- June 28, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
A cluster of independently owned shops in Peyton helped revive a sense of commerce and community in the small Plains town nearly 30 miles northeast of Colorado Springs.
The handful of shops, known as the Peyton Junction Marketplace, nestled in a knot of streets near Highway 24, started as one woman’s vision to renovate a run-down strip of buildings and has since become a central hub for the town to gather.
“I felt led to try and revitalize this dying little community,” said Desiree Schultz, the owner of most of the properties on the block.
She saw a “for sale” sign in the window of a building on Front Street and decided she would buy the property.
“There were weeds up to my nose everywhere,” Schultz said. “The buildings were just very dilapidated and unusable.”
That was the start of what would become a 12-year process for Schultz to acquire more property, renovate buildings and find tenants.
Schultz ran into several…
