Part of Golden’s charm as a tourist attraction owes to the conjunction of its Old West main street with the “Howdy Folks!” sign, and the town’s ongoing operational roots — the Coors Brewery and the Colorado School of Mines.

Now a Coors family development company created around its land holdings in downtown is readying a new, walkable link between Washington Street and what had been downtown’s least charming site: the old Coors ceramics operation between Clear Creek and the CO-58 Golden Freeway.

“Golden is crazy busy on weekends,” Darden Coors, CEO of family-owned AC Development, told The Denver Gazette, discussing the broad appeal of the town in the blocks beyond the development site. She is a fifth generation in the family of Adolph Coors, who founded the brewery in 1873.

AC Development is now trimming out The Pottery, the first building of what is being branded as the Clayworks District, a six-block redevelopment of downtown’s northeast corner slated for a 10-year buildout.

Original ceramic operation from 1880s

The Pottery’s 4-story design includes offices and ground floor restaurant-retail. The building, dating from Coors’ original ceramics operations in the 1880s, is retaining its historic brick façade with the familiar “Coors U.S.A. Chemical & Scientific Porcelain” sign.

Tenants, Coors noted, will see some of those original walls and windows that are being repurposed into the office spaces.

Primary tenant at The Pottery will be the global headquarters of CoorsTek, Coors’ privately owned manufacturer of customized ceramics used in defense and semiconductor applications, with annual revenues reported in excess of a billion dollars.

Darden Coors said move-ins to that 80,000-foot space will begin in August.

Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters has been announced as the first retail lease, planning to open this October in a 2,367-foot store — one of three dining-oriented spaces set for the main floor.

That leaves some 65,000 square feet of offices still available for tenancy. Darden Coors said the company takes the lease situation seriously in the current market, as downtown Denver struggles with office vacancies.

However, although pricing for those spaces likely run ahead of some available from competing office parks, she sees a number of competitive advantages in luring tenants to the project’s downtown Golden location.

“It’s a little hard to entice tenants now. I think we have some strong competition in Lakewood, Union (Boulevard) and Denver West,” she said.

“But we’re already seeing interest from tech, aerospace and financial. The town itself is the amenity,” Coors added.

“Tenants want to be in a location where employees have quality of life. This is a downtown that’s safe and that has great places to walk to. You can go hiking on your lunch break.”

She added that she counts six coffee shops downtown.

Second building

The building’s previous operations including manufacturing of armor and ceramic powder have been moved, some locally, some to Grand Junction, and some out-of-state, she noted.

Next door to The Pottery is a second, existing building along Washington Street dating from the ceramics operation, that Coors said ranks as less historic, but that the developer hopes to be able to re-purpose as part of the project. “I hope we keep it,” she said.

Coors says the current plan for that structure, six stories and another 100,000 square feet or so, would be for offices. However, over the next 90 days the company is weighing other options for the space. Key to that, she said, will be how the lease-up goes for the offices coming available now.

“It could be condos, or a hybrid,” Coors said.

Meanwhile, Clayworks is planning the much broader mixed-use development of the extended site, expected to include over 500 multifamily housing units, along with a 160-room boutique hotel, more retail, parking, and more offices, according to the developer.

Affordable housing component

Along with the city approval process for the project, Coors said the company had committed to an affordable housing component that would comprise 10% of its units designated to be priced at 80% to 120% of the area median income.

“The development is transforming the original CoorsTek ceramics manufacturing facility into a walkable, sustainable and innovation-driven community,” AC Development had said in an initial statement on the project. It noted that the development would include promenades and plazas for live music, art and events.