly," he said.

Schnitzer has retained Boulder-based Re: Architecture Inc., led by architect Richard Epstein, to redesign the building's interior. The structure was built in 1977. Michael Johan of Center Management Group LLC in Boulder is the contractor.

Terry Kruegel of Kruegel Commercial Real Estate was the listing broker for the building sale, and Dan Ferrick of Gibbons-White Inc. was the selling broker.


BROOMFIELD

ECOSYS MOVES IN: EcoSys Management LLC, a project-control software company, has moved its corporate headquarters to Broomfield from Rye Brooke, New York.

The new headquarters is housed on the fifth floor of the 11-story Central Park Tower at 385 Interlocken Crescent in the Interlocken business park. That building was completed in 2010 as the tallest along the U.S. Highway 36 corridor. EcoSys occupied the space in March.

Privately held EcoSys — the name refers to enterprise control systems — was founded in 2000. According to the company's publicity, it has worked with more than 250 companies worldwide in industries including energy, construction. mining and government.

The new headquarters will house EcoSys' corporate leadership, including global sales and professional services. It also will open a training facility there for its employees, partners and customers.

Company officials would not reveal how many people work in the Broomfield facility or will be hired there, but did say EcoSys employs 75 people worldwide.


TOPS IN MULTIFAMILY: Two-thirds of multifamily units permitted last year in Colorado were for projects in Broomfield and Denver counties, according to the state's Division of Housing.

There were 1,848 multifamily units permitted in Broomfield County and 4,356 in Denver County, combining for 6,204 of the 9,807 units permitted in the state, an increase of 150 percent from 2011 to 2012.

This matches up with the anecdotal evidence from brokers that the hot spots were downtown Denver and the Boulder Turnpike corridor in 2012.

Boulder County had 464 multifamily units permitted in 2012, a 350 percent increase from 2011.

The other counties that were active for the year in multifamily permitting were Arapahoe, 746 units; Larimer, 691 units; El Paso, 597 units; and Douglas, 590. The number of units permitted in Weld County grew only slightly from zero to 34.


LAFAYETTE

BALL TO EXPAND: Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. plans to move about 150 Boulder employees to a 42,000-square-foot office at the Lafayette Corporate Campus later this month.

Ball Aerospace, a subsidiary of Broomfield-based Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL), plans to relocate the information-technology services group to the office space at 2675 Crescent Drive in Lafayette, said Roz Brown, a Ball Aerospace spokeswoman. The company's data center and additional offices also will move to Lafayette in mid-April, Brown said.

Ball Aerospace needs the new space to accommodate business growth, Brown said. A remodel to get the space ready for the new tenants is listed at $1.1 million, according to documents filed with the city of Lafayette.

Falls Church, Virginia,-based Northrop Grumman Corp. was the previous tenant in the building. The government contractor laid off 35 employees and closed the Lafayette office in August.

Etkin Johnson Group in Denver owns the building. GH Phipps Construction Co. is the general contractor.


LOUISVILLE

BCHA BUYS TRACT: With demand high for affordable housing and one of its complexes fully leased, the Boulder County Housing Authority bought a 13-acre tract in Louisville as a possible site for another one.

The county completed the $2.58 million purchase of the 13-acre parcel on March 22. Located on the west side of Colorado Highway 42 just north of South Boulder Road, it was purchased from Stanley Alkonis of Louisville, a retired Air Force colonel.

Boulder County will work with the city of Louisville and the property's neighbors as it develops a site plan and proposal for development of the land, according to a press statement from the county. One option will be construction of affordable housing similar to the county's nearby Josephine Commons development.

Phase 1 of Josephine Commons, at 455 N. Burlington Ave. in Lafayette, was completed in August and its 74 apartments were leased within four days after the county received the certificate of occupancy. As a waiting list grows longer, construction is to begin this year on Phase 2 of the project, which eventually will include 153 housing units.

Louisville officials are updating the city's Comprehensive Plan with a focus on road connections through the property, and a bike and walking path soon will be extended along the railroad on the property's west side. The intended post-annexation zoning would permit a combination of residential, commercial and mixed-use interests.