Colorado’s end of year employment figures were not what the state wanted. While not horrible, they nonetheless showed an inching up to 3.4 percent. Included in that slight jobless uptick was Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar who lost his job in a late January election. But as he prepares to return to the practice of law, Gradisar said he was pleased—not buoyant—with his city’s overall economic health.
“The economy has done remarkably well in Pueblo,” Gradisar said in a recent phone interview. “Sales tax,” a good barometer of a city’s economic health, “is up $23 million a year.” Another good sign, said the outgoing mayor, is growth in business licenses. At year’s end, Puebloans applied for an estimated 4,000 new businesses.
Gradisar is the city’s first mayor in generations. It previously ran under a city manager form of government. But as he prepares for a new mayor to take the reins, he said he was proud that he had a hand in guiding the city through COVID, a virus that stalled the state and national economy for more than two years.
One of Pueblo’s biggest economic victories during Gradisar’s tenure was helping bring CS Wind to Pueblo. The South Korean company, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind towers, announced last spring a $200 million expansion in Pueblo and an additional 850 new jobs. The company estimates future manufacturing of as many as 10,000 wind towers annually.
Gradisar, like so many others, can only speculate how his city’s economy would be faring had it not been for COVID. But as he prepares for the next chapter of life, he believes Puebloans are feeling generally good about where the city is.
“I think the confidence in the economy is improving,” said the Pueblo native. “Gas prices have come down…inflation is coming down, but not as quickly as it could.” Still, he sees things turning up for his city.
President Biden’s infrastructure legislation, Gradisar has said in the past, will allow Pueblo to repair and replace aging roads and bridges, including the Union Avenue Bridge connecting Union Avenue with the city’s Mesa Junction.
“We have two world class engineering companies,” Gradisar said, pointing to MXV Rail and Emsco, the former a rail and equipment testing company, the latter manages the city’s rail test track. He said the companies along with Colorado State University-Pueblo will both benefit by their presence. CSU-P engineering graduates now have a place to go and may no longer find it necessary to leave town.
But, cautions Gradisar, if Pueblo is to ride a long-term upward economic trajectory, it’s going to need new housing stock for new workers. The city and county did a joint study showing a housing shortage of 9,500 units.
While the state has emerged from the pandemic in generally better health than a number of states, Metropolitan State University-Denver economics professor Alex Padilla cautions that Colorado and the country may see a cooling.
“Over the last year,” Padilla said, “the growth of Colorado has slowed,” linking it in part to interest rates. Last year, said the French expat, “economic growth in Colorado was about 1.5 percent.” The slowdown coincided with interest rates inching up.
The CBO is already predicting a national slowdown with unemployment expected to climb. It estimates a 4.4 percent unemployment rate for 2024 with as many as 7.4 million workers losing their jobs. The national unemployment rate as 2023 ended was 3.7 percent.
One thing that Padilla, along with others, says will continue to impact the economy is an immigration policy that, right now, is not working the way it should. The current border reality is going to “make thing more difficult.” Another could be a still unknown virus that packs the punch of COVID, or worse.
Still, election year politics, immigration and other variables that impact the economy, said Padilla, he generally agrees with economic colleagues that recession will not occur in the2024.
Back in Pueblo, Gradisar is hoping that a city marketing plan aimed at ‘selling’ the city has the intended benefits. “We are expanding our River Walk,” he said. The River Walk has become one of the city’s tourism crown jewels as is the street that intersects it, Union Avenue.
The street, one of the oldest in Pueblo, has gone through cycles of grandeur and guilt over the years. But now revitalized with antique boutiques, restaurants and sweet shop food stops, Union Avenue continues to draw both locals and visitors, said Gradisar.
But in his ideal world and with the right approach, Gradisar would like to see city planners set their sights on building up Pueblo’s center city. “There is a real desire,” he said to breathe new life back into the downtown. “People want to live downtown,” he said. And there have already been some conversions, turning once legacy stores and businesses into housing.
In the 21st century, Gradisar said, living in a vibrant downtown is a natural evolution. “People can work wherever they want. People can bring their job (with them) and work all over the world.
”LaVozColorado reports on incoming Mayor-elect Heather Graham next week.
