FoCo in 15 Minutes | I-25 Toll Delay, Major Developments, Severe Flu Season & Wolf Management Debate

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Happy Holidays! Happy New Year everybody! It finally feels like the New Year is upon us. Last week was just kind of strange. You know, we had New Year's Eve, we had New Year's Day on Thursday with the second thaw on a Friday, but all that was really a national holiday. A lot of businesses were shut down, so it does feel like we were in the driver's seat for 2026. Exciting things are happening in our front at Sukup Real Estate Services. Two different big things for us. We actually transitioned to our brokerage to eXp Realty. We are now the Sukup group powered by eXp Realty and actually officially closed on our warehouse yesterday where we will house our office as well as we've got a couple of other warehouse use tenants in there. So exciting start of the year and honestly excited to get that all behind me and get rocking and rolling.

Some sad news, you know, kind of in our world here in northern Colorado, I was actually just talking with a client who finally able to catch you on the new channel. Yes sir, thank you for joining. I was talking with one of my marketing kind of helpers in Florida and he just moved down there from New Jersey and he was talking about how he backs to a canal called like Gator Canal and he's got two young ones and I'm like, so you just never let them outside in the back, right? And he goes, yeah, yeah, no, they can only play in the front. There was literally a Gator in our backyard like a couple days ago and I was like, that is freaking wild. I just would never live there. He goes, yeah, Florida's wild, man. But each place has kind of their own deal and we kind of had mentioned how in Colorado we've got mountain lions and, you know, very sad to see last week, January 1st, there was a confirmed mountain lion death caused by a mountain lion and I believe there was two mountain lions that ended up being euthanized because of that and, you know, there's been only 28 deaths in Colorado since 1990, so very rare. You know, I mean actually 28 since 1990 isn't that rare. I guess that's kind of like, you know, basically one a year. But I will say it's not something that you typically concern yourself with when you're in Colorado. It's always kind of the saying goes, you know, they're watching us but we can't see them and my dad who hikes all the time by himself, snowshoeing, hiking, you know, he's had some stories where, you know, he looks behind him or he starts going his trail back and there's a second set of tracks that aren't his and they're in the form of a paw print. So it's not that you don't need to be with your head on a swivel because there are attacks, there are things along those things that happen, you know, but it's just ultimately very sad. It happened up in Glenhaven which we've got a friend with a young family up there around that area, so just kind of, you know, very sad to see and just when you're up in those wilderness areas, you know, we're the guests so this is their territory. But moving into the new year 2026, I will say I was driving along I-25 and I was like, oh shoot, they're starting the tolls already, you know. I saw, I think they're kind of starting to test some of their digital boards and I saw like one from Harmony Road to 402 which is essentially Loveland which was like gonna be $4 and I was like, dang, would I pay $4 to get to Loveland faster than everybody else? With traffic I probably would. I will say it is, I am not a fan of sitting in traffic and if there is an open toll lane and it cost me $4 to get there, I am gonna pay that all day long. But it does seem like those were supposed to be up and running really since 2024-ish. 2023 is when the construction was completed.

That $900 million dollar extension and our final nine miles of stretch between Johnstown and Meade will be complete in the next couple of years and we will have three lanes from Fort Collins to Denver, although one will be a toll lane. But regardless, exciting. So you can still have a free toll lane for at least a few more months looking like mid-2026 that they will have those tolls up and running. Moving into 2026, some projects that I'm excited to see kind of come to fruition take place. College in Trilby. It's been shut down since last fall and is expected to open up in spring of 2026. College in Trilby is definitely a major artery at this point heading east and west and north and south. And there will be multiple turn lanes, it'll be much cleaner, not as much congestion because when we would take our kids to child care, which was on the west side of town, but we would take Trilby, come back around 4 or 4.30, there would definitely be a time at times where you'd be backed up a half mile, three quarters of a mile on Trilby. So it'll be nice for that to kind of open up and get going. Bass Pro Shops opening up in Loveland. You know, I would say we go to Sheel's. I went to Sheel's to get some Christmas presents this last couple of weeks and it was just bouncing. It was really just jumping and so excited to see that at that Bass Pro Shops. And that Crossroads Boulevard really is really starting to take shape. It's got commercial, it has easy access into Windsor to the Raindance development. So excited about that Crossroads Boulevard kind of area. And then the ranch has got all of their redevelopment that they're doing, adding an amphitheater, extending their child hockey facilities. So all of that area is really excited to see. Downtown Fort Collins has some shops along Linden that will kind of open up and revamp and reshape some of those older dilapidated buildings. And we've talked about it before, just gobbles and gobbles of money pouring into Old Town. If there is an opportunity, people are gobbling it up. And even, you know, what's going to be called the Buxton Boutique Hotel. They bought what was an old hotel, a best Western hotel, right across the street from CSU for 10 million dollars. And we will be putting in millions of dollars of renovations, but that will be opening up in May of 2026. It'll look beautiful. It'll be a state-of-the-art hotel right across the street from CSU, very close to campus, the stadium. So I'm sure they've got all their data economics drafted for that, underwritten for that project, but that will be an exciting project as well. Ladera at Harmony and I-25 will continue to take shape. We've got the, gosh, what was it? I can't think of it right now. Respite Care. Respite Care facility, I saw that being built. It is huge. It's gorgeous. And actually the current Respite Care is literally a stone's throw from my house. I mean, I don't have the best arm, but I think I could probably hit it with a rock from my house. That's how close it is. They will shut that down and move their operations to the Ladera project. It is a beautiful building, in and out, still in the works going there.

