FoCo in 15 Minutes | Albertsons Revival, Airport Changes, Data Centers & PSD Graduation Rates

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It's always fun to see properties that you know maybe have been vacated for a long time and get redeveloped reused kind of like the Kmart last year that well over the last three years got basically re you know raised torn down rebuilt and now there's a new king supers because it just spurs other activity a local investor the Roo brothers bought kind of the old mulligans mountain mist spas and redeveloping those buildings to bring in new tenants and new attractions so it's exciting when a place like the Albertsons on North College is getting hurt was purchased by the URA urban renewal authority for the purposes of kind of like let's change this from a blight to a resource and asset for the community and there's gonna be a temporary use for kind of events event space activities things outdoors so and then long term there will be a community use for that specific space so exciting to see this happening this is live in Fort Collins we come to you live every week Tuesday at noon tonight we are going live at 6 30 p.m.

Mountain Standard Time to talk about the real estate markets look at the data from January what's going on in February and moving forward if you have any questions feel free to ask live or on a rerun and I will make sure to get that to you jumping next into the Northern Colorado Regional Airport we had the director of the airport on our podcast and he talked about three things that needed to happen for us to get consistent commercial airlines one a new terminal we built a 22 million dollar terminal just over the last year I think it opened up in 2025 widening of the runway to allow for 737 and more commercial type-sized airlines that project was put out for bid they was set to take place it was gonna shut down the runway for a hundred and sixty one days and the current users of that that ever because there's actually you know nutrient bohemian foundations Martin Linde and his companies you know there are people who use that frequently and with it being shut down there's also private jet schools there's concern that those people might find alternative options and not come back so they're trying to figure out what alternative options are for this widening of the runway because once that's done then the final piece of the puzzle which is a whether it's a physical or virtual tower will allow for commercial airlines to return to Fort Collins in Northern Colorado again per the director of the airport one of the biggest untapped assets in Northern Colorado and I couldn't agree more I think selfishly would love to see that you know especially if they got trips to Scottsdale Las Vegas you know little warm places to get away in the winter it's like 12 minutes from my doorstep to the parking lot and speaking about parking lot we're gonna get to it that here in just a second as well actually let's just jump right into that landline is going to open up a 700 space parking lot at the Northern Colorado Airport currently let's say for my family when they come in we pick them up at the Harmony Transit Center and they take either landline I think they were they were taking landline green ride but landlines kind of the big dog in the market now now you will be picked up at the Northern Colorado Airport you have a free parking for up to three weeks there and they will take you there from there down to DIA again really pretty close to where we're at you can park your car there for free the shuttle is like 20 to 30 bucks per passenger very affordable a super convenient way to get down to DIA and have now a free parking spot in Fort Collins Larimer County and Colorado are considering new standards for data centers you know we had at an open house we had a potential client come through and they were gonna live in Fort Collins because they were gonna be building a data center down in Cheyenne these things are gargantuan they are massive they take up a massive amount of electrical power like little like as much as like little cities and or even bigger cities and Larimer County is seeing applications for data centers coming in and they're saying hey let's put a pause 30 days that can be extended up to six months so that we can understand and make kind of rules and regulations around these developments because they take a lot of water a lot of electric power and so we've got to make sure that we're not you know saying hey yeah we'd love for you to come in and and bring this big development infrastructure but then suck all the power from our you know surrounding communities so I'm interested to see kind of where that goes but I mean man you know they're they're they're huge for Collins food co-op closed their location on Mountain Avenue January 29th and are planning to open up what was the old beavers market mid-february it'll double their space it is a co-op so you can buy in as a membership get discounted rates excited to see a local company the Fort Collins food co-op take over that location and really hope that that stays a strong staple grocery in that neighborhood community of mountain and shields some unfortunate news the West Elizabeth Transit Quarter federal funding of about ten million dollars was pulled and this was pulled from the US Department of Transportation ten point seven million dollars this is gonna be about a hundred million dollar build-out of the West Elizabeth corridor that is one of the heaviest trafficked heavy heaviest used public transportation corridors in Fort Collins so definitely kind of sad to see that happen they're gonna explore alternative funding options but this was one of those you know federal funds that were kind of on the chopping block when federal funds were really getting cut downsized so sad to see that happen in Fort Collins because that's a big project a lot of jobs potential future opportunities for that but that is a ten million dollar fund and I think they or have already committed a lot of funds to it because they were already like in the development and design phase of this but at this point it is on pause indefinitely Peter school district graduation rates hit a 15-year high for Collins high school graduation rates hit ninety point nine percent oh excuse me eighty nine percent Weld County re4 hit ninety five point seven percent and Thompson school district hit ninety point nine percent now I'm gonna share a breakdown of the schools here let me make sure I'm in a spot so you guys can see the screen as big as you can now put a school district I would say having an 89 percent graduation rate for as many schools are that are in the district is pretty pretty impressive because as you can see you know it now it does include alternative schools charter schools but it includes quite a few schools in here comparatively to you know the Thompson school district has about half as many and then the Windsor has you know a third as many so you know when you have severance high school and Windsor high school absolutely crushing it and then the Windsor Charter Academy greater than ninety eight percent you can see why the district total is as high as it is so very impressive but you know if you are looking at schools for your kid or where how specific schools are doing this is a great chart that does that it was interesting they said in this article that there they included a four-year graduation rate five six and seven years so there's some kids you know for one reason or another they're taking seven years to graduate but that being said fossil-rich high school ninety seven point one percent highest graduation rate whoops in northern Colorado let's go back down there that was a good chart come on there we go fossil Ridge 97.1 percent Timnith ninety five point three Wellington ninety two point eight fossil Fort Collins high school ninety one point one Rocky Mountain ninety point six pewter high as seventy nine point three percent so I wanted to share that with you guys just to kind of have a look through and then the Thompson school district also you know Bertha high school ninety three percent all of these do scored really well you know Harold Ferguson high school I'm not sure where that is or what that is but that is the only school and that's really bringing down the rest of these schools so if you remove Harold Ferguson Thompson school district would be probably closer to ninety three percent versus the ninety point nine percent that's on here so great job Thompson school district Loveland just in general this is obviously the Fort Collins lifestyle YouTube channel but Loveland is kicking butt both on the development we are going there to shoot a new development at Rihanna Ridge today Sentara south i-25 us 34 sent promenade shops at Sentara the Budweiser blue ball arena a blue arena excuse me the the ranch events complex amphitheater I mean lots of cool things happening in Loveland Colorado so I'm gonna give it up to to Loveland in this video moving right along speaking about the pewter school district um let's see here the superintendent mr.

