Blaze Destroys Strip Mall in Nederland, CO; Probe Underway
Daily Camera, Boulder, Colo.
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John Thompson sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night, so it wasn’t unusual that he was up at 3:30 a.m. Thursday, playing solitaire in bed.
But his peaceful early morning game was interrupted when he got a text that the Caribou Village Shopping Center, where his business is housed, was on fire.
“I jumped up, threw on a sweatshirt and some pants and walked over there, and by the time I got to it, the entire western side of the building was engulfed in flames,” Thompson said.
Thompson owns the Mountain Man Outdoor Store, a shop that has sold new and used outdoor clothing at the Caribou shopping center in Nederland for 12 years.
He stood in front of the flaming building in the early morning hours, “watching my hopes and dreams melt away in front of me,” he said.
The Caribou Village Shopping Center, a building that housed about a dozen local businesses, was destroyed by a fire on Thursday morning. The fire did not spread to the adjacent Carousel of Happiness or the B&F Mountain Market.
“It’s probably close to half of Nederland businesses are gone overnight,” said Jeff Green, owner of the Very Nice Brewing Company, which burned down in the fire. “The impact can’t be overstated, and for all the people who worked there.”
The brewery had plans to celebrate 13 years this later month.
“I’m just very numb right now and confused,” Green said. “Yesterday, I had a brewery there, and now I do not. It’s like a limb has been cut off.”
Animals that died
Jill Dreves, the founder and chief vision officer of the Wild Bear Nature Center, said all the animals that lived at the nature center, which was located in the shopping center, died in the fire. One turtle, one snake, two salamanders, one scorpion and 70 cockroaches died.
Westie the western painted turtle, which is the state reptile, was an animal ambassador for Wild Bear for 15 years. Everyone who visited loved her, Dreves said, and she was full of personality. Other lost animals include Sal and Sally, who were western tiger salamanders, Luna the snake and Vinny the scorpion. The center also lost its exhibits, murals, gift shop and educational materials.
Wild Bear’s location in the shopping center was temporary, as the nature center is building a new location in Nederland. Dreves said the fire does not impact the new nature center, and the project will remain on track. But the blaze will impact operations. Wild Bear has established a relief fund so people can donate to help the nature center recover. For more information, visit wildbearnaturecenter.harnessgiving.org/campaigns/19386.
Several GoFundMe pages have been created in the hours since the fire, and one page created to help affected employees and business owners raised more than $55,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
Lost businesses include
* O’Neill Rocky Mountain Art
* Kaleidoscope Fine Arts Gallery
* Tres Gringos Restaurant
* Oriental Healing Clinic
* Columbine Family Care
* Wild Bear Nature Center
* Mountain Man Outdoor Store
* Very Nice Brewing Company
* The Shop
* Dam Liquor Store
* Tadasana Mountain Yoga
* Brightwood Music
* Augustina’s Winery
* The Laundry Room
Dr. Michael Camarata, the only full-time doctor in Nederland, was also based in the shopping center and lost his entire practice in the fire. On Thursday morning, he was already out looking at other buildings in Nederland where he can move his practice. He is hoping to be up and running with a new bare-bones practice within a week.
Until then, he said, he’ll handle his patients’ needs as best he can. Fortunately, a lot can be done through a computer or over the phone until his new office opens.
“I at least have the ability to continue to do what I’m doing; many of (the other businesses) may not,” Camarata said.
While Nederland residents may not have to worry about finding medical care elsewhere, the only laundromat in town, The Laundry Room, burned down in the fire.
“I don’t know where people are going to do their laundry,” Green said.
The town will also lose monetarily, Green said, with big losses in sales tax. It’s losing a focal point of Nederland that provided community gathering and creative spaces. Nederland also lost an economic engine when the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, a major winter event the town hosted for more than 30 years, moved to Estes Park in 2023.
Claudia Schauffler is the manager of the shopping center and owns The Shop, a new and used clothing store that burned down in the fire. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to reopen or how many others will.
Every business is locally owned with local staff who live in town, Schauffler said. Although she’s not sure exactly how many total people worked in the shopping center, she said most retail stores had one or two staff members plus the owner. Restaurants have more — Green said usually eight to 10 people worked at his brewery at any given time.
“It was the biggest concentration of small businesses in town,” Schauffler said.
Building’s history
The Caribou Village Shopping Center is owned by Stephen Tebo and Tebo Properties. But the shopping center was first owned and built by James William Guercio, Thompson said, who also owned and built the Caribou Ranch Recording Studio in the 1970s.
The Caribou Ranch Recording Studio hosted many big-name artists, included Elton John, Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind and Fire, where the artists recorded their music. Guercio used the money from the studio to build the Caribou Village Shopping Center in the late 1970s, according to Thompson. He owned it until it was sold to Tebo Properties about a decade ago, and there were about a dozen tenants in the building at the time of the fire, according to Tebo.
Coincidentally, Guercio’s recording studio was shut down and never reopened after a 1985 fire destroyed its control room and caused extensive additional damage.
“The shopping center was more than a shopping center, as it served as a de facto town center for Nederland,” Tebo Properties CEO James Dixon wrote in an email to the Daily Camera. “…Our initial plans are to clean up the rubble and figure out how to rebuild. Right now we have about a dozen tenants, and even more employees who have lost their livelihoods and our focus is on coming together as a community to support them. I would like to extend a sincere thanks to the local fire departments, Sheriff’s office (also a tenant in the center) ATF and other organizations who have been on site all day preventing the fire from spreading to neighboring structures.”
The shopping center also made the news when a man planted a bomb in 2016 at the Nederland police station, which is located in the shopping center, to avenge a decades-old murder by the town marshal. The bomb did not go off, and the man, David Ansberry, was convicted in federal court and imprisoned for the use and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
Thompson said he’s grateful that he and others have insurance and that no one was hurt, something he continually reminded himself of throughout the day on Thursday. While he’s hopeful he’ll be able to open up again at a different location in Nederland, he’s mourning the loss of community between the businesses in the shopping center.
“We were like family for 12 years,” Thompson said. “We were next-door neighbors and watch each other’s backs, that’s the hard part.”
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