FoCo in 15 Minutes | Major Health Care Sale, Land Swap, Paid Parking Debate & New Year's Events

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you would have thought taking off an entire week from my newsletter from my weekly live from recording on our YouTube channel would give me a fully charged battery but as you can hear in my voice that is not the case I am fighting off the back half of a cold so I am sorry that I got a little bit more nasally than I typically am so apologize for that but this is live in Fort Collins coming to you live every week Tuesday at noon to talk to you about things that are happening Fort Collins in northern Colorado things to do City Council recaps so let's jump right into it native Fort Collins mr. Bob Wilson bought Columbine Health Systems in 1970 is starting to cash out in a big way selling five of his facilities in northern Colorado for sixty two point three million dollars and still has about a handful left of assisted living patio homes skilled nursing facilities left but he's a true you know rags-to-riches story started as a janitor and maintenance worker in the 1970s bought one facility grew it to what it is now it is one of the largest skilled nursing providers patio home assisted living you name it a you know senior care in northern Colorado you can't talk about it without mentioning mr. Bob Wilson so congratulations to all your success to all of your support that you've given to Fort Collins northern Colorado along your growth pattern your career over the last 55 years speaking about growth in Larimer County in northern Colorado you know it's one of those things we'll talk actually here shortly about how Greeley Greeley is going to be surpassing Fort Collins and population in 2026 but the reality is as Weld County is passing Larimer County in 2026 and that pattern will continue into the future but the growth of both Larimer County and Weld County which creates northern Colorado you know provides a need for our district attorneys excuse me public defenders our jails size our county courts all of that and above and there was recently a property swap between the city of Fort Collins about nine acres out on East vine that they'll use for storage and other uses and for a few properties off of Mountain Avenue for the future development of the Larimer County expansion Justice Center valued right around five million dollars for both of those properties so it just kind of goes to show the expectations for growth in both Larimer County and Weld County are expected to continue and Larimer County is one of the largest employers in the city of Fort Collins so that just took place over last month and we'll probably see that building you know come to fruition and it looks you know probably around in late 2020s early 2030s man talking about three employees of the City Council so the City Council has three direct reports the attorney chief justice and the city manager city manager got a 2% raise as did the city attorney but the city judge let me make sure chief judge will remain flat moving into the new year so 2% raises for our city manager and city attorney and the chief judge his salary remained flat $218,000 for our city city chief judge to $270,000 for our city attorney and $337,000 for our city manager so this is what I was gonna and I'm actually gonna show my screen so if you're listening this to this on our podcast the YouTube channel for Collins lifestyles is showing a visual of this but I wanted to show what our demographers are predicting moving into the new year and into the future so I will show my screen here so we're right into looking at right we're right around to 2025 where Weld County actually the projections for this year were are that they will actually be above us by about 2,000 people and this is the first time ever that they're passing us in population and by 2030 they'll have an extra 20,000 people and if you jump all the way out to 2060 real quick right now between Larimer and Weld County our projection for a population at the end of this year is about about seven hundred and twenty five seven hundred excuse me what is that seven hundred fifty thousand people so three-quarters of a million people in Fort Collins or excuse me northern Colorado Larimer and Weld County but if you jump all the way out to 2060 our projections are you know closer to one point one million fifty thousand people in northern Colorado by 2060 so over 250,000 people projected to move to northern Colorado over the next 35 years so that that that growth rate is definitely slowing down but Weld County you know even over the next few years is projected to be above 1% for Weld County whereas Larimer County slowing to a much slower pace to less than 1% into the future but the growth of Larimer County Weld County definitely something to take note of which again leads us into this hey you know what Fort Collins is a destination it's a tourist driven economy a lot of different things that are driving Fort Collins company but people spending a lot of time in downtown Fort Collins and there's an upside down parking system specifically that are most desirable spots in Fort Collins parking downtown are free and our least desirable the parking garage are paid and our revenue isn't matching up with what we need to keep up with these facilities and so there is a discussion about implementing paid parking in downtown Fort Collins there is a kind of highlighted section imagine basically Jefferson to Olive Mason and kind of over to you know the the pizza slice that is Mountain Avenue and Jefferson those will have metered parking and there's some projections that meter revenue could go from 2.8 million to 5.9 million dollars annually if this takes place so it wouldn't they call it a closed-loop system in the sense that like our golfing in Fort Collins it's the other city owns our golfing infrastructure but it's all self self the expenses are self generated by the revenue that it generates and that's something that they don't believe this could be it fully but it gets much closer to that kind of closed loop system that the maintenance and and development of new parking garages would be covered by the paid parking and I was curious because there's some pushback from business owners saying hey listen we don't want to deter anyone from coming down and parking downtown and my initial gut instinct is like you know if if I can pay a dollar fifty per hour to be able to stay at a spot for four hours so you know six dollars I'm probably gonna do that and if somebody would rather have garage parking that could be a dollar for the first hour or cheaper free and they'd rather go park there sometimes it's it's more beneficial for me to have that closer spot and so I'm willing to pay that and I put a survey on my youtube channel living at Fort Collins and I asked would this impact your decision and 44% said yes it would impact my position decision to come downtown but 56% said either no it has no impact or I wouldn't even think about it so I am interested to hear your thoughts you know