FoCo in 15 Minutes | New Mayor, Big Openings & Downtown Revamp

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We've got a new mayor in the town of, or the city, of Fort Collins, Colorado. Mayor Emily Francis, she is our pro tem right now and going to be transitioning into the mayor role in 2026. So shout out to Emily, congratulations. But we are gonna jump into Fort Collins in 15 minutes. We come to you weekly, discuss things that are happening Fort Collins, things to do as well, and then City Council either work session or City Council reviews. Starting off, you know downtown Fort Collins, super interesting. I mean it is changed over the years pretty dramatically. There were three storefronts that were purchased for 1.6 million dollars last year that housed Cazola's Pizza, kind of an art place, and they will be refacotted, retenanted, moving forward. And just all of downtown, really if there's any kind of blemish seems to get eaten up and a new vibrant opportunity takes its place, like the Lyric, which you know I'm not saying the Lyric itself was a bad operation, it just was a little bit of a rundown building. They moved to a different location, built a state-of-the-art facility, Bohemian Foundation bought their pizza slice of a building for I think it was like two million dollars and they are building currently. So downtown, Old Town Fort Collins clearly will now and forevermore be our kind of heart and soul of Fort Collins and just more and more people want to make sure that it stays beautiful. If you missed the lighting ceremony this last Friday, which we which we did, we were on a team retreat out in Manitou Springs, but it got lit up this last Friday and will stay lit every evening until Valentine's Day in 2026. Go explore downtown Fort Collins. It is a hallmark postcard. You know, one thing that's interesting, you know, there's a lot of water rights and I don't know much about water rights, but water rights are very highly desired. A lot of water rights are owned by farmers and agriculture. In fact, from my understanding, about 80% of our water is owned and used by agriculture in northern Colorado and only 20% is used by residential and so there when people want to do developments or they need water there will be a purchase of a farm farmland and it will become dry crops that are grown there and the water rights will be sold off and this just happened in kind of the alt area. Weld County RE9 just was able to purchase a 145 acre site that does not come with water rights for a potential future school site. It just kind of talks to you about the growth of Northeast Colorado which is kind of, you know, Weld County still, Logan, Washington County, all those kind of areas alt. Still Larimer County is still going to grow as well but there is demand for a new school that Weld County RE9 has kind of earmarked that land for in the future but the water was sold off probably to some developers. It's dry land now and will be that way for the next three to four years until they decide what they want to do with that property. Doug's Diner. I'm not sure if you've been to Doug's Diner in Fort Collins or Northern Colorado. It is a franchise so there might be other spots open. I'm not a huge Doug Diner fan. My dad loves Doug's Diner. It's just kind of you've got some thick juicy bacon. Things are pretty much I think all of them are made from scratch. I am not a huge fan. I think the thing that I liked the most was like kind of a cowboy hash that was pretty tasty but that being said there is it's a franchise now. I think the original owners sold. There is some infighting. The franchisee owed some money to the franchisor and the franchisor you know kind of had some fraud of that sort so it's just kind of sad to see more than anything because I remember when they were one restaurant on the southeast side of Fort Collins kind of new to town everyone really liked it just fresh yummy and now they're kind of going through some struggles so hopefully that all gets sorted out and they can remain open number one but stay successful number two for for those that like breakfast in southeast Fort Collins. Speaking of you know businesses Fort Collins co-op bought the old Beavers market building off of Mountain and Shields. It's gonna double their size. They're gonna have more offerings which I actually I think it's now Beavers was always very well supported especially when it was you know Doug Beaver that ran it. It switched hands. I would have to imagine it was still supported well.

