FoCo in 15 Minutes | Housing Crisis Warning, $350M Venue, Water Watch & Shake Shack

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We are live in Fort Collins coming to you May 12th, 2026. My little one just turned eight years old yesterday, which is wild to think she is an eight-year-old. You know, time goes fast. We purchased a cabin a couple of years ago and she was six years old at the time, but I thought to myself, you know, we're a third of the way through her life that she's living with us and half of the way through her life that she thinks that we're cool. And so you got to make moves in life. It's pretty crazy. Speaking of moves, the Northern Colorado Foundation rings the alarm. The region needs 47,500 new homes in the next decade.

This is Larimer County and Weld County. We have 27,000 home need for sale and 20,500 rentals that are needed just to meet the demand that is here in Northern Colorado. 80% of those living in Larimer County are having an affordability issue, spending nearly or spending more than a third on their income on housing. Weld County closer to 65%. But between Larimer and Weld County growing, you know, currently right around 750,000 people with expectations to go north of a million, the demand is here. $18 billion over the next 10 years is needed from private, public, whatever the investment is necessary.

There are 47,500 new homes that are needed here in Northern Colorado. Talk about a great thing if you are a homeowner with the security of your value. Being a home buyer, a little bit more challenging. But if you're here for the long term, long road, like don't try to time it. Just understand when's the right time to buy a house and make the move. Speaking of which, the one thing that's cool, you know, there's a lot of challenges with the growth of an area. You know, people are like, ah, you know, there's too many people here. Specifically, my family, they're always talking about, you know, ah, you know, there's just too many people.

It's too populated here in Fort Collins. Well, one, the population of Fort Collins has been relatively flat over the last four or five years. The population of the surrounding areas, Windsor, Timnath, Berthoud, Johnstown, Loveland have all seen increases in their population. A lot of that comes to affordability. But the region in general is seeing pretty significant population growth. And with that comes significant investment. Specifically, there is a potential $350 million entertainment venue eyeing Fort Collins and Northern Colorado, potentially Greeley, Fort Collins. It's a Colorado Springs group venue holding group looking at building a 12,500 capacity venue.

And for perspective, the blue arena in Fort Collins holds just 6,800 people for hockey. It can extend up to 7,200 to 8,000 guests for concerts and special events. But still, that's 50% more people in this venue. It would be a pretty significant regional deal, potentially bringing larger acts, more opportunity for comedians, musicians, bigger events here in Northern Colorado. But Fort Collins is declaring a water shortage. Fort Collins Utilities issued a water shortage watch on May 1st, the first in nearly five years. Now, we have seen some rain, some moisture, some snow, which has helped that.

But we're still nowhere where we need to be. Residents are being asked to voluntarily reduce their water usage. Now, we're expected to have supply to remain adequate through the season, but it's being monitored pretty closely. That's a bummer, I will say, in our neighborhood alone. I like having a green lawn. I like maintaining the property. But we definitely have some neighbors who haven't turned on their sprinklers yet, and their lawn is absolutely decimated. It is brown, it is green, weeds growing all over the place. Zero scaping might be in their future, but I will say water is real here. It's a very valuable asset, unfortunately.

Turf has been how houses have been built for many, many decades. And with that, so whether that be zero scaping, more concrete, there's lots of different things to consider with that. But that being said, if you can, make sure. I would say the one thing that we did do, even though, yes, we like a green lawn and we are watering our lawn not nearly as much as I'd like to, but we have fixed all of the leaks and we have changed out sprinkler heads for the more efficient sprinkler heads. So there are things that you can do if you still want to have a green lawn. Transport is finalizing the bus system overhaul and the changes are expected to take place August 17th.

On top of that, there has been a grant supply to a transport of about over $5 million to replace six of their buses with more energy efficient buses. So those things are pretty exciting. Now we're going to see a more grid-like based network rather than kind of, really it's a rat's nest, like plan is just really a rat's nest. I messed around on driving public transportation for about a week and I was like, man, this is a system you got to learn just in general but this will be a more grid-like system, streamlined basis. There's going to be, it's going to actually, if we maintain the 2019 service levels, it would cost us 50% more due to personnel cost, fuel cost and so essentially we're making these trade-offs to a little bit more streamlined routes.