Kingsley sent out an email to those in the pewter school district which my kids are and as of May of this year they are going to come up with the criteria that will score schools throughout Fort Collins for consolidation criteria by 2027 they are going to have a consolidation plan in place possibly even implemented to consolidate schools so by May of this year they're gonna have a consolidation criteria put together and then by next year 2027 there will be consolidation of schools our enrollments dropping at about two percent per year birth rates just general trends across the United States across Colorado and an empty school does still take is a ton of resources and with the aging population in different neighborhoods and specific schools it'll definitely be interesting to watch what the criteria is that they come up with but I'd have to imagine attendance size of school kids per class you know those are gonna be some of the biggest in my opinion that are going to be looked at but that is happening if you are interested stay in touch there are boards on the the board of directors for the education department and get in touch with them let them know what your thoughts are what you believe this was a hot topic in 2024 I believe it was they got punted and we raised funds to help fund the schools in the interim but there is going to be a consolidation program in place by 2027 City Council talked about speaking you know economic development and it's one of the first times they're really putting a spotlight on economic development saying hey we want tier one employers in Fort Collins we have life and biosciences clean energy we want those employers here and we might have to put together packages to attract them sales tax rebates you know rebates for development expedited review fees expedited review process reduced review fees those are all things that we're gonna try to do to attract employers as well as retailers because we used to have about 75% roughly of the counties or the region's sales tax revenue we've always had about 50% of the population but our share of our region's sales tax revenue has dropped to closer to 50% so in line with our population but when a city is ran off of sales tax revenue it's important to make sure that we're staying in front of that so they are looking at things of how to attract build new retail tier one employers for lack of a better word and try to have an economic push they haven't had that since 2015 in Fort Collins so excited to see City Council saying hey economy is very important building homes are important expedited construction review processes are important you know so there'll be some things that you know what we'll be watching that will be exciting to see things to do this week in Fort Collins Northern Colorado the women give 20th luncheon United Way of Larimer County February 5th and this will be at the Hilton Conference Center the fourth annual live our Scott ice carving to Old Town Square February 6th 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Black History Month short films February 4th 6 to 7 30 p.m. at the Colorado State University School of the Arts visit Fort Collins Holiday Market February 7th 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the visit for Collins Center and 7 Old Town Square the first Friday art walk starting at edge optics winter bike to workday is next week 10-day forecast looks pretty decent that they go from 7 a.m. to 9 30 a.m. in the morning shift 3 30 to 5 30 in the evening shift get out ride your bike prepare for it next week that a reason why I put it on this week's to do is so that you can prepare for it next week recreation registration day for summer camps February 5th for through the recreator beginning at 6 p.m. to 1159 online in person over the phone sign up for those summer camps and then finally love and local market February 7th 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Loveland and this is kind of like at the hub at Kinston local vendors music but dueling pianos definitely things to do always the winter's farmers markets tours brew tours Bortec watches lots of different things to do in Fort Collins in northern Colorado also you got to look at getting your your date night secured for February 14th Valentine's Day Fort Collins northern Colorado is busy now and it is time to make sure that you are setting those reservations this is live in Fort Collins appreciate you guys watching until next week have a great day