FoCo in 15 Minutes | North College Redevelopment, TABOR Refunds, City Priorities & Valentine’s Events

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I always talk about how Loveland, Colorado has to do so much redevelopment to really catch up to Fort Collins and it is doing just that. There are so many cool projects happening in and around downtown Loveland that it is one of my most exciting areas to watch in northern Colorado. But I look at Fort Collins and I see North College and I'm like, you know what? I forgot about how much redevelopment has to go on there and we're going to talk about that here shortly about all of the projects that are happening and will be happening along North College and the River District to change the site and North College.

I mean, that's just an unsung hero here in Fort Collins area, but this is live in Fort Collins. If you have any questions, this is the time to ask them live. If you're watching this on rerun, feel free to ask and I will get back to them as soon as I possibly can. If you looked at the newsletter today and you saw a new layout, I would love to know your thoughts on if you thought that was a good layout. Let's really get into that information fast and if not, I know I'm open to hearing that too. But we'll jump right in. Wellington, let's make sure people know where to get food if they are needing that help.

Families can get food once a week at the Wellington Food Pantry. It is expanded to three days a week located at Eyestone South 4001 West Wilson Avenue Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 530 and Saturdays 9 to 11 a.m. So definitely always excited to see Northern Colorado doing what we can to help those in need. Colorado is accepting tax returns, which is never anything fun to talk about. But what was fun to hear and talk about was our Tabor refunds used to be in the hundreds if not even thousands of dollars. But due to our lowering tax revenue basis, you can expect anywhere between $19 to $59 if you're a couple or $38 to $118.

So maybe get you taken out to dinner one night and that's about it. So tax time is coming up so if you've got any friends, CPAs, and they're ghosting you, you know why. It is that time that they are getting all their returns in. In fact, I just had to get my business return in last week and then I've got to get all my personal stuff in by the first week or two in March. All right, jumping into kind of that redevelopment area, the Urban Renewal Authority, URA, bought the Albertsons building and will use the parking lot as temporary and events parking and food trucks, entertainment, things of that nature until they decide what they want to do with that building.

But on top of that, if you've driven down North College and on the west side of the road, the budget host in Motel has been boarded up with red tape. I will tell you a lot of that is asbestos mitigation, meth mitigation that's going on, but they've determined that it can't be mitigated. There's not enough mitigation that can go on in that building so they will be tearing it down and looking for a developer, a partner developer, something to do with that very valuable land. They bought that land for $2.1 million and will be tearing it down. So it tells you just how valuable some of those properties are.

On top of that, the El Palomino Motel. So if you're heading out on North College just past Jefferson and kind of as you're nearing Jax, you're going to see an El Palomino hotel. Well, the URA also is under contract to purchase that building. It's been a consistent nuisance problem for the city and county and the URA went under contract to buy it. Now, I think there will be some challenges with that building because it is on the register for historic properties. So it'll be interesting to see what they can do with that. But there will be also environmental abatement at that property because it is an older building, I want to say 1940s.

I don't have that off the top, but 1940s. But those are three really big projects that the URA, the basically governmental body is taking control of and saying, hey, we're tired of all these issues with this budget in Motel, El Palomino, Albertsons was just a vacant property and it was such a valuable piece of land that we need to spur development here and we can't do that with this vacant property here. And so we're going to come in, take the bull by the horns and basically force a sale, which is what happened from my understanding. And that will turn into a community center of some sort, whether it's a library or North College, community center, something to where hopefully that spurs development in those areas.

Because the King Soopers right there, we always stop while we're going out of town to the firehouse subs. And I think there's a lot of cool things that can and will happen in that area. There just has to be kind of a few of those dominoes that fall, which is kind of what happened in Loveland. You know, the foundry is going on, Fourth Street is just beautiful along Lincoln and Cleveland Avenue. There's just a lot of cool projects happening in downtown Loveland. So very pro downtown Loveland and North College. Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl. But one thing that was kind of cool to watch, I was not near, I was not close friends with him.

I didn't call myself friends with him, but I definitely was an acquaintance with Clint Kubiak because he was a safety for the Rams between 2005 and 2009. And I was at CSU beginning in 2007. And so I was able to, you know, kind of go watch him play at a few parties, you know, became friends with his group of friends afterwards. But it's great to see him have success for the Seahawks as an offensive coordinator and was just named the Oakland Raiders coach, which I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. That seems to be a place where coaches do not do well. But it's always nice to have a CSU presence, especially somebody that I had, you know, a close connection with, 38 years old, one of the youngest coaches.

The Seahawks coach was one of the youngest coaches to ever win the Super Bowl. But definitely exciting to see all of the CSU connections to the Super Bowl. I think there was four different individuals. Torrey Horton, wide receiver. Clint Kubiak were the two names and then a couple other coaches as well. It is Valentine's Day weekend, and I'm terrified that my wife might be watching this live because we do not have plans. So, RIP Raiders, lots of young offensive talent though. Yeah, I mean, they've got skill and they'll be having the number one pick with that quarterback, so we'll see. But if my wife was watching this, no big plans.

