Top 10 Colorado business stories of 2016.

AuthorPeterson, Eric
PositionSTATE of the STATE NEWS AND NOTES ON COLORADO BUSINESS

Start to finish, 2016 has been a boom year for Colorado business. The diverse economy is hitting on all cylinders despite tough times for a certain burrito maker and sporting goods retailer. Not all news is good news, of course, but there hasn't been a shortage of compelling headlines either way. Here are 10 of the most buzzed-about about stories since the year began.

1 The A train to DIA opens

Hiccups aside, this massive milestone for metro Denver's FasTracks build-out links two of the city's biggest developments of the last quarter-century: Union Station and Denver International Airport.

2 Vail Resorts buys Whistler

The largest single-mountain resort in North America (Vail Mountain Resort, 5,289 acres) wasn't enough. Neither was creating the largest resort in the U.S. (the 7,300-acre Park City-Canyons complex in Utah) in 2015. So Broomfield-based Vail Resorts went one better and bought the biggest resort on the continent: British Columbia's Whistler Blackcomb (8,171 acres) in August 2016.

3 The oil bust continues

With barrel prices hovering around $40--down 60 percent from 2014--Colorado's oil and gas industry continues to fight a glut in the market, and drilling is down from the Four Corners to the Niobrara Shale. More than 100 U.S. oil-and-gas-companies declared bankruptcy in 2016, including Colorado-based Venoco, Warren Resources and Emerald Oil.

4 Sports Authority declares bankruptcy

The Englewood-headquartered sporting goods giant collapsed under a heavy debt load and shuttered all 463 of its stores, including Denver's fabled Sportscastle. Now that the Broncos have assumed naming rights to the former Sports Authority Field at Mile High, the question remains:

5 Danone buys Whitewave for $10.4B

This was the big enchilada of natural foods deals for Colorado in 2016. While the French food conglomerate's acquisition of the Denver-based soy milk titan was the largest, it wasn't the only big local exit in the space: Pinnacle Foods completed its $975 million buyout of Boulder Brands in January, and Hormel Foods, the parent company of Spam and Skippy, nabbed Boulder-based nut-butter maker Justin's for $286 million in the spring.

6 The Dream Chaser rebounds

Once hailed as the heir to the Space Shuttle, Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems' Dream Chaser project looked...

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