NEDERLAND — “Today I want to say to every person here, we will rebuild,” Stephen Tebo said, standing in front of his Black Forest building, addressing a crowd while staring out at the wreckage of the Caribou Village Shopping Center. “We will rebuild something that is not just bricks and mortar, but something even more meaningful. A place which reflects the incredible resilience of this town. Together we will make the heart of Nederland stronger than ever.”

Those words from Tebo were spoken almost a year ago, on November 1, 2025, during the Nederland Strong Rally—a fundraising concert in the Black Forest’s parking lot, just across from where Tebo’s shopping center had burned down a month prior. 

Immediately following the tragic Lakeview Fire, representatives from Tebo Properties mobilized to deliver their rent and deposit reimbursement checks to the more than 20 displaced tenants, and to plan multiple benefit events, including the November rally. 

Though the community began to welcome in healing during that event, with many dancing to the vibes of the live bands Queso Ra, Daft Phish, and The Galentines, by Thanksgiving the mood amongst Nederland locals had changed and impatience over the stalled start of the cleanup process became prominent in the discourse. 

People gathered for the Nederland Strong Rally right behind the wreckage of the shopping center, which would sit there through the winter of 2025.

Photo by Christopher Kelley

At that time, Tebo Properties CEO James Dixon, who is no longer with the company, stated that they did not have “possession of the site,” and specified that the delays in beginning the cleanup were due to the different investigations being conducted by the various insurance companies representing some of the shopping center tenants.  

Once the Colorado Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) completed their investigation and left the site—along with all the insurance agents—possession and control of the fenced-in wreckage was given back to Tebo Properties.

Unfortunately, due to complications between Tebo and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) regarding the need for proper asbestos testing, progress was not made on cleaning up the site until well into the new year. 

“The state's excessive restrictions cost us between six to eight months delay,” Ben Myers of Tebo Properties told The Mountain-Ear in a recent interview. Myers referred to the issues with CDPHE pertaining to their refusal to give Tebo the necessary permits to begin demolition of the remaining standing structure.

“Once we were able to get through the delay issues with the State, and were able to actually start our work, the demolition and clean-up moved efficiently and smoothly,” Myers said. 

Things came to a head between Tebo and CDPHE when—after the State’s treatment of the site as being contaminated caused delays and issues with tenants getting to retrieve their belongings—Tebo’s hired demolition company accidentally ignored the required site stabilization plan and caused the wreckage of the top floor to collapse and crush the blown-out storefronts on the bottom. 

Following this incident, Tebo Properties began working to rebound from the miscommunication with their tenants, allowing many of them to search for any salvageable property before demolition continued. As the cleanup process became steady and manageable, Tebo began reaching out to all former shopping center tenants about the opportunity to collaborate on their potential new spaces within the anticipated new building. 

“One of our goals is to bring back as many of the previous tenants as we could,” Myers explained. “Caribou Village was a 100%-occupied vibrant shopping center with fantastic synergy between all the tenants. Our leasing goal is always to create environments where businesses benefit from one another.

“We're currently working with a handful of the previous tenants who want to come back to Caribou Village. We encourage anyone who has leased a space in Caribou Village in the past to reach out to us as we finalize our designs.”

Despite noting that there is as of yet no updated design schematic for the new shopping center that the public can access and view, Myers did indicate that, as finishing touches are being added to the blueprints, the current design aims for a much more modern building, that is yet representative of the same Nederland spirit that was so alive in the old building.  

“One opportunity that comes with building from the ground up is that the new Caribou Village is being designed to current building, energy, accessibility, life-safety, and fire-protection standards. Our goal is absolutely to build an efficient and safe shopping center that fits the character of Nederland and will serve the community for many years to come,” Myers said, before getting into more detail. 

“The building will be a bit larger in size, and our goal is to create a local synergy like we had before. We're planning to build a family-friendly play area near the Carousel and will be marketing to ice cream shops to lease a space over there.

“The middle of the shopping center will be completely open, with public areas and more patio space than before. We will likely end up with between 15 to 20 shops/restaurants and will be trying to attract the same unique types of businesses that were there before.” 

The Mountain-Ear has been following up with the owners of those unique businesses who were once tenants of the former Caribou Village Shopping Center. They supplied the community with health and wellness, with warm clothes, with local music and art, with helpful information, with good food, libations, and entertainment, but have since been displaced, have changed their business models, or were forced to find entirely new paths.  

While their opinions about Tebo Properties vary, both in how the cleanup process was handled and whether they will rent space in the new building, most of the business owners affected by the Lakeview Fire want to know the answer to one last, important question: what caused the fire? 

The investigation by the ATF was originally estimated to be complete by December of 2025, and the deadline of Summer 2026 was tentatively set for all lab work and evidence processing to be completed and for a cause of the fire to be officially declared. 

Unfortunately, summer is over and neither the public, shopping center business owners, or local authorities—from the Town of Nederland, Nederland Fire Protection District (NFPD), Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, to Tebo Properties themselves—have been made privy to the ATF’s findings. 

“We have not been made aware of what caused the fire,” Myers said on behalf of Tebo Properties. “We are not involved in the investigative process. The press will likely know the answer before us.”

In addition to the press, members of the public and some business owners have made frequent requests through the Colorado Open Records Act to obtain any information regarding the investigation into the Lakeview Fire, particularly as to the cause of it. 

In an email response to the concerned consortium of business owners, NFPD Chief Charlie Schmidtmann provided some insight into the ATF’s process and to when the public may expect to see their report.

“This investigation included several sides, including interviewing witnesses both on- and off-site; employing qualified excavators, and obtaining methods to pay those contractors; performing on-site excavation and obtaining samples; finding nearby cameras and viewing angles; watching hundreds of hours of video; and obtaining warrants to gather certain building data,” Schmidtmann wrote. 

“Once this data is collected, teams begin collaborating and certain hypotheses are discussed and then evidence is sent out to labs for processing. The evidence is sent out and the labs decide what the best methods are for testing. In our case, the labs built props to simulate the conditions that we had to test the evidence and their hypothesis.”

Schmidtmann described how scheduling time in the lab can take quite a lot of time, on top of the extensive performance of various tests on the props in the lab and the subsequent tech review. He added that the multiple federal government shutdowns that have occurred since last October have also exacerbated the delay. 

But, after he and Fire Marshal Andrew Joslin met with the ATF recently, Schmidtmann was able to report that the lab testing has been completed and that the process was heading to tech review, meaning that the community could learn the cause of the Lakeview Fire by October. 

“I understand the need for answers, and how the lack of answers looks for me as the Fire Chief and our agency,” Schmidtmann said, “but for this incident we unfortunately have to wait for the ATF to finalize their report. As of right now, this is the closest timeframe I currently have for an update.”