In 2015, West Colfax Lately began with a promise: that this corridor — its neighborhoods, its business owners, its civic life — deserved coverage as serious and as steady as any part of the metro.
For a decade, it kept that promise in print, a glossy magazine chronicling the people, places, and momentum of historic West Colfax.
Ten years in print, and what comes next
The magazine did something valuable for ten years: it captured this corridor at its best — 30,000 copies of grit and glitter, delivered to doorsteps and stacked at the HUB and dozens of spots along West Colfax. It was beautiful, and it was permanent. But West Colfax is a place where a groundbreaking, a grand opening, and a city council decision can all land in the same week.
So this year we built its successor. We launched a digital newsroom, publishing real reporting on the policy, the projects, and the people shaping West Colfax.
We brought that reporting to where people already are — on Instagram, on Facebook, in the daily scroll — and the community answered. Readership climbed. Stories traveled. People found us, followed us, and came back on their own.
The lesson was clear. The appetite for local, trustworthy, corridor-focused news was never in doubt. What the community needed was a way to receive it the way people now engage with content: continuously, and everywhere.
The vision: a media platform, not just a publication
The goal has never changed since 2015: keep neighborhoods, business owners, and civic leaders informed on what is happening along West Colfax — and give them something to do about it. The magazine did that annually. A newsroom and a social presence do it every day. But there was still a piece missing: the one that turns coverage into conversation.
That piece is the West Colfax Lately Podcast, and it launches in September!
Each episode will open with a rundown of the latest news across West Colfax and greater Lakewood, move into an in-depth interview with the leaders and residents shaping this place, and close with a look at what is happening right in our own neighborhoods. City leaders, business owners, and the people who live here, in conversation, every episode.
This is what a media platform is for. Not to talk at a community, but to give it a table to gather around. To take everything a decade of the magazine built — the trust, the readership, the reputation — and carry it into something that can keep pace with the corridor it covers.
Our journey began more than 20 years ago. In 2015, we brought our story to life in print in West Colfax Lately magazine. Now, we are giving it a voice with our new podcast.
“The transformation along the historic West Colfax corridor stands as a direct testament to what happens when city government, local enterprise, creative risk-taking, and community advocacy unite. By breathing fresh economic life into local businesses and carving out an enduring, state-certified sanctuary for the creative community at 40 West Arts, the neighborhood has steadily rewritten its own trajectory. As the corridor turns its focus toward the ambitious milestones ahead, community leaders remind us that this evolution is a continuous, shared effort. The final chapter of our story hasn’t been written, but what we know for sure is that when a community works together, anything is possible.“
– William Marino, Board Chair of 40 West Arts & Director of LWCBID
The West Colfax Lately Podcast launches in September! Subscribe wherever you listen, and follow @westcolfax to be the first to know when episode one drops.