GQ BBQ, you know, and other other exciting things that are happening at that Ladera project. Prospect Plaza gonna be a very beautiful student housing apartment complex. And then let's see here, Amazon might actually start opening up at the end of the year, which will initially employ a thousand people and eventually employ up to 3,000 people. And USDA, which is a major deal depending on how many people actually relocate to the Fort Collins region, because I know there's like three or four areas where the USDA is relocating, but they're relocating 2,600 employees from Washington DC scattered throughout like Raleigh, Fort Collins, and so they should actually take that relocation and that should take place in 2026 as well. I did see a question at the end, if you have time, have discussed with Izzy coming out in April, May to look at new builds. Do you have a chance to know the fiscal years for the builders out there? Great question. A lot of those fiscal years are kind of in the November-December time period, specifically Lennar, I think Dream Finders as well, so they kind of go in line with that calendar year. But not all of them, that's for sure. And you know, Hartford, a local developer, their fiscal year kind of runs in tune with the calendar year as well. We just bought a new build as a rental, literally closed on it in the second week of December, and they were just giving it to us. They were just like, how can we get this thing closed by the end of the year? But great question. I would say I'm doing a market update on this same channel, 2.30, 2-day. I know that's probably way too much YouTube and way too much of me to see and all in one day, but that's a great question. But I can definitely provide some more information on that. Let's keep rocking and rolling. The flu season is surging in Colorado. It's worse than last year.

Data says, I will say I've got a lot of friends, I've got a lot of people that I know who've gotten sick over the holidays myself. I'm like, I got sick the Wednesday or Tuesday before Christmas, and it is so easy to tell when I'm sick. I sound like a frog. Janae's mom is not afraid to tell me I sound like a frog, and I'm finally getting to like the very, very, very tail end of that sickness. But I will say it is just that time of the year, even though we've had just a stupid, crazy, warm January and December. I mean seriously, people are golfing every single day. It is another beautiful day today, a little bit windy, but people are staying inside a little bit more, even though you're able to get outside a ton right now. But just take care of yourself, wash your hands, know that that is taking place and happening.

Talking about wildlife a little bit more, the federal officials are talking about taking over our wolf management from Colorado. There was a law that was passed. We have to reintroduce a certain amount of wolves over time. That is given by the Colorado Wildlife Department, and it's not doing its job. So the US Fish and Wildlife Service can take that over. I mean, talk about that. That is something that I am not a fan of. I think it is just a distraction. I think there are so many other things that we could be paying attention to, but you know, I don't have much of a say in that. Fort Collins is adding a new bike registration for scooters, strollers, bikes. Super cool. You know, it's called the Bike Index. The City of Fort Collins has launched it. It's free and it's the same platform Colorado State University uses. You can list your bike, you can register your bike. You know, unfortunately bikes do get stolen, but I think if there is another step or potential for somebody to get caught, that might remove the enticement to steal bikes. So definitely can look into doing that. Windsor utility rates jumped 26% for their water, sewer, and stormwater. They have got to build out a 24-inch water line beneath 15th Street as well as replace of their aging wastewater treatment facility. You know, I'll talk today about, or there's actually a video that I'm doing about five different suburbs of northern Colorado to pay attention to in 2026. I'm in a video coming out here pretty soon in the next couple of weeks, but one of them is Severance. And Severance had like a no-build policy for like a few years because they didn't have the water to be able to build. And the demand in that Severance-Windsor area, you know, Windsor's jumped from 5,000 people in 2000, 10,000 people in 2010, all the way up to more than 40,000 people today. And with that, there's infrastructure that's needed and, you know, those are getting passed on to the rate payer at a rate of 26%. City of Fort Collins, same thing, a lot of growth, a lot of development, a lot of infrastructure that we need to take place, a lot of storage of water that we have to have. And there was some interesting numbers because it was like, well, shouldn't the developers be paying, you know, these fees for the new developments and things of that nature. And that is true, but it's crazy how, you know, yeah, you build a development of let's say 200 homes and each one's giving you a couple thousand dollars, you know, so you're raising $400,000 whereas you have 40,000 people paying $100, you know, every month for that, you know, that's $4,000,000 on a monthly basis. So just the lever to pull for utility rates is a lot stronger and greater than the one off development fees. Developers are paying their fair share, but when you have aging systems, water lines, when you have big dollar projects, your easiest place to go is your largest number of people which is your bigger base utility rate payers. So that will start in February 1st. My sister's out there. Gotta let her know. She's not a watcher of the weekly lives. It hopefully provides a lot of good information, but the average bill is expected to go from about $100 to $126. There was an interesting article in BizWest just suggesting that the pound of marijuana is selling at a record low price of $648. During the COVID pandemic time period, it was all the way up to $1,700. So that's a 60% I believe it is decrease from its all-time high. So people are smoking less marijuana these days. Nederland is going to review a $120,000,000 Eldora contract to keep it local and that's super exciting for me.