feel free to comment below of should Fort Collins implement this paid parking if it should you know what parameters should they have they're still gonna be free parking outside of the area so like if you're willing to walk you can find free parking within you know five or six blocks of downtown Fort Collins but if you want the premium spots they are going to start being paid parking for up to four hours I think it's a good idea you know let's I don't I don't think it's a money grab I think that people vote with their dollars and I still think people are gonna go spend a significant amount of time downtown I think you know paying six dollars for four hours for many people who are coming from Cheyenne or Denver or Greeley to you know expensive time downtown or they can go park in the parking garages as well so I think there's tons of options I think what we aren't restricting is options for people coming down to downtown Fort Collins you can pay for premium parking you can still pay or pay a lot less for still desirable parking in these parking garages have it be covered or you can park outside of downtown and take the max transit that is free to downtown or you know walk so I think there's still tons of options and Fort Collins the downtown area is small easily accessible I don't think it would be a big deal if they added paid parking we're getting to the end of our winter break but hey here are some things to do from the Colorado and six things to do go check out the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery always excited the gardens on Spring Creek limited daytime hours let's see here you can also check out epic Dora pool and ice center for for swimming or ice skating go check out the pooter library or you know check out another type of library the toy game and puzzle library inside the foothills mall that just opened up their new space definitely something unique to Fort Collins but excited to have them up and operational so go do those few things over the next few days while winter break is still in session the Fort Collins food co-op officially closed on and will be opening up the what was the beavers market building in early 2026 I think this you know restaurant or not restaurant this grocery store this walkable destination for people especially having it be the food co-op is super exciting for people in and around that area because you know it's it's already a co-op so you can become a member pay discounted rates yikes pay discounted rates if you're shopping there and it's it's local and it's Mountain Avenue it's what beavers was for everybody so definitely excited for that to open up and then the bohemian foundation bought the old Fort Collins food co-op building for 1.6 million dollars so excited to see what they do with that building there was an article in there that showed that the Colorado utility costs are actually the best in the nation when you look at a percent of the income that it is costing you so in Fort Collins it cost you about seven or excuse me about 6.4 percent of the state's monthly median income for your monthly utilities or in Colorado about five hundred sixty eight dollars per month whereas like West Virginia and all I took this was saying that you know people in Colorado are earning our high earners in comparison that's really what I took this as because West Virginia their their cost wasn't that much higher but their percent of median income was up to 15 percent for your utility costs in the area now utility costs what they're talking about from move org is this is electricity natural gas water sewer trash internet streaming and phone so those are utilities in the sense that people are using them on a daily basis but not necessarily like your standard utilities of gas electric and water all right we'll end up with our city council there was a tree policy that was just talking about how commercial developers have to go through and get permits to remove trees now of certain sizes developers are gonna have to replace trees if they remove them and then also put into an escrow for three years a certain amount of money per tree while they maintain and make sure that it stays alive and then at that point it goes away it becomes the property of the owners and it's their responsibility that was actually a big big to do especially because Fort Collins is kind of a tree city USA over 50,000 trees owned by the city of Fort Collins but a big burden on developers so you know we continue to talk about affordability how do we how do we provide that for people but we're also on the flip side adding additional hurdles and costs to these developers to maintain this wonderful city that we call Fort Collins but also makes it challenging for them to provide affordable housing the Fort Collins snow policy actually had some pretty decent conversation and they're gonna push it back to eight weeks to be able to go talk to the disability advisory board as well as other boards because they're saying hey listen it's a little bit concerning we want to make sure that the the sidewalks and streets are accessible and move from a removal of snow I can't remember what's that was that what's that called a abatement policy to a citation policy there was three thousand over three thousand notices sent out to you have to got you have to remove your snow within 24 hours on the sidewalk any public facing sidewalks and if you don't they give you a notice and then they come in and abate it and then they send you the bill and only about 10% get the notice and still don't do anything about it but the citation would be a first offense would be $100 second offense would be $300 for third offense would be $500 and fourth offense could potentially be a misdemeanor so they are trying to they're still saying hey any public sidewalk the snow has to be removed but over two inches you can be cited for it no abatement you just get cited first citation $100 I mean for me that is worth shoveling the dang sidewalk not getting $100 bill all right and then finally some things to do this week and weekend a Lego build club at Old Town Library January 2nd 10 a.m. to 11 15 so check that out fourth annual New Year's Day hangover games at Old Town putt on January 1st 1230 p.m. to 4 p.m. the resolution 5k December 31st 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at a door pool and ice center which is an interesting this is the new year at the 42nd annual resolution run wow I didn't know that was 42nd annual that's pretty cool AMA arena cross championships January 3rd at 5290 arena circle and level in Colorado so I was basically at the ranch Riverside renewal Riverside annual New Year's Day cold plunge January 1st at 10 a.m. in Riverside Colorado near the Mishawaka so those are some things to do this weekend there's also some rodeo going on at the at the ranch so plenty to do if you guys have any questions are considering buying selling or relocating here in northern Colorado give my team and I a call text your email we would love to help you but otherwise until next week happy new year everybody