FoCo in 15 Minutes | Gas Contamination, New Mayor, Costco Expansion & School Enrollment Declines

Auto-generated from the episode audio — may contain minor errors.

Alright, real talk, how far are you driving to save money on gas? If it's $0.05 or $0.20 or $0.25, well, Costco gas station is, well, one, there were two gas stations that were potentially contaminated with diesel fuel in Fort Collins. The Safeway off of Drake and Taft Hill, and then rumors spread online that it could have been the Costco and Timoth. My goodness, I don't go to either of those. Now, my wife used to go, she would definitely go to the more cost-friendly gas stations. And, you know, when you're looking at like 10 cents a gallon or 15 cents a gallon, you can definitely save a couple of bucks depending on the size of your fuel tank. Most fuel tanks are about 15 to 20 gallons depending. So, you know, on a 20 cent savings, you could save $4 if you had a 20 gallon fuel tank and how to fill it all the way up. So, I'm definitely curious, how far are you driving to save money on gas? Clearly, there's a lot of people, I mean, if it's en route, yeah, and I've got the option that I can, okay, I can stop here and fill up at Costco or, you know, fill up tomorrow and, you know, if I can save the dollars, sure, if it makes sense. But even still, Costco is considering doubling the size of its gas fuel station from, let's see here, 16 to 32 fuel stations potentially by the end of this year. Because we go to Costco all the time for our shopping, grocery, and we drive by there and there's definitely always a line. I mean not always, but, you know, a majority of the time there is a line. And I'm just not personally gonna wait in that line. If I, maybe again, opportunistically, I'm driving by, no line, I'm gonna hit it up, save those, you know, two to four dollars on gas. Because I do have a truck, so I think my truck to fill up is like, gosh, what is it? I think like 22, 23 gallons, something like that. It's a big truck and, you know, it definitely would be worth saving on that side of things every now and again. But that being said, Tim is, that Ladera project is blowing up. This year we're gonna really start to see it take shape. Connell Resources, you know, they're stopping production there, so you're gonna kind of see that area just stop on the Connell Resources site, asphalt, concrete, all that kind of stuff, and start to really be built out from Kector to Harmony Road, White Soul Road to I-25. I mean it's definitely a pretty exciting thing for I-25 and Harmony Road. This last week the City Council new mayor, Emily Francis, took her seat as well as a new pro tem, Julie Pignatero, you know, so congratulations to the both of them.

Three new council members took their seats. District 1, Chris Conway. District 3, which is my district, Josh Fudge, and then in District 5, Amy Hovind. And then it was really interesting. In District 6, Emily Francis was the City Council member and she actually had two years left on her term. City Council members served for a four-year term in Fort Collins and she was elected the new mayor and so there was a vacated seat. And the way that they did this was you have submit your applications. I want to say like 15 people actually submitted applications for that seat and as well as like supporting documentation. And then they cut it down to five individuals that they had a special session that they interviewed. Each person getting 30 minutes and discussing what they felt like were the issues that, you know, posed a risk to Fort Collins, District 6 specifically. And it was really interesting, you know, to listen to all five of them, you know, give their viewpoints. And I would say one thing that I will say I'm super excited about is dang, you know, 15 people saying that they were interested in taking that vacated seat. Now granted, maybe that's more appealing than, you know, putting your hat in the ring and having, you know, two different candidates go or three or four different candidates go and having to campaign, spend the money, all that kind of stuff. So it's a little bit lesser of an obstacle to become a City Council member when it's a vacated seat versus, you know, campaigning for a new seat or for that seat. But everyone was asked the same questions. They had an opening statement that was three minutes, then they had, you know, the same three to five questions, and then a closing statement. Everyone discussed about how housing affordability is, you know, the number one problem facing Fort Collins. One member even went as far as saying, we have a thousand affordable units under that what we should be. And if you take into consideration, each unit is roughly five hundred thousand dollars to build, you know, we're at five hundred million dollar shortfall. And obviously you don't eat an elephant, you know, one bite, you just eat it one bite at a time. So hopefully they can see that. Of course, we want to provide good, safe, clean, affordable housing in Fort Collins. There are a lot of people, waiters, waitresses, you know, retail managers, retail workers, teachers, you know, that with living in Fort Collins such a desirable place to live, the cost of living and a big component of that is housing can be burdensome. So definitely need to make sure that we keep that in the forefront of our minds while maintaining.

