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Fortune  named four Colorado companies among the 100 best companies to work for in 2006.  Amgen (Boulder), Booz Allen Hamilton (Colorado Springs), PLC Construction (Denver) and Qualcom (Boulder) all made the list..

Colorado’s minimum wage increased 33% in January to $6.85 an hour.  Restaurants, where the hourly wages for tipped employee rose 80%, responded by cutting staff, closing eateries and adding to employees’ responsibilities.  Colorado Springs economist Fred Crowley estimated that restaurants will need to raise revenues by 5% to cover their increased labor costs.

Intel is closing its Colorado Springs fab plant, which employs 1,000.  The company is trying to sell the plant to someone who will continue to operate it but, to date, has been unsuccessful.

Education: 

Students enrolled at Colorado community colleges fell 7.8% in the fall of 2006 relative to 2003, to 17,962 students.  Enrollment was also down at three of the four state colleges, but up 9.8% at Metro State and the four research universities.  Mines had particularly strong gains, not surprising in the wake of renewed interest in the energy industry.

Two Colorado cities rank among the nation’s ten smartest.  Boulder (University of Colorado) ranked first and Fort Collins (Colorado State University) ranked seventh.  The ranking is based on the percentage of the population 25 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree.

Retail Sales : 

Retail sales increased 6.6% through October, led by an 18.2% gain in Grand Junction and an 8.8% increase in metro Denver.  Pueblo also had very strong sales growth.  Vehicle sales fell 3.8% in the third quarter.  El Paso County reported that the number of new vehicles registered in 2006 fell 5.1%, to the lowest level in eight years.

State tax collections in the third quarter were $2.17 billion, up 9% from the third quarter of 2005.  Individual income taxes accounted for 47.4% of the total, followed by general sales and gross receipt taxes at 26.3%.

Venture Capital :

Venture capitalists invested $621.8 million in 92 deals in Colorado in 2006, according to the PriceWaterhouse MoneyTree survey.  This was down 4.9% from 2005.  Nationally, venture capital investment rose 8% to a five year high.

Tourism: 

The annual Longwoods study of Colorado’s tourist industry reported 22.5 million domestic overnight visitors to Colorado in 2005, up 1%.  This includes 7.3 million overnight trips by state residents.  Colorado also hosted 3.4 million business travelers, down 4%.  Overnight visitors spent a total of $8.2 billion, with $1.3 billion from Coloradans.  Business travelers accounted for 16% of tourist spending. 

The hotel occupancy rate in Colorado averaged 62.4% in 2006, up from 59.9% in 2005 and 57.7% in 2004.  Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, impacted by natural gas drilling activity in the region, had the highest occupancy rates, 70.6% and 68.8%.  The state’s average room rate of $113.84 was up 8%.  Occupancy rates in Colorado Springs declined, although room rates increased slightly, according to the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report.

Air traffic at Denver International Airport rose 10.1% through the first 11 months of 2006.  November was the 19th consecutive month of record passenger traffic.  The Federal Aviation Administration said Denver was the nation’s sixth busiest airport in 2006.  Passenger traffic in Colorado Springs fell 0.5% through November, although traffic was up 3.7% for the month. 

Adjusted gross proceeds (amount wagered less payouts to bettors) were a record $782.1 million in Colorado in 2006, up 3.5%, despite a snow-related decline in December.  Casinos in Black Hawk accounted for 70.1% of the total.  The Colorado Lottery also had a record year, with sales up 2.6% to $454.2 million.

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts reported a 39.2% increase in ticket revenue and a 16.6% rise in overall revenue in fiscal 2006.  Nevertheless, the center cut 18 positions and deferred facility improvements as it adjusts to a planned, strategic reduction in contributions from the Bonfils Foundation.

Skier visits to 26 Colorado resorts increased 6.7% through December.  Skier days at destination resorts rose 12.0% and visits to the smaller, non-destination increased 10.7%.  Front Range destination resorts were up 3.6%.

 

Housing: 

Housing permits declined 14.3% for the state in 2006, and 14.4% in metro Denver.  Single family permits fell even more sharply, 22% and 27.3% respectively.  Multifamily permits soared 38.9% statewide and 59.4% in metro Denver. 

RealtyTrac reported that Colorado had the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate for 2006, one foreclosure filing for every 33 households — or 3 percent of the state’s households. The state reported a total of 54,747 foreclosure filings during the year, an 85 percent increase from 2005 and the eighth highest total among all the states.

In December for the fifth month in a row, Greeley, Colo., posted the highest foreclosure rate among the nation’s 200-plus largest metropolitan areas. The Greeley metro area (Weld County) documented 391 properties entering some stage of foreclosure, a decrease of nearly 9 percent from the previous month and a foreclosure rate of one new foreclosure filing for every 169 households — more than six times the national average.

Single-family home sales fell 23.1% in December and 5.1% for the year in metro Denver.  The average price increased 3%, while the median price rose 1.3%.  The inventory of homes on the market increased 20.5%.  Condo/townhome sales fell 27.3%  relative to the previous December and were down 6.1% for the year.  Both the average and median price declined and the inventory of homes for sale rose 6%.

In Colorado Springs, existing home sales fell 27.3% for the month and 10.2% for the year.  Condo/townhome sales were down 18.7% for the month and 7.0% for the year.  Inventories of homes for sale in December were 27.0% and 41.8% higher than a year earlier.  Average sale prices fell in December, down 4.2% and 8.4% respectively, but were up 5.0% and 7.2% for the year.

In Aspen, the average sale price of a single family home soared 30% to $5.5 million in 2006.  The median price of $4.16 million was up almost 20%.  There is one home listed for $135 million, the highest in the U.S.

The apartment vacancy rate in metro Denver increased to 7.0% in the fourth quarter, while the average rental rate fell 1.8% relative to the third quarter, to $849.89.  The economic vacancy rate, which factors in concessions, was 22.3%, down from 24.6$ a year earlier, according to DU professor Gordon von Stroh.  In Colorado Springs, the vacancy rate rose more than one percentage point to 12.6%.  Near Fort Carson, the vacancy rate was 26.4%, down from 36.3% in the third quarter.  Average rents declined about $4 to $691.53.

Nonresidential:

The value of nonresidential construction contracts rose 2.1% in Colorado in 2006.  Commercial construction increased 11%, thanks to a huge gain in hotel/motel activity.  Both retail and office contracts declined.  Government service buildings and miscellaneous nonresidential were the other big gainers.  Health care contracts were down.

The value of nonbuilding contracts increased 66%.  Contracts for electric power and heating systems rose from $35.4 million in 2005 to $1.34 billion in 2006 and accounted for 45% of all nonbuilding contracts.

Both Grubb & Ellis and CB Richard Ellis have issued generally upbeat forecasts for the metro Denver real estate market in 2007.  Colorado State University’s forecast for northern Colorado noted there is a five year supply of vacant retail space, a four year supply of vacant office space and a ten year supply of vacant industrial space.