Broadmoor's Neighborhood Changes: Retail, Parks and Fall Events

If you asked someone outside Colorado Springs what happened in Broadmoor this year, they would probably guess something about the hotel. A new suite renovation. A golf tournament. Maybe a chef change at the Penrose Room. That is the version of this neighborhood that travels, the five-star name that shows up on magazine lists and vacation planners.

The neighborhood has a different story to tell. Ask a Broadmoor resident what changed this year and you may hear about a Hawaiian plate-lunch counter on Southgate Road, a farm supply store where Sears used to be, a plaza at the mouth of the canyon, and October event dates. These neighborhood changes are separate from the hotel's own operations.

Two economies, one ZIP code

The Broadmoor Hotel opened in 1918 and has held the AAA Five-Diamond and Forbes Five-Star ratings longer than any property in the country. That is the brand the neighborhood borrows its name from, and it operates on its own budget, its own calendar, and its own guest list. It funds its restaurants, its golf courses, and its seasonal events like the Sazerac dinner in November or the Thanksgiving brunch in Broadmoor Hall directly, because it is a private resort with the revenue to do so.

The neighborhood around it runs on something closer to a patchwork. The retail corridor answers to commercial landlords and national chains. The park depends on city budgets, lodging tax revenue, and whatever a nonprofit friends group can raise in a given year. The zoo is a separate nonprofit that funds its own conservation work through ticket sales. These are separate systems, and each saw changes this year.

If you want to understand why Broadmoor feels different depending on which block you're standing on, that split is the reason.

What moved into the old Sears

Broadmoor Towne Center, the shopping center at Southgate Road and East Cheyenne Road, has spent the last few years quietly turning over. The most visible change is Big R, the farm and ranch supply chain, which took over a remodeled section of the former Sears building and opened its third Colorado Springs location there at roughly 48,000 square feet. It is not a store built for tourists. Western wear, livestock feed, chicken coops, and pasture gates are not what anyone visiting the hotel is shopping for, which is exactly the point. It is a store built for the people who actually live in the surrounding foothills and still keep animals or land.

The food side of the center picked up a new name this spring. L&L Hawaiian Barbecue opened its third Colorado Springs location on April 1 at 2130 Southgate Road, inside the Towne Center, serving the chain's signature Plate Lunch of rice, macaroni salad, and a choice of entree. It is the seventh L&L location in Colorado, and the local franchise owner has been building out locations in the state since 2014. The 900-square-foot counter next to a Home Depot offers another dining option in the neighborhood.

Broadmoor Towne Center has room to keep changing. Commercial listings for the property have shown multiple vacant storefronts at its main entrance over the past year, several zoned for restaurant use with sidewalk seating and mountain views. Whatever fills those spaces next will be decided by a landlord and a leasing broker, not by anyone at the hotel two miles away.

The plaza with its own name

The bigger structural change this year happened at the entrance to North Cheyenne Cañon Park, the free 1,600-acre city park that borders the neighborhood and draws roughly 450,000 visitors annually. Beginning in early March, the city undertook a construction project at the Starsmore Visitor and Nature Center, the craftsman-style stone building that has served as the park's gateway since it was moved to the site in 1990. The project added an outdoor plaza and classroom space, ADA-accessible pedestrian routes, renovated restrooms, and relocated parking.

On June 17, city leaders held a ribbon-cutting for the finished space, which they named the Mary Starsmore Discovery Plaza in honor of the woman whose former home became the visitor center. Skyler Rorabaugh, director of Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, called it an investment in accessibility, visitor experience, and stewardship at the gateway of the park.

The project drew on the city's Office of Accessibility, lodging and rental car tax revenue, and three separate philanthropic sources: the Mary Starsmore Fund of the Pikes Peak Community Foundation, the Friends of Cheyenne Cañon, and the North Cheyenne Cañon Park Ambassadors Gift Trust. The Broadmoor Hotel was not included among the listed funding sources. The plaza that now anchors the park's education programming, the space that will host the Hummingbird Festival, the Halloween Carnival, and the Winter Bird Festival in the seasons ahead, was built by the city and a coalition of local donors.

The programming calendar, the trail conditions on the Columbine Trail or the Daniels Pass system, and the hours at Starsmore are all set by city parks staff and a volunteer nonprofit board. The new benches and accessible walkway near the creek are also part of the park's recent changes.

Boo at the Zoo's October schedule

Boo at the Zoo is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's Halloween event, which draws close to 20,000 people over its run every year. This year's dates are October 16, 17, 23 through 25, 30, and 31, running from 4 to 8:30 p.m. each night, with trick-or-treat stations, select animal exhibits open after dark, and a costume contest.

The zoo is a nonprofit, and Boo at the Zoo functions as one of its larger fundraisers, supporting animal care and conservation work the rest of the year. The zoo's event is separate from the hotel's own seasonal calendar. The zoo sells out its own tickets on its own schedule, and Broadmoor families plan their October weekends around it the same way they plan around school breaks.

What this actually means if you live here

The Broadmoor is a legitimate landmark, and its restaurants, golf courses, and spa are real assets that happen to sit inside this ZIP code. The retail corridor on Southgate Road, the trailhead near Starsmore, and Boo at the Zoo are also part of local life.

Together, these parts of local life reflect city budgets, nonprofit boards, commercial leases, and the zoo's calendar. If you are trying to read the neighborhood's actual direction, those are useful signals to consider.

If you are weighing what any of that means for property values, timing, or what a specific block is actually worth right now, that is a conversation grounded in transaction data rather than reputation. Kap|Lyons works this market block by block, and we're happy to walk through what we're seeing. Schedule a Free Consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.