A lot of these bigger mountains, even like I think steamboats bought like owned by Vale Resorts, I mean they're all owned by only a few companies. So keeping something like Eldora that so many people here locally go to, it's only two, two and a half hours away, and a relatively affordable lift ticket is exciting. They could go all the way down to $115,000,000 on the purchase price. There are some hurdles to get through and things of that nature, but it does look like Nederland wants to keep Eldora local and at the price tag of about $115,000 to $120,000,000. We're at 15 minutes. We got our things to do this week. A lot less things to do comparatively the last few couple months. With the holiday season there's just always something to do, but the Breckenridge Brewery has a playoff bracket challenge January 6th. Today 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. you can go in there fill out your bracket for a chance to win some gift cards. Ginger & Baker January book club January 6th. Today 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Ginger & Baker. Basically you can go for a lively discussion of Good Things by Sam Nasrat. Food and drinks available. Go explore Ginger & Baker.

If you come out here in April and May go check out Ginger & Baker. It's a can't miss whenever I recommend it to anybody who's here visiting, here exploring. They absolutely love the food, the vibe. It's beautiful. It's awesome. They'll even give you a little bit of a tour if you ask them about the building, the history, all that good stuff. Foco Fondo Film Fest January 8th 530 to 815 at The Lyric. The Foco Fondo is put on I think sponsored by New Belgium. It could be a shorter race, longer race. It's like road, gravel, it's a mixture. I had a buddy ask me and I said absolutely not. I am not a cardio guy. I do like riding my bike here and there, but that is something that they'll do the Foco Fondo Film Fest this week. Paint a pint at Breckenridge Brewery January 11th. I got to give props to Breckenridge Brewery. They have always got something going on. They got bingo. If you are looking for something to do on a weekly basis, Breckenridge Brewery on a nightly basis has something going on. So go check that out. For all of you parents out there who live in Fort Collins, the Fort Collins Recreator has signups today for the adult and senior programs and then on the 8th starting at 7 a.m. for youth and family programs. These things fill up relatively quickly. Be on top of it. I've let my wife know. I said, hey make sure the 8th you're ready to go. Sign up. Now there are always spots available afterwards so you don't have to be like there at 7 o'clock or online at 7 o'clock. Just they do fill up relatively quickly. Finally, a couple of Colorado Eagles games January 9th and 10th. There was no city council meeting. We are going to end it right there. Again, I'll finish this. You had a question.

Fiscal years, I would say a lot of those do tend to kind of coincide with the year end but we have a lot of builders out here. You know Richmond Homes, we've got D.R. Horton, we've got Lennar, Dream Finders, local ones with Hartford. You know we've got Brightland. There are a ton of different builders out here. Toll Brothers and they all do not necessarily have different fiscal years but they are kind of all Q4 seemingly. Great question because they do have a ton of incentives but they still are giving away a lot of good incentives. Izzy just went under contract on a new build with Lennar and she said the deal that they gave her was stupid and their fiscal year was like the end of November so they're still giving great deals. She'll be a great resource for you. She's literally under contract. Probably will still be under contract when you guys get out here April, May or maybe have just closed. She'll be a great resource for you. Thank you for watching.

Until next time, we are going live at 2 30 p.m. Mountain Standard Time today to do a market update and market predictions for Fort Collins in Northern Colorado. We will see you shortly. Otherwise, we'll talk to you later. See you. Bye.