FRUITA, Colo. (BRAIN) — If you want to live where mountain bikers feel welcomed, check out the new houses going up on Singletrack Street, Yeti Street, or Pivot Street in this town on the western edge of Colorado.
It's unclear whether the owner of say, a Niner, would feel comfortable buying a house on Yeti Street, but the names are intended to strike a chord with the kind of young, adventurous families that Fruita hopes to attract, said Dan Caris, the city's planning and development director.
"I think it's rad," Caris said. "Fruita is doing a great job balancing community and tourism ... I'm tickled and elated that (the developer) is playing off that," he said.
He said the street names were proposed by the developer, Maves Construction of Grand Junction. The city only reviews the names to make sure the post office can deliver to them without issue.
Fruita is home to world-renowned mountain bike trails. The Grand Valley region — which includes the nearby communities of Grand Junction and Palisade — has been making a concerted effort for years to attract recreational brands and residents to relocate. Canfield Bikes and Rocky Mounts have relocated to the area in recent years; MRP and DT Swiss have had operations there for many years.
The Yeti and Pivot brands had nothing to do with the street naming. Chris Cocalis, the president and CEO of Arizona-based Pivot Cycles, told BRAIN, "The naming was a complete and awesome surprise for us. We are super excited."
Chris Conroy, the president of Golden, Colorado-based Yeti Cycles, said the street designation is better than a star on Hollywood Boulevard. "We had nothing to do with it but stoked it happened ... I’d say for a mountain bike company to have a street in Fruita named after it is a much bigger honor than anything in Hollywood."
The pandemic has turbo-charged growth in Fruita, a community of 13,000 residents, Caris said.
"We have so many applications for residential developments and commercial developments ... there's a lot of pressure right now," he said.
The bike-themed street names are in a development planned for about a mile north of downtown Fruita. The 37-home new urban-style development, called Dwell, will have a mix of single-family houses and townhomes. Homes will be in the 1,500-2,200 square foot range and the relatively high-density development is in line with Fruita's recent push to discourage sprawl, Caris said.
