Fourth Street project included fire suppression work

PUBLISHED: March 29, 2026 at 7:45 AM MDT by the Loveland Reporter Herald - SEE RH ARTICLE HERE
WRITTEN BY SEAN HAWKINS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

​In 2018, as I was considering the executive director position of the newly formed Loveland Downtown Development Authority, I started researching Loveland to better understand the downtown’s history. I came across an article about a big fire that heavily damaged five historic buildings in downtown Loveland over Memorial Day weekend in 2017.

A small spark in a 140-year-old historic building smoldered throughout a Saturday afternoon and exploded in the hours past midnight. The fire took 75 firefighters, working as a unit into the early hours of the following morning, to fully extinguish. Thankfully no one died that night, but the result of this event was a devastating loss of important downtown history. The fire and the damage it left stripped the shared identity and civic pride from the heart of Loveland.

However, after a bit more research, I found out the fire wasn’t in downtown Loveland, Colorado, it was in downtown Loveland, Ohio.

Thinking more about this devastating event, I can’t help but reflect that while the states may be different, one thing however is true about both communities, most of the buildings in their downtown cores have no fire suppression systems to protect the individuals that live there and the historic structures themselves.

What’s interesting is, the same fire and outcome that happened in Loveland, Ohio could have easily happened in downtown Loveland, Colorado in 2020. On the evening of April 27, while we were all stuck at home during the COVID-19 lockdowns, a fire broke out around 10 p.m. in the crawl space of the Lovelander Hotel, which is located in the 100 block of East Fourth Street. The Lovelander Hotel was built in 1905 and contains 39 apartments units. This fire could have devastated the historic hotel as well as other buildings in downtown Loveland. We are so thankful that 50 residents, the Lovelander Hotel as well as multiple surrounding buildings and businesses were spared by a fire suppression sprinkler system that was installed just months prior.

At the time, Ned Sparks was the chief of the Loveland Fire and Rescue Authority’s safety division. In an email the day after the fire, he told me, “The damage was minimal in comparison to the size of the building. The fire was extinguished before it became large enough to create a problem, which is what the fire suppression system is designed to do. I have to tell you the fact we had the fire sprinklers installed and operational four months ago, saved that building and most likely the Cactus Grill and the Elks Lodge — not mention the 50-plus people and pets inside.”

In 2019, a partnership of the city of Loveland, the Loveland Fire and Rescue Authority and the Loveland Downtown Development Authority created the Fire Suppression Grant Program to help downtown property owners with the high costs of installing fire suppression systems into their historic buildings. This program made it possible to install the fire suppression system that saved the Lovelander Hotel, the residents inside and the neighboring buildings.

The Fire Suppression Grant Program covers the cost to install a fire line into a building from the main water line serving the property. This work typically includes street cuts and trenching, traffic control and installing the fire line itself. The property owner’s responsibility in the grant program is to install a working fire suppression system on the inside of the building. Prior to The Heart Improvement Plan, the Fire Suppression Grant Program had allowed us to install 13 new fire suppression systems into some of the oldest buildings in Loveland.

I’m so glad to tell you this next piece of good news. As our team is partnering with the city of Loveland on the complete renovation of​ Fourth Street through the Heart Improvement Plan, we’ve added 16 new fire lines to the remaining spaces on Fourth Street between Washington Avenue and Garfield Avenue that do not have a fire suppression system.

One of the driving reasons behind this project is the replacement of our century old water line servicing the downtown district, rebuilding the water connections to the new line that feeds 77 services to Fourth Street buildings, as well as the replacement of the stormwater system.

We feel incredibly proud that we’ve been able to provide the infrastructure necessary to bring our historic downtown up to code. By taking advantage of the road being torn up during construction, we’ve saved our current and future building owners the massive cost of excavating the street and sidewalk to install fire lines to buildings. This push to bring downtown Loveland up to code by the DDA and city provides future building and business owners the opportunity to change “building use” without the required and costly inconvenience of accessing the main waterline.

Most importantly, we will hopefully avoid a major fire to our treasured historic buildings in the way that Loveland, Ohio experienced in 2017.

Sean Hawkins is the executive director of the Loveland Downtown District. The Loveland Downtown District is a partnership of the Loveland Downtown Development Authority and the Historic Loveland Business Improvement District. He has lived in Loveland since August 2018. He can be reached via email at shawkins@lovelandpartnership.org or by text at 970-699-2856.