GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) — Nearly every seat was filled at 11 a.m., Wednesday at the Montrose Pavillion Event Center.
Business owners, entrepreneurs, citizens and government officials came together to talk economics.
Montrose Mayor David Reed shared some of the city's accomplishments in 2024, like the near completion of the new town hall façade and celebrated the opening of the Rathbone Hotel, which was an old historic building downtown.
Reed says the old City Hall building will be turned into a new hotel.
The main attraction at least to Amanda Waltrip with the Colorado Rural Workforce Consortium was Nathan Perry, a CMU professor, who talked about population projections.
He predicts Montrose County will grow to roughly 53,000 in 2050. Mesa and Delta County will also grow substantially.
While most of the event was positive, there was one thing Perry says he worries about - the demographic cliff of Millenials having far fewer babies than previous generations; something Tonya Maddox with Our Town Matters, the organizers of the event, isn't that worried about.
With full bellies and full minds, the Pavillion cleared at 1 p.m.
Mayor Reed hopes everyone left knowing the event, at its core, is really a celebration of citizens and what they've accomplished to make Montrose what it is.