The reason why Fort Collins has gotten so expensive is because it's so wonderful and there's so many amenities and exciting things and things that we're working on. So hopefully that the City Council, yes, attack this head-on, but make sure that this doesn't take over everything. It is not, it is not something that I think should take money from the Southeast Community Center, which it already did, honestly. And that's, that's where I think I have a little bit of a frustration is, you know, I still, I've quoted it a couple times. Kelly Olsen said, you want to take, you want to help the affordability of Fort Collins, remove the 300 days of sun, remove the banana belt, you know, temperatures and climate that we have here, the mountains that we live in next to, wonderful, you know, weather that we have, remove all that and all the last 100 years of wonderful city planning, then we'll have a more affordable place to live because it won't be as desirable. So I hope that we attack the affordable housing while maintaining. There are still a lot of community capital improvements that we're wanting to do, you know, the pickleball courts that we're wanting to build for four million dollars in Southeast Colorado that, you know, were passed by that community capital improvement project. The 2050 sales tax, a thousand acres of parks in Fort Collins that need to be maintained, well maintained, upkept. So I just don't want to be taking from different things, you know, because right now I think it's just, it's a very important thing that we to consider. It was the main topic of consideration for all five candidates and ultimately Emily Francis was really the one that was looked to because it was her district from all of the other council members like saying, hey, pretty much whatever you think we're gonna go with and she felt like the person who was best suited was Ann Nelson who is an architect and an affordable housing advocate who's been through the the building process. And again, I think there are tools outside of, you know, just building new affordable housing units that we could work on as far as, you know, the building review process. Cut it down from 36 months to 12 months, you know, reduce fees, figure out how we can offset those fees, but I think there are strategies. So I'm excited to see what Ann Nelson does in District 6 as well as the new council members and city council, city mayor. I talked about it a little bit last week but it's called the missing tooth. I didn't realize that, but 160 West Mountain Avenue. I'm gonna share my screen and kind of show you, oops, this screen. This is what's going to be built. It's gonna be 16,000 square feet and this has been really pretty much kind of a dilapidated building. This right here, let's see if you can see it, no sorry, this right here in the back is the Rio. This is Mountain Avenue. They're gonna remove some parking in the back and replace it with some patio seating. There will be an anchor retail restaurant there. Vuelo, who is a local developer, they've already started the interior renovations so super excited to see that.

It's gonna be right along the MAX Transit so should be easy to access quickly to get to. That's actually the MAX Transit station right there just north of Mountain Avenue. So excited to see that kind of come in to play. Now hey, one thing, this channel is starting to pick up a little bit. I was joking with my wife that like hey you know it's it's depressing. You know you build a channel, you built it for the last six years and there's you know a few thousand subscribers and I would get you know a relatively good watch time in the live but there was some you know strategy behind starting a different channel for the lives, podcasts, kind of things to do in Fort Collins channel. But we're starting to get a little bit more people and we've got a few people watching here so if you are if you have any questions ask them now. Otherwise leave a comment and I'll make sure to get back to you and answer that then. The exchange. I will say this is a this was also a local development by I don't know who who buy but this was shipping containers that were that were transformed into you know restaurants, retail, there's barber shops, and then there is the churn in the middle with a large kind of patio. I will say one one spot and he was considering taking a location within the square which clearly I wish he would have because he is an extremely active business developer always putting on events and this is Old Town Putt by the way at the exchange. If you haven't been there go check it out. It's a putt-putt course but he's also always doing random events and different things and games and things that nature so it's a super cool opportunity that he has built for himself but the exchange itself between triple nets which if you have a question on what triple nets are feel free to ask. In fact I'm meeting with a client on a residential side who is looking at making an investment on commercial a commercial opportunity excuse me a commercial opportunity but has never done that and so wanted to ask questions. Now I don't really do too much brokerage on the commercial side. I will on the one-off situations but I am happy to answer questions and be a resource. Between triple nets, rent escalations, higher base rents, I think the exchange has been really challenging for tenants to stay because there is a few that are turning over this year. A boba shop, Thai street food as well as a new bounce salon taking up residence in the exchange. January 27th through the 29th so really next week it'll be on my things to do newsletter if you are on that newsletter and reading it but there is going to be the Colorado farm show returning to the Island Grove Regional Park in Weld County kind of North East Greeley. They're expecting 30,000 attendees with 350 exhibits $5 per vehicle for parking and these are going to to help scholarship for students pursuing AG related degrees.

Weld County very strong AG based economy business and it's still a big part of Colorado and Weld County specifically. Aldi is coming to Colorado but not yet to Fort Collins. In fact they were considering coming to Fort Collins in the they were considering coming to Fort Collins at the old Joann's shop. There was some development review plans that were submitted ended up not happening. They're looking to bring a distribution center to Colorado and open up like I think it's like 50 shops in Colorado yeah 50 stores in Colorado not anything in Fort Collins yet but apparently it's a very desirable shopping center affordable as well so that would be good to see Colorado Springs, Denver, Aurora but not yet in Fort Collins. I did see a question so I'm going to answer that real quick. Let's see here.

