Thornton, CO

More pickleball is coming to the Denver metro area.

Chicken N Pickle, a hybrid restaurant and bar with pickleball courts, plans to build a new location in Thornton at the southeast quadrant of Interstate 25 and West 144th Avenue. The new location is on a parcel of land directly south of Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers.

“We want to be in cities that are growing, that are active, and it fits a lot of the types of things that we're looking for. So the community was great. The city was amazing to work with. So it checks a lot of boxes for us,” CEO Brad Clarke said.

The business, which opened its first location in Kansas City, Missouri in 2016, is also working on selecting a second location in the Denver area, but has not selected a site yet. While Clarke said the first Chicken N Pickle is located in more of an urban part of Kansas City, the company has since been selecting more sites outside of city centers, but he’s keeping his options open for Denver.

Locations across the country now include Wichita and Overland Park, Kansas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and San Antonio, Grand Prairie and Grapevine, Texas. The company is also working on developing six more locations in Arizona, Missouri, Texas, Nevada and Indiana.

At the Thornton location, guests can expect to find multiple bars and dining areas on the main flor and rooftop. In addition to two outdoor pickleball courts and six indoor courts, Chicken N Pickle will also have cornhole, ping pong and other games for guests. The space is big enough for guests to host parties and corporate events, Clarke said.

Prices for renting a pickleball court at Chicken N Pickle range from $30 an hour to $45 an hour at peak times.

“We love to think of our space as kind of the funnest backyard that you just don't want to leave,” Clarke said.

Chicken N Pickles usually employ between 150 to 200 people, Clarke said. The company plans to start construction on its new Thornton location later this year be open for business next summer. As the company is on a clip of opening between five and 10 locations per year across the country, the Denver metro area could be seeing even more than two locations, according to Clarke.

“I wouldn't say that we're going to be completely done at two, but two for sure is what we want to have out there,” he said.

In addition to Chicken N Pickle, Camp Pickle is underway on two locations in the Denver area, one in Centennial and one at Fox Park.

For the first time in 63 years, the walls of Universal Music in Thornton are starting to look bare. But to understand the store's impact on the community, you have to know its owner's love story.

Jim and Mildred Patterson have been married for 68 years.

"That's a long time!" said Jim, who was a professional drummer. His wife Millie plays viola. The couple met while performing for President Eisenhower in Denver in 1955.

"They brought Jim up from Texas and we met because of Mamie," Millie laughed, "we met through music and music's been very important in our life."

In 1960, the couple opened Universal Music, a shop where they not only sell instruments, but rent them to local schools and students, repair them, and offer lessons.

"It's a lifetime. It's a long time, our two babies Jamie and Gary were babies when we started the store and now they're senior citizens," said Millie.

Everyone in the family has been bit by the music bug, down to great-grandchildren Charlotte and Bodhi.

"I play piano," said Bodhi.

"I play flute and piano," said Charlotte.

"Aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, you name it. Everybody in the family worked in the store at some point," said Jim and Millie's daughter, Jamie Brown.

The store's generational legacy is also felt by its customers.

"We're both teachers, and we'll get the grandchildren of children we taught coming into the store," said Millie.

But as the store turns 63 and Jim turns 90, Universal Music will close its doors.

"So now it's time, we're closing up and gonna retire," said Jim.

The Pattersons are cutting prices, hoping to sell everything in the store. They're also helping students who rent from them will buy their instruments.

"It's really great because the people are coming, they're getting their instrument, we've marked them down so far just to give back to this community that's taken care of us all these years. Sixty-three years is a long time," said Millie.

The store is set to close on July 15 but may stay open longer if there are still items left. The Pattersons will still own the building and plan to rent it out.

As for the couple? They won't be settling down anytime soon. Millie plays competitive volleyball and Jim runs. They also love to travel, and of course, enjoy music together.

"I'm gonna be glad to get him back, he's gonna be mine now," said Millie.

Olivia Young

Olivia Young is a reporter at CBS News Colorado. Read her latest reports or check out her bio and send her an email.

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The city of Thornton has become one of the first in Colorado to go after the manufacturers of firefighting foam that it believes is the cause of contamination in its water that it will cost millions to mitigate.

The lawsuit has been filed against a long list of manufacturers who produced firefighting foam that contains PFAS, an acronym for perfluoroalkyl substances, that has been getting into water supplies in places like Thornton.

"The science really has been pointing to the kinds of chemicals that were used in the manufacture of the firefighting foam," said Adam Stephens, a deputy city attorney.

Thornton's testing has found PFA levels well above the EPA's advisory levels, which were lowered last year to 0.02 parts per trillion.

"What they didn't tell the consumers," said Stephens, "is that these were persistent chemicals that stuck around in our environment and our bodies."

The chemicals have been blamed for a long list of potential health problems including cancers, reproductive issues and developmental issues in children. Considered at greater risk are women who are pregnant or nursing and young children. Thornton found levels of several dozen parts per trillion in some of its supply and has shut down some of its wells. It is now looking at designing a system that will filter out the chemicals.

"This lawsuit is about recouping the cost that it's going to take the city of for and to remove this these chemicals from our water sources," said Stephens.

The state of Colorado has been asking and helping communities test their water. The State says of 400 water system tests since 2020, about a quarter showed detectible levels of PFAS. That has many of the affected systems considering how to fund removing the contaminants when the EPA puts into place this year its required maximum levels.