Obviously not well enough for them to want to sell but that's kind of a unique in neighborhood walkable grocery store option that was local that the downtown people that live that kind of that area that's kind of what their you know their vibe is they want to support local not ride you know driving their car so they can walk ride their bikes go get groceries you know a few doors down they would do that and I think the co-op will be a very successful operation there because that is already that's kind of like what inherently is is a membership type of grocery store that you become a member they then sell a little bit of a discount to those members and they are able to support their business that way and so they try to kind of they kind of keep you in locked well shopping there because you're a member so you get a little bit of discount you're supporting all that good stuff so I'm excited to see the food co-op go there and I'm also really interested again in that downtown property that is literally right next to Coopersmith's the poolside which is now becoming the poolside again great location so it'll be interesting to see what ends up going there there was an article in the Colorado that says the misery index which Colorado football team is struggling the worst Air Force at two and six has the lowest misery rating of two out of ten CSU comes in next at seven hours let's see here at six out of ten no no seven out of ten and then Colorado having multi double-digit losses in the last two games are coming in at a nine nine out of ten so they're struggling pretty much pretty well interesting if you're you know if you watch this channel we work with we work with Colorado State University fans and CU fans I am we're not gonna get into that you know I'm a Colorado State graduate but I'm interested to know if you are a graduate of CU watching what's going on with Colorado now obviously they had two relatively successful years but Deion Sanders there huge support for the program in general but just not a lot of success so if you're a fan of CU are you wanting to see him stick around for a while just because of the the kind of excitement that is around Colorado football or would you rather win I'm not saying that he won't win you know I hope that he does I'm a Deion fan I think he's you know he's there's things that I like that it there's things that I don't like that he does but there's definitely things that I think that what he's doing is is exciting and fun pickleball the pickler had a soft opening last week and will do a grand opening I want to say it's around November 22nd which is exciting I am NOT a pickleball player myself but if you are that is a franchise that is very successful people love being there first and Fort Collins but not the last is my understanding there might be another one coming but there's also another one opening up off of Innovation Drive probably later this year which there's not much later this year that there's gonna be available and then also Gordon's restaurant which were which was where Bed Bath and Beyond used to be there are food supplier but they are now open to the public and I have not shopped at or ate at shamrock foods which is a similar operation as Gordon foods so if you are a you know if you support that business let me know is it good food can you sit down and eat in there do you shop get groceries there or how do you use those operations because I just never have personally mostly probably because I forget that it's there maybe because I drive by Gordon's all the time I'll go more but shamrock is kind of pushed behind all right let's get into some election results this was a you know a fun ballot can you say that about elections I don't know there wasn't a lot of contention I would say except for one the old Hughes battle and I will say I don't I have never not once put a political sign in my yard but I put one in there this year I was yes on 2h use the multi-use for Hughes Stadium and you know personally I just think that there we've got over 50,000 acres in Lamer County of natural area 164 acres in prime spot in Fort Collins I just was like yeah there could just be a little bit better use doesn't need to be dense housing by any means but maybe just some cooler more fun intentional uses that give the community some additional amenities because you know it's a premium living here so I would say having those premium amenities is nice so that was a big win and I took my ballot or not my ballot excuse me my the sign in the yard and I was able to go and recycle it at the Timberline hard to recycle area it's actually free right now so if you do have a yard sign go the Timberline recycling center they will take it for you they were gonna charge five dollars but I think they're doing it for free at least they did it for me for free and they give you your kind of corrugated sign and then you take your scrap metal and recycle bat as well so if you do have a yard sign go and recycle it hey here we go election results Emily Francis narrowly beat out Trisha could not narrowly but I mean it was a good race beat out Trisha canonical 26,000 votes to 20,000 votes it was interesting our first ranked choice voting so like the way that like the Colorado and kind of showed it was like round one round two round three round four round five until they got a clear winner with more than 50% of the votes district one came in Chris Conway beat out incumbent Susan gotowski district three Josh fudge one which is the district that I'm in beat out Stevie rash district five Amy Hovind took it home beating out Zoelle Lane ballot issues to a the capital community capital improvement tax that this has been it goes on and this as I really kind of actually I do wish I would I would have voted differently for the natural areas sales tax extension which you might be listening to this be like man does Patrick hate natural areas no I just like when a bill sunsets and that's what the community capital improvement project does is it sunsets every ten years and we have to revote it in do does the city of Fort Collins still want this tax very clearly we do which could be the same thing with the natural areas sales tax I just like the idea of having the option devoted in