Speaking affordable housing how do we see the increased provenance of Metro District's taxes impacting affordability? You know if I'm understanding your question there is there's not a ton of Metro districts actually in Fort Collins. There's only a handful. Bloom I'm sure Montaba is going to be there's not many because they actually and then the the lakes excuse me Strauss development lakes at Strauss are going to be developed and will have a Metro district there but most of the Metro districts are kind of in our surrounding areas Windsor, Timnath. I'm going out there today. Compared to the Fort Collins the affordability if you're looking at Metro districts in Fort Collins the property taxes are about 0.55 to 0.65 percent of the property value and the project at Bloom that we're gonna go look at right now the total property taxes are about 0.95 percent of the property value but those could go all the way up to 1.1 percent so you know you're adding an additional 50 percent for property taxes you do get a lot of amenities but you know this is to repay the infrastructure that was built. Ransom numbers of comparable homes in Metro districts and comes out to 40 to 50 K and buying power versus no Metro districts absolutely you do get the benefit of a more affordable house you just have a little bit more a little bit higher property taxes but if those houses didn't have a Metro district or you know we're in Fort Collins they would be a lot more expensive of a house depending on obviously the price point so you know 40 50 K percentage wise you know depending on where we're at that could probably be about five to ten percent I don't have any direct numbers but yes there is a benefit on the purchase price of buying in a Metro district but you do have a higher property tax that comes on an annual basis let's see here enrollment we talked about this last week but enrollment declined across the entire state of Colorado about 11,500 students this is declining birth rates net migration which we're gonna talk about net migration next week there the City Council work session is going deep on migration and demographic numbers this week today actually so I'll be excited to watch that and report back on that next week but you know Peter school district a lot of aging in place is happening not as many young families and not a lot of young families not having as many kids so there's gonna be some consolidation boundary school boundaries over the next year nothing in Peter school district until 2027 it's assumed at this point but I'm guessing there will be some changes that happen across the state and not and including pewter school district some things to do this week there speaking of old town putt there's two different things that you could do there the winter 2026 putters and pints mini golf league starting January 21st 7 to 9 p.m. the winter 2026 bar games league January 22nd 7 and 9 p.m.

like I said you know these are pretty cool these are things that he's putting out there marketing I'm seeing it amongst other people so you know good on him I can't remember his name he was considering it's like Sydney or something like that but anyways Northern Colorado home show go check that out what's going on you know a lot of different demonstrations expert advice exclusive offers you know for renovation renovation projects one of our clients who opened up a franchise here and for Collins for like bathrooms and kitchens he'll be putting something on or he has put something on the end that is a 23rd 24th and 25th 12 starting at 12 p.m. at the arena circle in Loveland I think that's kind of you know kind of the ranch complex sports complex a polar bear plunge I'm not sure if my wife is watching this or not and if she is you know I'm definitely not interested so don't ask January 24th 10 a.m. oh I think she might be working thank goodness 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at South swim beach in Fort Collins see here pickleball learn and play fundraiser January 24th 4 30 to 8 30 at the pickler at Jessup farm and then downtown Loveland's fifth annual mac and cheese melt off January 22nd so on when excuse me Thursday and this will be 6 to 9 p.m. at multiple locations downtown Loveland I'm a big fan of mac and cheese but I do gotta gotta gotta gotta not eat too much going on around 2026 preschool summer camp and the kids activities fair January 24th 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Fort Collins Senior Center if you're looking to get your kids into preschool or sign them up for some type of summer activity and then as always winters farmers market we have a client that moved here from Houston and opened up a or you know she's doing some soap sales as well as kind of like an artisan type crafts at the farmers market so go visit her shop and buy some soap ran a little bit over 15 minutes I will do a little bit more research on you know the the purchase price we've looked at the cost of cost of living point you know nine five to one point one percent of the home value for Metro districts on an annual property tax versus point five five two point six five percent of the property value and then as comparable home sales you are gonna get a discount buying in those because you're you're generally buying in an area that's a little bit on the outskirts outskirts excuse me in addition to that you know you're the biggest thing though yeah your increased property taxes but you will have a little bit of reduction in property value which we could look at like what that looks like as far as you know if you were $50,000 higher and had a point five five percent sales tax property tax versus $50,000 higher but a one point you know oh five percent property tax you know we could do some of those math that math but appreciate your questions and watching until next time everybody have a great day take care