You’ve probably seen the stuff that Rob Volkert’s company makes, you just haven’t realized it.
“Go to an Avs game, you’ll see our products down there,” Volkert said.
Volkert is the chief operating officer for Pretred, a startup that turns old tires into new rubber barriers used on the side of the highway or in Ball Arena’s parking lots. They’re a substitute for its traditional concrete counterparts.
“We are manufacturers of the first and only sustainable, circular barrier product that uses crumb rubber. We use waste tires, we grind up the tires down to a very small crumb size and manufacture these barriers,” Volkert said.
But the problem is Pretred lacks the space and equipment to shred its own tires. Instead, it has the shredded material shipped in.
“Not a great sustainability story to tell,” Volkert said.
But that will soon change. The company received an $11.2 million grant from the state last year to acquire tire shredding equipment. And earlier this month, it leased 150,000 square feet in Aurora — triple the size of its current space.
“It’s a significant savings,” Volkert said. “It flips our business model.”
Development of the product is about a decade in the making. Sales started last year. This year, Volkert said he expects to do triple what he did in 2024.
Avison Young brokers Ryan Almaleh and Dawn McCombs helped Pretred find its new home at 6550 N. Denali St. in Hines’ Denali Logistics Park.
“You hear tire shredding, tire recycling — a lot of landlords are like, ‘Nope, gross, don’t want it,’” Almaleh said.
He said the challenge was finding a willing landlord and a space with about 8,000 amps of electrical capacity. That’s enough power for roughly 80 single-family homes.
After six months of looking, the broker found space at Lovett76 along Interstate 76 in Brighton around the start of this year. He spent an additional six weeks with the city to get Pretred’s use approved. But when a lease signing appeared imminent, Trader Joe’s swooped in and bought the building instead.
Fortunately, an alternative candidate arose at the Denali Logistics Park, conveniently located in the city where Pretred operates currently.
“It’s a shell, a warehouse building. … Lot of work to be done all in the next five, six months,” Volkert said.
Pretred will move in next spring.
The team of 29 will scale up to 55 in the coming years, and so will the size of the tires the company processes. First, recycling operations will be limited to passenger car tires. Later on, the company hopes to do the same for larger, industrial truck tires found in construction or mining sites.
Currently, waste tires in Colorado are generally burned or buried. The benefit of Pretred’s operation, Volkert said, is it not only allows for tires to be recycled, but the product is circular, too. That means if someone hits one of its barriers and damages it, it can be ground back down to crumb rubber and reassembled into a brand-new product.
“We’re not trying to flip the industry. … It’s a direct drop-in substitute for the concrete barriers,” Volkert said.
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