They are going to be along your major arteries in Fort Collins and I think that's kind of better. There are going to be some that are actually going to increase their timeline as far as when they're going to start operating but expect that to happen in August 17th if you drive, use the public transportation. Shake Shack opening May 31st at the Foothills Mall, 3,800 square foot facility where Sears used to be. Now I have never tried a Shake Shack so it sounds pretty delicious. Count me in for some cheeseburgers and some milkshakes so we'll have to see how that operates there. There's been some pretty good restaurants there, not Japanu but there's a sushi restaurant there or a ramen restaurant, a new chicken sandwich place, Torchy's Tacos, Kava's there, Modern Market.

There's a lot of great little restaurants there along that College Avenue and Shake Shack's there. I'm really interested to see when the McQuinnies, if the McQuinnies, that's also a good big if, they start making moves on kind of that overhaul of the Foothills Mall because there's a lot of cool things that are happening along those College Avenue shops and still things that are cool happening on the inside at the lawn that is at the Foothills Mall but the greater mall itself, I'm really excited to see when they pull the trigger hopefully to get that going. Now that might be a long ways out because they just started to go vertical on Avenue South in Loveland and they've got their hands in a lot of different cookie jars so to speak.

But as far as city council goes, top five takeaways, flock cameras are just absolutely dominating public conversation, public comment with people suggesting lack of security, how easily it is to break into it, a big brother feel and they're trying to balance safety, policing with the feeling that the citizens of Fort Collins didn't ask for this or didn't want this and a little bit of me kind of pushes back saying, hey listen, you live in Fort Collins, the city council is trying to do what's best for the city and you can't be a part of every minute decision, not to say this is minute but it's not big.

I mean, I understand there are bad actors and there are things that are happening and maybe it's a different company that we have to end up going with because I think flocks getting a bad rap, you know, deservedly so from what it looks like but for me, I like the safetiness, I don't mind the big brother feel, I want to, if my vehicle gets stolen and we can communicate with other communities around POTS, potentially recover that or kidnappings or anything along those lines, I just feel like the use of technology, we can't discredit with potentially, there just needs to be guardrails, AI, it's a big word these days, guardrails.

Housing action plan grant approved, $33,000, voted six to zero, essentially trying to continue to keep us in line with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, whatever, the state bills that allow us, that require us to update these to be able to get funding and financing and help and grants and all that kind of stuff from a state level so we have approved that six to zero. Consent calendar passed seven to zero, connections, expansion, needing funding, vine drive over, you know, the vine drive bridge, the $5.7 million transport grant and again, that's to purchase the six compressed natural gas buses, a $2.2 million connection broadband infrastructure appropriation and you know, it's kind of, every time you look at connections, they're getting more money put towards it but I still am just a massive believer in connections.

Stay strong, let's keep going and hopefully over time, it all pans out. Let's see here, that's kind of, I mean yeah, there was an ethics opinion, council member Nelson, essentially she works for another company and they wanted to say, hey, is it okay if she works for that company that has relationships with the city for Collins and said yes, that is just fine. There's a wildfire smoke workshop, youth motorcycle safety concern and teacher appreciation from the council member reports so definitely got to stay on top of that. I will say, with it being a mild, very droughty type of season, we just have to stay, you know, vigilant with smoke and sparks and things of that nature.

I was watching a developer, you know, Abaco and they were spraying it down and my wife and I were trying to discuss so if you know this answer, let us know but they were spraying down the dirt that this backhoe was shoveling and Janae said, well, it's got to be, you know, for the dust because of the surrounding businesses and I said maybe but I feel like that's not as big of a deal as potentially the sparks that could be caused in a potential fire from this, you know, steel machine going pretty hard into the earth and it was tied up to the fire hydrant so I felt like, you know, maybe it was to prevent potential sparks and wildfires.

That was kind of just a wild guess. As far as the things to do this week and weekend, you know, the 20th annual Picking on the Pooter at the Mishawaka, Saturday, May 16th, 7 p.m. That 80s band at Washington's, Saturday, May 16th, so if you're an 80s music fan, go check that out. Larimer County Farmers Market opening season, Saturday, May 16th, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Foothills Farmers Market, at Harmony Road, we're seeing that. My wife goes, oh, I didn't know that was open. So 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Harmony and LeMay. And then from there, there is A1 Wild Water Rafting season opens this May 15th and I would say if you're into whitewater rafting, you got to get out there probably sooner than later because it's probably going to be a pretty low year for these rafting outfits.

And then finally, put on your calendar Odell Brewing Small Batch Weekend, May 29th through the 31st. One of the bigger kind of beer festivals that happens here in Fort Collins, 50 plus unique beers and 12 live bands happening at Odell's. This is live in Fort Collins. I appreciate you guys watching and listening, well not watching anymore, listening on a weekly basis and until next week, have a great day.