FoCo in 15 Minutes | IKEA Confirmed, Costco Vote, Mobile Home Ordinance & Greeley’s $1.1B Decision

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

Quite possibly one of the largest votes commercially in Northern Colorado's history. This is the February 24th and we got the Cascadia vote happening today. Votes got to be cast by 7 p.m. tonight, Mountain Standard Time, and this is a 1.1 billion dollar potential project and it's got Greeley divided. In fact, last year City Council was kind of divided as well. Candidates were either getting voted for or against based off of their policy on whether they supported or were against Cascadia. And I reached out to a resident in Greeley and asked what they thought if they thought that I was going to get put down, a shot down, or was going to go through. And they said well the majority of the council members that were voted in were supporters of Cascadia. So I'm guessing that the residents of Greeley want this to go through. Regardless, it is significant. Martin Lind, you know, he's suggesting that this could potentially dictate where and how Greeley moves forward into the future, whether it's being seen as pro-growth or not. Overall, you know, I guess I have a relatively safe seat in this being in Fort Collins because, you know, there is a concern when there's projects of this size that like, okay, how are we funding them? We're using our city assets to leverage this to help finance this project. And what happens if it goes belly-up?

Does Greeley go belly-up? So we will have to wait and see, but we will know tonight or potentially tomorrow morning whether Cascadia is moving forward. Essentially, this is a vote on zoning and if there is a no vote on ballot issue 1A, it says no, we are not going to send this back for zoning reconsideration. If you vote yes on 1A, essentially you're voting against Cascadia. If you're voting no on 1A, you are voting for Cascadia. So good luck Greeley, Colorado. And, you know, tonight we're going to the Colorado Eagles game which will relocate there regardless. So I believe, you know, Cascadia is the overall 1.1 billion dollar development. I believe there's Cascadia and Catalyst entertainment districts. Overall, the Eagles will relocate there regardless is my understanding. But the bigger picture, water park, hotel, retail, commercial, residential, that is what could be on the chopping block tonight. So I'm very interested to see how this moves forward. In fact, we actually had a representative from the Cascadia group reach out and, you know, see if they can get on our podcast to help kind of push this project forward. And I support Cascadia. I believe it could be significant for Northern Colorado overall. It could take some sales tax dollars away from Fort Collins which isn't a good thing. But Fort Collins has to fight back and, you know, it has to bring in. And I'll talk shortly about what it has done and clearly is marketing too and bringing in great retail operations. So Cascadia, vote tonight by 7 p.m. We will see tomorrow whether this goes through. But this is live in Fort Collins every Tuesday at noon talking to you guys about things that are happening, things that are going on Fort Collins, things to look forward to, City Council recap. And I was late jumping on today because I was like just pressing record and we were recorded our pre-recorded videos earlier today and there was no SD card and I was like, oh no. I don't know. Anyway, so I had to start running around so I was a little out of breath. But I'm back. And talk about being out of breath, Hunter Powell, who I do have a close relationship with, watched him grow up, boxed with his dad at Fort Collins Club. And I will say, you know, talk about what a cool story that was. He was a part of the four-man bobsled team.

