Walking to a Concert in Belmar Park

 

When I used to live in downtown Denver, one of the great things was being able to walk to concerts-- there was the Fillmore Auditorium, the Ogden, even the Pepsi Center, where I saw a particularly good performance by U2.

U2 won't be playing in Lakewood anytime soon, but I'm not nearly as interested in rock music as I used to be.

Walking to concerts is still a possibility, however, as it turns out there's a fantastic summer concert series in Belmar Park, put on each year by the city of Lakewood. The bands this year include bluegrass, alt-country, soul, and Celtic. I went to see the bluegrass band Harpeth Rising last week.

The outdoor amphitheater where they played is just a couple of blocks from downtown Belmar, on the west side of Wadsworth, so no driving was involved. My family and I packed a picnic dinner and a blanket, walked over, and found a spot on the grass. We listened to the music and watched the sun go down. It was a blast!

Roosters Men's Grooming Center Coming to Belmar Block 5

Work is ongoing in this vacant space under the Whole Foods parking lot. A sign in the window of 455 S. Vance Street lists RG2 Grooming #2 as the tenet, but it appears this will be home to a Roosters Men's Grooming Center. 

Sounds great. One little critique: their website lists this location as in the "Belmar Mall." 

Please, no. 

 

Fusion Federation Opening in Belmar

Fusion Federation, a fashion retailer specializing in women's clothing, has a sign up in an empty Belmar storefront on Alaska Drive. It looks like the plan is to open in August.

From the look of their webpage, their clothes are fashion forward (and to my eye, a little bit Goth), with prices just a bit above Forever 21 or H&M. 

Belmar Sign at Alameda and Wadsworth

I noticed a while back that Continuum had requested a replatting of Belmar Block 1 to shrink the size of Lot 1. It looks like this was a prelude to putting in a sign on the corner of Wadsworth and Alameda, which the corner certainly needs. Of course, what I would like to see is a building on that corner (and not a Best Buy parking lot), but a big, bold sign would be a start.

Work is now underway on the sign, as you can see in this photo:

Update: Here's a photo of the finished work. The sign pulses from blue to orange, but in a generally good way. It's not as tall as I'd have expected, but it works.