Centennial

Centennial is its own city in Arapahoe County, directly south of Greenwood Village on the south side of the Denver metro. Littleton sits to the west, Aurora, Foxfield and Parker to the east, and Highlands Ranch and Lone Tree to the south. It covers about 30 square miles, and I-25 cuts it roughly in half.

A city voted into being in 2000

For decades this was unincorporated Arapahoe County, a spread of subdivisions where the county handled the roads. That changed when Greenwood Village started annexing land to grow its tax base. The neighborhoods pushed back, and on September 12, 2000, voters approved a new city with 77 percent in favor. They picked the name in the same election, after Colorado's nickname: the state joined the Union in 1876, the nation's centennial year. The city became official on February 7, 2001, taking in the former Southglenn and Castlewood census areas.

The houses, and the HOA paperwork that comes with them

Most of the city grew up as subdivisions rather than a street grid. Southglenn, on the west side, was built as a master-planned community by developer Jordon Perlmutter, and its population nearly doubled between 1970 and 2000.

The city keeps a map and a spreadsheet of its homeowners and civic associations. General Improvement Districts, which are local taxing entities that pay for specific public improvements, also exist here. Before you make an offer, find out which HOA and which districts a house falls under, since either can add to what you owe each year.

Centennial Center Park and the creek trails

Centennial Center Park covers 15 acres off Arapahoe Road at 13050 E. Peakview Ave., right beside the Civic Center. It has a playground, a splash pad that runs Memorial Day through Labor Day, shaded shelters and a big amphitheater for concerts, its design built around four eras of early human history. The Colorado Statehood Walk winds through it.

Elsewhere, the High Line Canal Trail, the Willow Creek Trail and the Big Dry Creek and Little Dry Creek trails cross the city, and DeKoevend Park and Dry Creek Dam add more open land.

SouthGlenn, and pizza and tacos at Holly and County Line

Southglenn Mall opened in 1974 at the southwest corner of Arapahoe Road and University Boulevard. It closed in 2006 and came back on August 28, 2009, as the Streets at SouthGlenn, an outdoor shopping district with a Whole Foods and a 14-screen Regal theater. Macy's, the last store left from the original mall, announced its closing in 2022, and several other big stores there have shut since, so expect that site to keep changing.

Down at South Holly Street and County Line Road, two long-running spots sit a few doors apart. Big Bill's NY Pizza has been making thin-crust New York pies since November 1995, when former Nuggets assistant coach Bill Ficke opened it and brought in a pizza maker from Long Island. At 8251 S. Holly, the original Los Dos Potrillos opened in 2002 as Jose Ramirez's first restaurant, cooking from his family's recipes, and it carries 4.5 out of 5 stars☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★ on Google.

Getting to Denver, and the airport next door

I-25 runs north through the middle of the city toward downtown, and Arapahoe Road (State Highway 88) is the main east-west street. Dry Creek station, at 9450 E. Dry Creek Road, opened in 2006 and today serves RTD's E, R and T light rail lines, with 235 parking spaces and a pedestrian bridge over I-25 to Inverness Drive. The Denver Tech Center's offices sit just north along the same stretch of highway and have their own page.

Centennial Airport is next to the city on unincorporated county land and predates Centennial by more than 30 years. The Broncos' headquarters and training facility are in Dove Valley, another unincorporated pocket on the city's edge. If you're shopping east of I-25, look up where the airport's flight paths run before you settle on a backyard.