Longmont's sales tax revenue is down and a citywide campaign is on to get residents to shop local. In an ongoing series will be profiles of businesses that are considered the Best of Longmont. The first profile of a locally owned business in this series is long overdue!

Front Range Lighting has been locally owned and operated for over 15 years by the Carlander Family. Most in the community will remember that it was located for years at the north end of town in the Albertsons shopping center.

Recently, longtime residents Mike and Kelly Carlander bought the family business from Mike's dad and moved it downtown and along with it, over 10k pieces of great lighting and accessories to it's new location. It addition to helping Mike run the family business, Kelly isalso a teacher in the St Vrain Valley School District. Both are well known in the Longmont community.

Moving such a large inventory (which also had been split between multiple warehouse locations) to one storefront and attached warehouse also allowed Mike to get a good look at what they had and to price items to be more competitive with larger lighting retailers in the area. He then used his extensive knowledge and started arranging them in a great indoor space.The open space store also allows his customers to get a really good look at the inventory, how to display and accessorize lighting, including great tips on showing how to hide those pesky cords!

They have fun light fixtures like Le Klint that would look great in a college dorm room (or those young at heart!),biggest sellers like Kichler, high end lighting like Quoizeland Murray Feiss, and also a great selection of outdoor lighting!

Front Range Lighting has a very knowledgeable staff, including family members who know quite a bit about lighting! They also have a list of installers that can help you install your new light fixtures, have a wide variety of replacement and hard to find light bulbs, and offer frequent sales on lighting.