"There's a lot of costs involved in this, and it should not be borne by the communities in which these are now found," said Stephens.

Colorado has worked with both systems and people with private wells. In places like Fountain, Security and Widefield near Colorado Springs, foam used at Peterson Air Force Base is believed to have caused high PFA levels in well water. The military helped remediate the cost of alternate sources of water or reverse osmosis filtering that removes the contamination.

Still other communities are not directly affected, but still could have to deal with the problems caused by cleaning PFA contamination.

"I think there are 29 different components of PFAs that we may have to test for," said Aurora Water spokesman Greg Baker.

There are additional similar compounds not being tested. Aurora Water has low levels of PFAs due in large part to the fact that its treatment facility just happens to have the type of carbon filtration that filters it out. But Baker wonders what is coming as the EPA looks at setting its standards.

"Now they can test down to parts per trillion with a 't' and some of the health advisory levels from the federal government are having us at parts per quadrillion," Baker said. "What does that mean? We don't know what that means and we can't test to that level. So how do you treat to that level?"

Even if Aurora does not have to change its practices, it could be affected by other water utilities changing theirs.

"They have to install it, the cost of that. We're all competing for the same resources as well," he said in reference to keeping its carbon filtration systems operating.

Pointing out that testing shows PFAs in human blood, he wondered about effects, saying decisions about appropriate levels should be carefully weighed.

"We have to react to the science and not the emotion in this case," Baker said. "Let's remove it from the environment, then we don't have to treat for it."

Alan Gionet

Alan Gionet is a reporter for CBS News Colorado. Read his latest reports or check out his bio and send him an email.

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This is the fourth King Soopers store in Thornton, and the first with the large-scale Marketplace format.

THORNTON, Colo. — King Soopers is unveiling its 12th Marketplace store in Colorado on Wednesday.

The new 124,000-square-foot store is located at 13525 Quebec St. in northeast Thornton. It includes Murray's cheese shop, sushi station, Starbucks, pharmacy and a selection of home and lifestyle merchandise like apparel, dinnerware and small appliances. There's also a King Soopers gas station.

This is the fourth King Soopers store in Thornton, and the first with the large-scale Marketplace format, which sells clothes and home goods in addition to groceries. It's the 12th Marketplace store in Colorado.

The company said the store will employ more than 250 people. It also includes an indoor mural by local artist Tom Ward.

A grand opening celebration will be held starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday, the company said. After that, the store will be open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.

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These things happen in threes. In January, I became the first of the Tribune’s trio of leaders at launch to announce plans to step down. What I knew at the time but few others did was that Ross Ramsey, our managing editor on day one and our executive editor nearly ever since, intended to exit himself in just a few months.

That left John Thornton. Ross and I were co-founders of our nonprofit news org. John was our founder — the visionary venture capitalist who hired us away from good jobs to take a leap of faith on behalf of public interest journalism and join him in a well-meaning but uncertain effort to build a mission-driven media brand. John was our first money in, our first board chair and an active member of our board all these years. Turns out that’s coming to an end, too. At the end of 2022, he’s giving up his board seat. The transition from founding to sustaining will be complete.

Not enough has been said or can be said about John’s role or contribution. None of this — none of us, none of you — would be here without him. He had the idea that Texas needed a reliable, credible, independent source of news and information, a means of raising the level of civic engagement and civilizing the conversation about issues and ideas. He recruited me to be CEO and helped convince reporters and other potential staffers that we were serious and had a chance to succeed. He passed the hat among friends and acquaintances and collected pledges that allowed us to staff up and get the thing off the ground. He worked his connections at national foundations to get us on their radar screens — relationships that remain critical today.

John was the inspiration, the motivation, the proud papa, the loyal friend who tells you the difficult things you need to hear and holds you accountable, and always, always the smartest person in the room. More than anything, he was the true believer — he never stopped carrying the flag for this thing we were doing — and he made us true believers.

It is also the case that nonprofit journalism across the country would not be here without him. Because John founded the Tribune, dozens of communities from coast to coast and border to border have their own news orgs patterned after ours. They followed in our footsteps, but really they followed in his.

And because John went on to co-found the American Journalism Project, a venture philanthropy firm dedicated to starting and growing local news nonprofits, his impact on our industry and our democracy has been many times greater. When the modern history of journalism is written, John will be celebrated for all he accomplished and all he enabled. He’s a pathbreaker. A change agent. A public citizen. A hero.

Point of personal privilege: He’s my hero. I have been lucky over more than 30 years to build a career I’m proud of — and to have been more successful than I deserved to be. I had a handful of really great jobs, notably at Texas Monthly, where I was the editor for many years. But nothing compares to the Tribune. This was the place where I did my very best and most important work, where every day I got to be a force for good. Where I got to change lives. Where I got to make this state I love so much better by making my friends and neighbors better informed. That’s all because of John. I’m forever in his debt.

He’ll be gone in a few weeks, but he’ll never be far away. His voice will live in the heads of everyone at the Tribune, including and especially my successor, Sonal Shah. She knows how important John is to our origin story — to our values. At the same time, she knows that 2022 is the year of the passing of the torch. It says a lot about how far the Tribune has come that the founders, the three of us, feel good about taking our leave.

Thank you, John, for everything.

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