Unfortunately, we had one of the cool things. We had an au pair that watched over our kids for about two and a half, three years, and we had a date night every single Friday night. It was built in. But with my wife now staying home for all intensive reasons and purposes, I should say, don't get the date night nearly as much. And the babysitters that we do have always seem to get either pregnant or busy, so we don't have anything busy. But if you are in Fort Collins and looking to set up your date night, Colorado came out with nine different restaurants that you could potentially look at setting up a reservation for.

They called it Romantic Spots. One of them on here specifically, I was like, meh, I don't know how romantic this spot is. But Ace Gillette's downtown, Speakeasy, super nice, Bistro Nautile, a wonderful chef there, delicious. I've actually only been there once, but absolutely loved it. I'm surprised that we don't go there often. Door 22 in Loveland, Indigo Modern Indian Cuisine and Bar in Fort Collins, Kajira Ramen, that's the kind of, it's delicious. We go there all the time. I just don't know how romantic it is. But the Little on Mountain, very quaint, cute spot. The Philippe French Bistro on College, Sunset Lounge, and the Regional.

I'm actually surprised that Rare Italian's not on that list. The New Italian Restaurant that's on the northeast corner of College and Mountain, but regardless, plenty of options. Make sure to set that reservation if you haven't already. City Council, while they haven't necessarily adopted them yet, they have set their five priorities. It's interesting to watch, and I'm a big believer in this, actually, personally. This year, specifically, I have four priorities for my business. YouTube, podcast, newsletter, and the seminars that we do. So if you're watching this and you want to go to one of the seminars, we hold them once a month.

But the reason I say that is because City Council used to have, I think they had 37 to 50 priorities, not just five or six years ago. Last session, for the prior two years, they had, I think, 13 priorities. And now they have five priorities. I just kind of want to go through them high level, because I think they're pretty interesting and it talks about where they think Fort Collins is going and where they need to go. So reducing barriers to make it easier to build. I think that's genius. I don't know how quickly they can get that done. That seems like kind of a big wheel to turn, but it's definitely something that needs to happen.

When my uncle was the mayor of Timnath, he talked with me about how, essentially, it was 12 months from conception to dirt in the ground for a project to go through. In Fort Collins, between entitlements, purchases, planning, it could be three to four years from conceptual review to dirt in the ground, which is way too long and way too much money. We're talking millions and millions of dollars that developers are pouring into these developments that might not ever go vertical. And because economies change, there's already tons of challenges that take place. So I think that's a huge, I love that proposal, which it also kind of talks a little bit lower on one of their other priorities that kind of goes in tandem with it.

But reducing barriers to make it easier to build. Financial sustainability and efficiency. We have a budget for 2025 to 2026, our city sales tax. They are budgeting, I want to say like 3.5% increase, and we only are seeing 2%. So the budget had to be revised for 2026 and into 2027 as well. But they're wanting to say, hey, you know what? We need to make sure that we're doing what we need to do. There's 2,500 employees at the city of Fort Collins. 24-7, 365 services is extremely important to the city, but wanting to look to make sure that we're looking at everything. And I would say one of the sacrifices that the city of Fort Collins made was they had a much smaller holiday party last year, which isn't like, yeah, maybe not the biggest lever to pull, but it speaks to, hey, listen, if we're gonna talk the talk, we better walk the walk.

So I think that's probably just a good thing in general. Economic vitality. And they want to, this just started, they had a work session and they were wanting to start to bring in and really try to recruit primary employers as well as focus on regional retail centers that is going to bring in both employers and employees. And then also keep the sales tax dollars here. There was an interesting statistic that discussed how over the last, I want to say, 10 or 15 years, I think it's 15 years, city of Fort Collins has added 90,000 square feet of commercial space, whereas Johnstown has added 150,000, Timnith, same thing, six digits.

And that is also because we don't have as much green space as some of these areas, but it also is a testament to where they're able to be built and pencil out and underwrite these projects. So I think Fort Collins putting a focus on that and recruiting some of these employers, primary employers, is important. Sharing council's actions more broadly. I think this is a direct reflection of the land use code and land development code that just went haywire. I think there's a ton of avenues and ways that the city can share what they're doing very transparently. I think they do it, actually, I was at a memorial sitting next to the city manager and we were talking about, I was like, man, I think you guys have a burden of how much you have to share.

Because I think sometimes, like at the retreat, I think at city council retreats, I think that's where you kind of get to know people. I think ideas can really flourish. But because of the transparency rules and where they're at, their two retreats were actually live broadcasted. And anyone was welcome to go, and I'm like, I don't, that's a pendulum swing. All right, some things have to be done in the dark. I'm not saying it's a great thing by any means. But the City of Fort Collins, everything that the council members, even if there's, I think, more than two city council members meeting, they have to post it on a website and make it available for everybody to attend, wild.

But a priority for them is to share council actions more broadly, make it more transparent. And then finally, Vision Zero, I think we can all get behind this. Eliminating serious injuries and fatalities on streets. Between trying to get people to slow down on the roads, underpasses, overpasses, getting bikers off the streets or protected on the streets, I think is super important. As for things to do this weekend, go check out the downtown lights. It is the last weekend before they shut off until next November. Crazy, we're already through that time period. They turn on right around the first week of November, and they go through Valentine's Day.

