Northglenn

Northglenn is its own city, in Adams and Weld counties, straddling I-25 on the north side of the metro. Thornton is its neighbor to the east, Federal Heights to the south and Westminster to the north, across about 7.4 square miles. Its story starts near 104th Avenue and I-25, where the first show homes went up.

Built from scratch in 1959

In the spring of 1959, the Denver builder Perl-Mack, run by Jordon Perlmutter and Samuel Primack, finalized plans for a subdivision in unincorporated Adams County called North Glenn. Along with the houses, the plan called for a golf course, swimming pools, shopping centers and an industrial park. More than 15,000 people showed up on June 30, 1959, to tour the first five model homes. Life magazine and the National Association of Home Builders named it "the most perfectly planned community in America" in 1961, and by October 1962 there were 3,000 homes. After a court fight with Thornton, the city incorporated on April 19, 1969.

Ranches first, then bi-levels

The first round of houses were one-story and small, roughly 600 to 800 square feet. The Matchless model had two bedrooms in about 820 square feet. Bi-levels and tri-levels came in later phases, and the lots are large for the house sizes.

Since 2004, the city has backed a nonprofit that helps owners enlarge their existing houses, so an original ranch may well have a bigger kitchen or a new garage by now. Because the originals were so small, check the square footage and parking on each listing instead of assuming.

Newer houses are scarce. The big exception is Karl's Farm, on the old Hinkhouse family dairy near 120th Avenue and Race Street. The northern 32 acres of the 64-acre site became a new residential neighborhood, with construction starting in late 2020. If you want new construction inside Northglenn, start there.

Webster Lake and 35 miles of trail

The city has 27 parks and open spaces covering more than 250 acres, tied together by over 35 miles of Greenway trail. The biggest is E.B. Rains Jr. Memorial Park, 39 acres around 11-acre Webster Lake, a man-made irrigation pond. You can fish it or ride the city's pedal boats, but swimming is off limits. Croke Reservoir Nature Area is the other fishing spot, and dogs aren't allowed there. Bill Goodspeed Happy Tails Dog Park is the one place in the system where dogs can run off leash.

The city's recreation center, senior center and 335-seat theatre opened in October 2021, with a six-lane lap pool and a gym.

104th Avenue and Melody Drive

The old Northglenn Mall was torn down in 1999, and Northglenn Marketplace was built on the site using its recycled debris. Prost Brewing's 10,000-square-foot biergarten at 351 W. 104th Ave. opened there in January 2024, the first piece of a nearly 60,000-square-foot brewery headquarters. Down 104th, Cinzzetti's is an Italian buffet with 14 stations, set up like a Tuscan village around a piazza, and on Sundays it adds pancakes, crepes and an omelet station. Saigon Basil, on Melody Drive, was Westword's Best Vietnamese Restaurant in 2017, and its menu is a long one.

Getting to Denver

I-25 runs through the middle of town to downtown. RTD's N Line commuter rail opened in September 2020 and stops at Northglenn/112th, on York Street at the city's east edge, which has park-and-ride parking and bus bays for routes 7, 19 and 112. The line runs 13 miles from Eastlake/124th to Union Station.