Englewood is small on the map and old by Colorado standards. Thomas Skerritt homesteaded here in the 1860s, and in 1903 the settlements of Orchard Place and Cherrelyn voted to incorporate as Englewood. The 2020 census counted 33,659 people. It sits directly south of Denver, in western Arapahoe County, and much of its land has been in use for a hundred years or more.
That makes it a good town for trade companies and a practical place to run a shop. If you own one here and want to sell, Kent & Tamarack can help you do it privately. Call (983) 900-6537. The founder will pick up.
Four parts of a small city
Englewood is easy to drive across, but each part of it brings different work.
The hospital district. Swedish Medical Center and Craig Hospital, which is known for spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation, sit at the center of the city's medical district. An earlier city plan named life sciences as Englewood's strongest business group because of the two hospitals. Clinics, medical offices and care facilities around the hospitals all need electrical, mechanical, plumbing and building service.
South Broadway and downtown. Englewood's historic downtown runs along South Broadway, and the whole city sits inside the South Metro Enterprise Zone, which offers state tax credits to businesses that qualify. Restaurants, shops and older storefronts call service companies often.
CityCenter. The old Cinderella City mall site became CityCenter, a 55-acre mixed use district with the library, city offices and courts, next to the D Line light rail station. The city has said the district needs reinvestment, and plans are under way to redevelop it.
The industrial west side. The blocks near Santa Fe Drive and the South Platte River hold much of the city's industrial and production space. For trade companies, these blocks hold shops, yards and warehouses.
What the city is working toward
In November 2022 the city council adopted an economic development plan meant to guide its choices for the next five to ten years. Two parts of it touch trade companies directly. One is working with Craig and Swedish on local buying, so more of what the hospitals spend on services and supplies stays with businesses in Englewood. The other is a plan to fill and keep commercial tenants, including the mixed use space at CityCenter, which means more tenant work, more build-outs and more buildings that need service.
A buyer weighing a company here will notice a city that wants its local businesses to win more of the work close to home. It is a small point, but in a sale, small points add up.
Why the location helps a sale
A buyer looks hard at where a shop is. Englewood sits close to the middle of the metro. From the west side industrial blocks, a truck can reach Denver, Littleton, Sheridan, Cherry Hills Village and Centennial without a long haul. For a company that works across the south and central metro, that is a real advantage.
It also means your shop location may matter to a buyer as much as your customer list. A competitor based farther out may want an Englewood shop so its techs start the day closer to the work.
Older homes, steady calls
Many of Englewood's neighborhoods are made up of older homes, built long before today's codes. Old houses keep plumbers, electricians, roofers and heating companies busy: old pipes, old wiring, old boilers and furnaces, and additions built decades apart. Many of these jobs come from homeowners who call the same company every time.
For a buyer, a long list of repeat homeowners in older neighborhoods is steady income that does not depend on new building.
What we look at in an Englewood company
The shop
Whether you rent or own matters. If you rent, a buyer wants to know how many years are left, what the rent will be and whether the landlord must approve the sale. If you own, you have choices: sell the building with the company, keep it and lease it to the buyer, or sell it separately. Each changes the deal in a different way.
The work mix
How much of your income comes from homes, how much from the hospital district and other commercial customers, and how much from new construction. A balanced mix is easier to sell than one that leans on a single contractor or one big account.
The crew
Hiring good techs is hard everywhere in the metro. A buyer will ask who your key people are, how long they have stayed and whether they hold the licenses the work needs. If the master license that pulls permits is in your name, we plan how that passes to the buyer early.
The records
Clean books that match your tax returns make the buyer and the buyer's bank comfortable. We work with your accountant on this. If your books need work, we tell you plainly what to fix first.
Who buys in the inner south metro
Buyers for an Englewood company tend to include larger Denver companies in your trade, south suburban companies that want a central shop, private buyers who want one good company to run, out of state companies that want a metro base, and sometimes a key employee. Each kind of buyer pays in a different way. We lay out what each offer pays at closing, what depends on later results and what you must do after the sale.
Before the first call
You do not need to prepare anything to call. If you have them handy, three years of tax returns, a rough list of trucks and equipment, your shop lease or deed, and a sense of your ten biggest customers help us give you a useful answer on the first call. If you do not have them, that is fine. We will tell you what to gather and why.
The process in a few lines
The same four steps we use across Colorado: a private first call, an honest value range with reasons, a quiet search for the right buyer and a clean close with your accountant and attorney. Read about how a sale works.
Owners close to the city line may also want our Littleton and Centennial pages, or the main Denver page.
If you are ready to talk about selling your business in Englewood, or you want a straight answer about value first, call (983) 900-6537 or email hello@kentandtamarack.com.