Your weekly field guide to Littleton, Ken Caryl, and the SW Denver foothills

Happy Friday. This weekend is going to feel more like September than October, 85 and sunny today, 82 Saturday and 80 Sunday, before it cools off midweek. Since July, readers have been asking what's going into the old Walgreens at Simms and Ken Caryl. A county permit for it has a name on it, and a correction from me comes with it.

This week's top spot has no sponsor in it. Last Friday's issue went to 2,219 inboxes, and 1,502 of them opened it. If you know the owner of a local business you'd vouch for, the kind of place you'd send a neighbor to, forward this to them.

The old Walgreens at Simms and Ken Caryl sold in June, and Jefferson County issued permits for the remodel in July. The electrical permit, from July 9, describes the job as a "Remodel of existing Walgreens store into a 'white box' for UC Health." A white box is the trade's term for a bare shell (walls, ceiling, lights) that the tenant finishes out. The building permit, from July 1, calls the project an upgrade toward converting the store into a medical office building. The work takes off the pharmacy drive-through canopy and re-clads part of the outside in new metal panels. I asked UCHealth on Monday whether it plans a location there, what kind of care, and when, and as of Wednesday it hadn't answered.

That means a correction. The July 31 issue said no tenant was named in the county's records, and on September 11 I wrote that nobody had said which practice was moving in. The electrical permit names one.

Plan on the sprinklers staying off next spring. Denver Water's update Monday says the lawn-watering ban holds until its board decides how and when lawn watering can come back, and that sprinklers need to stay off in the spring of 2027 until the board passes a resolution. The reservoirs were 67% full on October 5. The average for that date is 90. Greg Fisher, who runs demand planning there, said customers did a great job shutting their sprinklers off. If you were hoping to turn the system back on in April, that's the answer for now.

Friday through Sunday: the Pumpkin Festival at Chatfield Farms is on this weekend, 9 to 4 each day, with timed tickets you buy ahead.

Saturday, October 10, 9 to noon: a Senior Living Fair at the Ken-Caryl Ranch House on Continental Divide. The Ranch calls it a free community event for older adults, families and caregivers, with local businesses on hand.

Saturday, October 10, 10 to 3: the Harvest Festival at the Littleton Museum, 6028 South Gallup Street. Admission is free, the wagon rides, snacks and 1890s carnival games take 50-cent tickets, cash or check, and Jon Chandler plays in the pumpkin field 10:30 to 12:30.

Sunday, October 11, 11:30 AM: the League of Women Voters' Littleton ballot-issue forum at Columbine Unitarian Universalist Church, 6724 South Webster Street, free and open to all.

Sunday, October 11, 1 to 2:30 PM: Wilderness Hiking Safety with the Colorado Mountain Club, at the future Deer Creek Library site, 11100 Bradford Road, for adults.

Friday, October 16, 5 to 7 PM: Trunk or Treat at Deer Creek, in the parking lot at that same Bradford Road site, for families with kids.

Columbine Library's party and trunk-or-treat Saturday night, 6 to 8:30, and the rest of the month are on the Halloween page.

A reader wants to know when the Chick-fil-A at C-470 and Kipling reopens. It's closed for a remodel, and the store's own hiring post for its reopening team expects late November. The county permit covers two new drive-through canopies and a new menu board, and in the meantime the store is sending people to the Chick-fil-A in Aspen Grove.

An indoor swim school is going into an existing building on Chatfield Avenue just west of Kipling. The county issued the building permit Tuesday for a new pool, deck and changing rooms, and the stamped plans in the file carry the name Big Blue Swim School, which has locations in Centennial and Northglenn.

Unincorporated Jeffco still has no fire restrictions, per the sheriff's Friday update. Meyer Ranch Park, up near Conifer, closes completely on Monday, October 19, and the county expects it shut through spring 2027, so this weekend and next are the last two to hike it. At Deer Creek Canyon, Meadowlark Trail is still closed 8 to 4:30 Monday through Thursday, no end date posted, but Prairie Falcon at South Valley Park reopened Wednesday after boardwalk repairs.

KidsUnited Littleton opens three weeks from today, October 30. It's indoor soccer for kids 18 months to 9 years at 5005 S. Kipling Pkwy. Every kid gets a free intro class. Sign up for a membership during the presale and you get a discounted founding-member monthly price plus a free Player Pack (uniform, socks, a ball, cones and a drawstring bag). Book the free class at kidsunited.com/littleton.

Ballots went out in the mail starting Monday. Two drop boxes inside 80127, at the Ridge Rec Center's south entrance on South Ward Street and the Jeffco South Service Center on Bradford Road, are open around the clock until 7 PM on Election Day, November 3. Vote centers open Monday, October 19, at Columbine Library and the South Service Center. If you're mailing it back, the county says have it in the mail by Monday, October 26. Every measure on an 80127 ballot is on the ballot page, and it takes no sides.

As of Thursday, October 15, the Jeffco library wants your PIN with your card number to log into Libby, and Kanopy asks for it the first time you log in. It's four digits, and the default is your birth year. If that doesn't work, request a reset online. The library suggests checking before the 15th.

A site plan filed Monday would add onto a building on Lockheed Martin's Deer Creek campus. The applicant's letter puts it at about 13,710 square feet for existing research and development work, with no new access to Deer Creek Canyon Road.

There are 228 homes for sale in 80127, up from 213 last week. A three-bedroom on South Nelson Street listed September 9 at $600,000, went under contract four days later and closed October 2 at $611,000. At the other end, a two-bedroom on West Maplewood Drive listed June 25 at $450,000, took three price cuts and closed September 29 at $425,000. Rates climbed again, with Freddie Mac's 30-year average at 7.40% as of October 8, after 7.28% on October 1.

Today is 85 and sunny, Saturday 82 and mostly sunny, Sunday 80 and partly sunny, with lows in the mid to upper 50s. No alerts. Monday stays at 80, Tuesday is 74 with a 40% chance of showers that night, and Wednesday is 68.

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A reader near Ken Caryl wrote me early last Saturday about waking at 4 AM to the trash cans tumbling below their second-floor bedroom. In the half moon they could see a large black animal working through both cans. They opened the window and yelled, and it bolted. If a bear has been in your cans this fall, I'm curious which neighborhood you're in.

That's the week from the foothills. If you see a sign go up on the building at Simms and Ken Caryl, let me know. Enjoy the warm weekend.

Joey

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