Montbello

Montbello is the far northeast corner of Denver. Peoria Street runs along the west side and Chambers Road along the east. East 56th Avenue marks the north edge, with the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge on the other side, and I-70 closes off the south, close to where I-225 joins it.

Farmland that Denver annexed in 1965

This was undeveloped Adams County farmland until September 1965, when Denver annexed almost 3,000 acres of it. Building started the next year. Perl-Mack Construction, the company Jordon Perlmutter and Sam Primack founded, handled the design and the building.

Brick ranches first, multi-levels later

With so much open grassland to work with, homebuilding here kept going into the early 2000s. The 1960s and '70s blocks are mostly plain, boxy brick ranches, some of them split-levels, nearly all with an attached garage and a basement. Later houses went up as multi-levels. If you want one-story living with a basement and an attached garage, focus on the older ranch streets. Expect more stairs in the newer multi-levels.

Restored prairie and a 15,000-acre refuge

Montbello Open Space Park sits at East 46th Avenue and Albrook Drive, near Peoria and I-70. The Trust for Public Land bought the 5.5 acres in 2012, when a 12-story commercial building was planned for the site, and handed the land to the city in 2014. The park was celebrated in June 2021 and has short-grass prairie plantings, native play areas, a climbing boulder paid for by The North Face, art pieces by Chevo Studios, and landscaping built to soak up stormwater.

The refuge across 56th covers about 15,000 acres, with more than 330 species, including bison and black-footed ferrets, plus about 20 miles of hiking trails and an 11-mile Wildlife Drive. Getting in is free. The main entrance is not on the Montbello side, though: you drive around to 6550 Gateway Road in Commerce City, and the visitor center there is open Wednesday through Sunday.

Peoria, Albrook and a whiskey distillery

The biggest recent project sits at Peoria and Albrook. The FreshLo Hub, a 97-unit affordable apartment building on Albrook Drive, broke ground in 2023. The neighborhood has had just one partial-service grocery store since 2014, and the project grew out of that. The hub's plans include a 5,200-square-foot nonprofit grocery modeled on Boston's Daily Table, an arts education center and mental health services. The grocery, now called Denver Table Market, was slated to open by the end of 2025, and as of fall 2026 it still had no announced opening date, so check whether it's open before you count on it for your weekly shopping.

Up at 5285 Joliet Street, Leopold Bros was named Distillery of the Year in 2014 by the American Distilling Institute, and it malts its own Colorado-grown barley on its own malting floor. The tasting room pours cocktails and guided tastings on Saturdays from 11 to 5, and the tours walk through malting, fermenting, distilling and barrel aging.

For dinner on Peoria, Jamaican Jerk & BBQ at 4611 Peoria St. cooks jerk chicken and pork, oxtail, curry goat and ackee and saltfish.

Trains, buses and I-70

There is no rail station inside Montbello. The closest is Peoria station, at 11501 E. 33rd Avenue in Aurora. The A Line takes about 20 minutes from there to Union Station, or about 20 minutes the other way to the airport, and the R Line starts there and heads south toward Lone Tree. The station has 550 parking spaces, and RTD's 37, 45, 121 and 153 buses meet the trains. For a train commute, the blocks nearer Peoria Street leave you the shortest trip to the platform.

City Council adopted the Far Northeast Area Plan in June 2019 as the land-use guide for Montbello, Green Valley Ranch and part of the airport area. Before you buy next to a shopping center or an empty lot, look at what the plan calls for there.