At a moment when Denver area unemployment is up slightly and national headlines are fretting over large corporate layoffs, the city of Aurora is touting its job growth this past year and looking for more gains in months to come.

That was the message that Wendy Mitchell, president and CEO of the Aurora Economic Development Council, had Thursday for its annual “A-list” promotional gathering of more than 1,000 business and civic leaders from Aurora, Adams County and Arapahoe County.

“We’re celebrating a harvest this year,” Mitchell told the crowd gathered at the sprawling Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center overlooking the 23,000-acre Aerotropolis development site that’s emerging south of Denver International Airport.

She touted some 2,000 primary jobs created within Aerotropolis in 2025, a co-product of an estimated $2 billion that she said companies have committed to new industrial and manufacturing facilities, including data campuses, with the area.

“Companies are locating to Aurora because of our business-friendly environment, (our) 24 business parks and thousands of acres of developable land,” Mitchell told The Denver Gazette in a follow-up to the gathering.

“We believe the jobs and hiring increase are due to the growing population in Aurora, Adams and Arapahoe Counties,” she added. “These communities are building more hospitals and schools.”

LONG-TERM OUTLOOK

Meanwhile, Mitchell said the long-term outlook for hiring is equally encouraging.

“Our pipeline for the next months looks just as favorable,” she said, mentioning construction and other skilled trades as beneficiaries.

Among the corporate moves that are creating growth, Mitchell said, were Southwest Airlines and its new 23,000-square-foot training center at the JAG Logistics Center. Southwest will use classroom space for its 6,000 Colorado employees. RK Industries has a new headquarters, expected to double the company’s Aurora workforce to 1,850, Mitchell noted.

Mitchell added that more job growth is awaited from Philip Morris International, opening a reported $600-million manufacturing facility for ZYN nicotine pouches, in Aerotropolis’s Sun Empire Industrial Park expected to hire 500 employees.

The company showed a long promotional video about the new factory at the A-List event, and was a primary sponsor.

AEROTROPOLIS PARKWAY

All of those new arrivals are roughly spaced along a new Aerotropolis Parkway that Aurora is developing that serves as a new route designed to improve access to Denver International Airport, running approximately seven miles between Powhatan Road and Jackson Gap Road on Peña Boulevard near DIA’s terminal and Powhatan Road exit from I-70. The area west of the new parkway is already attracting housing communities.

Lynn Baca, chair of the Adams County Board of Commissioners, told the economic development gathering that early success at Aerotropolis was an outgrowth not just of the airport but of the county’s history as an agricultural economy.

“That groundbreaking spirit became ingrained in who we are,” Baca said, noting that her grandfather had emigrated from the Philippines and farmed crops nearby.

Past A-List event speakers have included President Bill Clinton and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.