And they will be turned off on Valentine's Day. So go enjoy that, make sure to set your reservations. Loveland is kind of a mecca for the Valentine's Day. There is the Loveland Sweetheart Festival, downtown Loveland, 10 AM to 8 PM, lots of things going on. The Little Miss Valentine and Little Mister Cupid contest, 10 AM to 1 PM, again, downtown Loveland. There is, if you're a ice cream lover, which who isn't? OtterBox and Walrus is having their second annual BYOB, Bring Your Own OtterBox. And that is, essentially, if you bring in your own OtterBox case, showing that it's an OtterBox case, you can get four scoops of ice cream for $10.

I wanna say, there are places you can go get ice cream, and it's like two scoops could be $9, so a good deal there. Ram Talks held at the visitor center, if you haven't gone to see the visitor center, it is downtown Fort Collins, 7 Old Town Square. They do a Ram Talks, I wanna say once or twice a month. But it is February 11th, 5 to 6.30 PM, and they are talking about insect love lives, so if that's your jam. Then Love on Ice Polar Plunge, up in Riverside, Colorado, near Mishawaka, 10 AM to 3 PM, those are some things to do. And I did get a question, quick question for the end. The data center is proposed at Kodak's site, I believe.

How do you see that impacting property values within the immediate area? Energy, water consumption, and sound. Now, I actually, I believe, your question, Izzy asked me, she's like, do you know anything about the data center that's going on? I said, no, I don't. The one thing that I do know though, as far as data centers go, and Larimer County and Fort Collins, not sure about Windsor or Weld County, is they are putting kind of a moratorium on some of these permits. Because they want to figure out what type of water consumption and energy consumption they're gonna have, and they wanna make smarter decisions.

And at least in Larimer and Fort Collins, this 60, I wanted to say it's a 60 day. It's a 60 day moratorium, I wanna see, let's see here. Larimer County Moratorium Data Center. So, let's see here, there's a temporary moratorium. And this was on February 5th, 2026, it was recorded. And this is essentially putting on a temporary moratorium for data centers in Larimer County. I don't see anything though. It's a 30 day moratorium, but it could extend in perpetuity. And I don't know about Windsor and Weld County. Windsor and Weld are a little bit more wild west. They are pro-growth, pro-development.

So that's something that we would have to do a little bit more research on. But I think it speaks volumes that Larimer County and City of Fort Collins is saying, hey, let's put a pause on some of these data centers because of the impacts that it could have on energy, water consumption, sound. We were working with a client that actually was gonna live in Fort Collins and work in the data center that they were building in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A lot of jobs, very important. They talk about China producing, I wanna say they produce 30 gigawatts, 30 something crazy amount of watts over the last year.

And the United States has produced five gigawatts. And I know that it's going to be a race for energy and data, and I don't know, long and short, I don't know. But if you aren't familiar with that area, that Kodak site, it is pretty industrial. So I will say as far as property values in that general area, it's pretty industrial. There are large, large warehouses kind of on, that would be the far east side of Windsor. I don't know if it would impact property values to the degree in that area that it would if it was on the west side of Windsor, along County Road 13, or something along those lines kind of by Raindance, Buffalo Run, kind of some of those areas.

Great question though. So I would say a thing that we need to do is to see what Weld and Windsor are doing with those data centers. The last thing that I did wanna show, I forgot to show it, I wanted to show my screen. Here are four projects that are happening in downtown Old Town Fort Collins. This is the Armory adjacent building. So this is where the Lyric used to be, beautiful building with the Armory. It's a music venue right there, beautiful acoustics. This is gonna be kind of office space and a green room for it. Moving down 160 apartment complex in the River District, right across the street from Ginger and Baker.

It was an empty lot, it's now gonna be apartment complexes. The density is happening in downtown Fort Collins. One thing that when I was running Old Town Square, I would look at my retail tenants and I'd say, hey listen, you're paying $20, $25 a square foot plus triple nets. Now triple nets are not crazy. If you don't know what triple nets are, look them up. But I just was told at the Johnstown Plaza, triple nets could reach $20 a square foot on top of your base rents, wild. But what I told them, I said, hey listen, you're paying these rates and you could lock this in for the next ten years. But in the next ten years, you're gonna see an extra 10 to 20,000 people, not units, but people that are living in downtown based off of all the development that's happening, and this is just such that type of project that's going on.

And then off of Linden Street, a little bit further south of that project, a few of the vacant buildings will be kind of new facades. And then finally, this is the missing tooth that's going on at Mason and Mountain Avenue, and there it'll be a beautiful building. Local developer excited to see that. Went a little long today, appreciate you guys watching. Happy Valentine's Day, go explore downtown Fort Collins, enjoy some of those holiday lights. It is a Christmas card, a Hallmark card, and spend some time in Loveland, Colorado, as this is kind of their Super Bowl of holidays in the area. Until next time everybody, have a great day.