They finished 11th at this last Olympics in Milano and it was amazing, you know, to watch him because he's definitely somebody who, you know, there's not many people, if anybody, that I know that would outwork him. He is a workout aholic. The dude absolutely is shredded. He looks like a Greek God and definitely super humble, which is also really awesome. I know both of his parents, they were there supporting him. It's awesome having a Fort Collins local native be there competing, representing. And so congratulations, Mr. Hunter Powell. I'm guessing we will see you again in the next four years, which I believe are in France. So get after it, get working, and congratulations to your fiance as well, who is also a bobsledder. Speaking about recruiting businesses, you know, Fort Collins, I think, you know, okay, so we got Otterbox, the last big company, you know, we had Woodward Governor that decided to put their headquarters here and that was a decade or so ago. Since that time, we have had Costco open up in Timnath and, but we, you know, there's not been any really huge splashes. And I'm not saying this is one, but it's kind of cool, you know. IKEA is coming to Fort Collins at kind of the front, or at the Front Range Village. This is 64, it's gonna be a 64,000 square foot operation, so it's gonna be a shrunken size. In fact, it's one sixth this size as it's spot in, where is it, Centennial. I have not been to the Centennial location. I've heard it's massive, but this will be, it's big for just a lot of different things. It's gonna attract a lot of shoppers around the region, you know, Cheyenne folks, Laramie up in the mountains, you know, there is definitely a regional shopping hub here in northern Colorado. And that Front Range Village, just that entire general area on Harmony and Ziegler, I think it's really starting to become a pretty awesome hub, you know, and then you kind of move a little bit further east even into the kind of the technology park over there off Lady Moon in Harmony. You've got DC Oaks, which if you come to Fort Collins, probably gonna be one of my top recommendations for a lunch spot in Fort Collins. We are luckily enough to have Gerard on as a guest with the Fort Collins Fellas. If you haven't listened to that podcast, super down-to-earth guy. These guys have got, you know, Fort Collins roots, super successful, but that area just overall is definitely popping. And so IKEA coming to Fort Collins looks like in the fall of 2026. The store is already built, so this is gonna be a tenant finish and it's gonna, they'll finish out 64,000 square feet. So the shell of the building is already there and we'll see that come in. Speaking about Costco, we talked about this a little bit last week, but Loveland is trying to decide if they wants to have a 400,000 square foot retail center opening in 2028 and they would provide some type of financial tax rebates for the developer Realberry, which is McQuinney. I was able to talk with, I think it was my my uncle who was the mayor of Timnath, but then also there was some good literature out there that talked about the sales tax incentives that Timnath offered Costco and it's amazing how fast those get paid off or, you know, because essentially I believe what it was, high-level, Costco got a percentage of the taxes that were paid to the town of Timnath for a certain amount of time.

I think it might have been five years, half the taxes, something along those lines. But now that's been paid, that tax revenue has been, deal has expired and all that tax revenue goes to the town of Timnath and it is a very well-off town between Costco and Walmart. And yes, now they're starting to have police and firefighters and, you know, more government services that they're having to pay for, but for a long time Costco and that Walmart Center were just pouring money into a town that didn't have a lot of expenditures that it was needed. So it was a very flush with cash town. But Costco going into Loveland, kind of just east of Sentara, the shops at Sentara, right out that kind of Thompson Parkway, Johnstown Parkway, excuse me. And it is interesting to see how close that is, but overall that I-25 and 34 growth corridor is just insane. And that's where Cascadia is potentially going to be built. So you're talking, you know, maybe a couple, two, three miles, a little bit further east, County Road 17 and 34 is where those intersections are for where Cascadia is proposed. And this is just a couple of miles west of that. So that US 34, US 34 I-25 corridor is just a behemoth of a shopping retail commercial area. Jay's Bistro has been closed since 2024. If you've never been, if you never went to Jay's Bistro, it was a treat. It was a wonderful date night. It was open for many, many years, but it's been vacant since. There was a gold and silver operation that opened up next door. It was where our office used to be, but there is going to be a new place called Meet Also Underground.

And it's going to be live music, kind of cocktails, you know, good cuisine. So it's nice to see a new shop, new operation opening up there off of Oak Street because Oak Street's solid. Bistro Nautil's right there, Crooked Cup, Tasty Harmony, which I'm not a fan of Tasty Harmony, but plenty of people love it. So don't let me talk too much down about it. Just not my style of food, okay? And then you also have got, what is it? Gosh dang, I just forgot the name, off of Mason Street. If you're watching this and you know what I'm talking about, let me know what it is. It's kind of a farm-to-table operation right off of Mason and it's been there forever and I can't think of the damn name. Anyways, Oak Street definitely punches above its weight. CSU's little shop of physics opening up with 300 plus experiments. I remember going to this as a kid. It opens up on March 1st, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tons of experiments, tons of things to do. It's hilarious when I just said that. My daughter says when she talks about experiments, she calls them experiences and my wife and I, every time we look at each other, we just kind of laugh because she calls, I want to go do an experience and she's talking, I want to go do an experiment so I could see how that happens because I just did it myself. But you know, businesses in Colorado, northern Colorado, economies, jobs, I didn't even know this existed until we had a client that was relocating here from the California area to work for. It was a different company name at the time but now it's called Ursa Major and they build rockets at this location in northern Colorado and they are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and funding, bringing potentially expansion to that business and jobs, high-paying jobs, super important to the region. I just released a blog, if you are interested in reading this, I thought it was super interesting myself. I dove deep on Chat GBT because two weeks ago council members suggested the price to rent, income to price ratio for median income to median price of a home should be three to one and I agree that the ratio is great to strive for but I also think that there are towns that are premiums, towns that deserve discounts and that three to one maybe is that median city for lack of a better word. But it got me diving deep into incomes versus prices and incomes in Larimer County, Fort Collins MSA since 2016 have increased at an average annual rate of 5.7 percent. Home values including the crazy run-up between 2020 and 2023 have averaged 5.5 percent. Now this is both single-family detached and attached but ultimately what might really started getting me thinking is we've actually caught up because the last four years in Fort Collins, prices have remained relatively flat and our incomes have been increasing and we're back to a more normalized rate. So the affordability, now granted, interest rates are much higher than they are today versus than they were in 2016.