or out depending on maybe what has changed in our community but regardless the community capital improvement project tax passed 42,000 to 12,000 so you know with flying colors that will build out a bike park five million dollars I think is earmarked for that as well as a four million dollar pickleball outdoor pickleball facility which I believe is gonna be near fall or in fossil creek park which is right by my house so I might have to start playing pickleball I don't know there were some charter amendments just cleaning up some language all of them but to F past to H versus to 303 which was difficult my wife even asked me she goes these are the same thing aren't they to H and 303 which hope you know it doesn't it doesn't ultimately matter because to H passed with 36,000 yes votes to 17,000 and 303 actually fell with more no votes than yes votes so technically it doesn't matter there even if there was confusion people did not want to keep it all natural they did want to use the multi-use but if they both passed the one with the more yes votes would have been the winner so to H had more yes votes and passed compared to 303 no had more no votes so it didn't have more yes votes clearly and would not have one out 302 the natural area sales tax indefinitely passed pretty with flying colors too so I was one of the minority voters on that I I'm not against it by any means I just like the idea of having a bill sunset and getting to vote on it again in the future ballot issues the transportation funding tax that was a 15 cent sales tax failed very narrowly 68,000 no votes to a 62,000 roughly yes votes the child care sales tax passed narrowly 67 yes votes 67,000 yes votes to 63,000 no votes proposition LL and MM which essentially kept taxes or taxed those making $300,000 or more in Colorado to help healthy foods and increase meals for those in need both passed pretty significantly and then on the school district Thompson Valley got a bond approved to for up to 99 million dollars in funding and then finally the town of Timnath they passed a 1.25 percent sales tax for a new recreation center in Timnath southeast Fort Collins abuts Timnath and there's going to be two hundred million dollar facilities there in the very near future so plenty of recreation I mean I go to Genesis and I love going to Genesis I have a ton of friends going to Genesis as far as where I work out but I mean I'm paying for it in my sales tax maybe I need to go support the community center gym I don't know you know you tell me is that what would you do I mean I do I love Genesis cold plunge saunas all those kind of amenities benefits are really nice to have City Council did meet they met the day before the election and they went over for discussion items among other consent items but the four that I wanted to talk about today was the capital and transportation expansion fees both passed so we will see some increases on those fees for builders you know sooner than later so I will it buying a new build get more expensive yes in three to five years that's how long it'll take for this to kind of have an impact but maybe maybe it won't who knows tree policy there was five amendments two of them got delayed because the development community was like hey listen and commercial communities like hey we'd love trees we want to support trees we want to protect trees but we need to have a ending date of what we need to do and they had the bill would have required a three-year escrow and how that would have worked would have been a little bit confusing so they delayed that vote but ultimately the tree policy the idea there is to put some parameters around and permitting requirements on commercial users on removal of trees and developers what kind of that looks like of tree replacement and saving trees the 2026 annual city budget got voted on the first ordinance first reading excuse me there was you know about I think it was like 15 million dollars off the top my head had to be removed from the budget to make up for the shortfall in sales tax this year as well as 2026 shortfalls a lot of that was salaries city nothing of massive note there are they are on a hiring freeze at the city of Fort Collins and so we'll see how that goes Montava got approved for additional debt financing through their metro district to two hundred and ninety seven million dollars hopefully we'll start to see that project go vertical sooner than later they've got all their money situated so to speak they are going to begin the groundwork infrastructure and so hopefully and they already have but hopefully we start to see that go vertical as far as things to do this week it is Veterans Day so if you are a veteran I salute you thank you for your service keeping our country free and all of the great wonderful things that we could enjoy on a day-to-day basis so thank you CSU basketball game this Wednesday against Cal Poly at 7 p.m. dude we're 2-0 the Ali Farouk-Namesh era has begun and he is doing some good things ten-year anniversary party for the Wolverine farm grace Gallagher at CSU there her dance the Sharon prize Colorado there is no planet B that is November 21st and 22nd at the University Center for the Arts so if you want to go support local artists make sure to go check that out Otterbox and Topo designs are doing a launch party November 13th I've seen Topo designs they must have like a licensing agreement with the Broncos some of their stuff is just pretty sweet doctor dr. kaboom this Sunday at the Lincoln Center 2 p.m. every Saturday winners farmers market 10 to 2 p.m. at the foothills mall George Lopez is in Greeley this week November 14th I've never been a huge George Lopez fan but you know hey listen he's very successful very successful comedian and he's on in our backyard at in Greeley so that is this November 14th at 7 30 p.m. go check out the Colorado Eagles playing November 15th at Blue Arena they're only there for probably a couple more years before they find their new home at Cascadia which we will see if that ever becomes more than just a hockey rink and that's about it for things to do this week we like to keep it around 15 minutes we're right around 18 minutes so we will call it a day I thank you for watching and have a great day