For the past few years, Eldon James has been one of Corporate Northern Colorado’s bright lights, a shining testament to all that is possible in our part of the state, an exciting growth story pregnant with potential for even greater things.
Sadly, frustratingly, all of that will soon be gone.

The Loveland-based company, we had been led to believe, was planning to build a new $12-million, 75,000-square-foot facility in Timnath. Instead, it is now headed south, moving to a location at the Stapleton airport redevelopment project in Denver.

The news, appropriately enough, broke on Friday the 13th. It most certainly ruined the weekends of key players in the economic-development game.

Eldon James, in case you haven’t heard of it, makes plastic tubing and fittings used in a wide range of industries including pharmaceuticals and auto manufacturing. In all, it makes more than 6,000 products.

It’s not a huge company, with just 36 employees on payroll. But with its clean rooms and growing fortunes, it’s on the cutting edge, a “cool” company deploying some of the intellectual capital so critical in today’s economy. That, of course, helps attract other manufacturers,