They were like around four percent and today they're around five and a half percent. So like not crazy but not nearly as good as three to four percent. But jobs and incomes have caught up to remain in step with the housing prices. So I don't know if three to one is a realistic expectation to Fort Collins but it hasn't gotten so just there's not been as big of a discrepancy as it felt. So doing that research was really interesting. City Council talked about mobile home program licensing. $50 per lot, $1,000 licensing fee. The mobile home parks are definitely kind of the Wild West. There's not a lot of oversight and the city of Fort Collins saying, hey we need to make sure that we're protecting at-risk individuals, lower income individuals who might not necessarily feel like they can fight for themselves because of fear of getting evicted. So definitely for this I've seen some pretty bad things at mobile home parks. I've seen also some really really great mobile home parks. A friend of mine owns one and I think is a great manager, great landlord, great owner and and pours money into his properties. So this does impact him as well but overall hopefully you know there's only I think what was it there's like seven parks within Fort Collins and 14 parks outside of Fort Collins but within Larimer County or you know Fort Collins growth management area. So anyways that's what City Council has discussed. They want to protect those individuals. I'm all for it. Voted 7-0. Things to do this week. Great plates starting in downtown Fort Collins. Starting March 1st it goes to March 14th. You've got most restaurants are doing this. There are $45, $35, $25 and $15 options and really what the intention is is you get a really great deal but the dollars that you would have spent so let's say that $45 plate might have cost you $65 to $85.

Well the idea is to take that extra $20 or $40 or whatever that is that you're saving and give it and this goes to the I think it's the Larimer County food pantry. I can't remember exactly but anyways it's a donation to a great cause. Many years and they raise a ton of money so great reason to go out to dinner and give. Fort Collins winter brew fest February 28th 2 to 6 p.m. at the Drake Center. 17 breweries are gonna be represented there so go check that out. Rocky Mountain Raptor 33rd gala February 28th at 5 p.m. at the Laurie Student Center. The Ten Tenors at the Lincoln Center and that's just a the Lincoln Center always has great different events going on all the time so no matter what if you're looking at something to do go look at the Lincoln Center what their kind of playbook is as far as upcoming events.

A donut making class at Ginger & Baker. I'm just a big fan of donuts so you know Ginger & Baker are always putting on great classes but this is specifically one that really caught my attention the donut making class. A daddy daughter dance in Windsor Colorado February 27th. The butterfly dance the daddy daughter dance in Fort Collins got moved from February to June which is an amazing thing I've gone to it two years in a row this will be our third year. Definitely an exciting thing to do amazing memories absolutely love it we'll be doing it again this year. You know you go from how cute to there's the hunks show in February 27th it's a girls night out at the high five event center 310 North Cleveland and Loveland. Basically it looks like a Chippendales in northern Colorado so your wife your girlfriend you whatever looking to go have a fun night out that is February 27th 8 to 10 p.m. and then finally Colorado Eagles play tonight and tomorrow and tonight will actually be the first time my kiddos get to go see the Colorado Eagles play so I'm excited about it we're going this is live in Fort Collins thank you for watching if you have any questions definitely feel free to comment below or anything real estate related definitely send us an email call text or email we'd love to help out however we can have a great day everybody take care