FoCo in 15 Minutes | Wildfire Near Homes, QuikTrip Approved, Airport Expansion & Housing Affordability Gap

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It's good to be back, but honestly, hey, this channel is slow to grow. I forgot how difficult it was to grow a YouTube channel. I started shooting on my Living in Fort Collins videos in early 2020, and it's taken me forever to get to a small following. So anyone who is watching this, I appreciate you. Make sure to comment live. Ask any questions. This is the time to get questions answered live, real time. If you're watching this on a rerun, definitely comment, and I will get back to you. But this is Live in Fort Collins. I took last week off. Well, we went up to Steamboats, which leads into one of my first points, and holy cow, we were there.

I've been going to Steamboat since I was a very young kid, and it was the driest, least amount of snow I've ever seen. We skied basically the first half of each day, because when you ski with small kids, an interesting thing if you are a skier or going to ski or want to ski, if a kid weighs not too little, they can't push through some of this slush. So when we got to the bottom of the hills, they would literally just get taken out by a slush. But the mountains were dry. It was sad to see, and it's nerve-wracking for this summer. That's for sure. And so if the one thing that I can do on this Live is make sure to spread the news as much as you can, especially young people.

That's what worries me the most, because I remember how clueless or just aloof I was as a youngster going up, just wanting to have fun. I'm going to go up to the mountains. It's a wonderful thing that you can do that here in Northern Colorado. Go up, Pingree Park, campsites all across Northern Colorado. But especially this year, it's going to be so dry. Not to be a Debbie Downer, like let's snuff out all the fun, but let's just outlaw campfires all summer. Let's just do it now, because it's been super dry, and even the smallest of sparks can start something. There was a fire in Wellington March 18th.

They were able to get that thing stopped, contained to just vegetation. There was one a couple weeks ago, small in the north side of Fort Collins that was caused by a wind grounding a power line. So there's enough forces at work that will make it a difficult summer already, if we can just try to help it ourselves in anything that we can do. So definitely just spread the word. It is going to be a dry summer. If you don't have to, don't start any wildfires. We've got a cabin up in Red Feather that we absolutely love to have fires out there, and I just don't think it's a good idea this year just at all.

Let's push to the next summer when we've hopefully got some good wet weather. Now spring is still sprung in the sense of we've got another month and a half left of significant opportunity for snow, but I'm just looking at the 10-day forecast and I'm like, it's not coming. It is as happy and as excited as I would be if the snow came. It's just not coming. One thing that I love that the Coloradoan does, which not a ton of people like the Coloradoan, I think that provides decent information personally. So if you're looking for local news, Coloradoan is a decent option. One thing that I like that they do is they do brackets for best burritos, best breakfast place, and now they've got the, especially when it comes to NCAA tournament time, they do the best beer for the Coloradoan.

So go on there, vote for your beers, plenty of opportunities, ales, lagers, IPAs, throughout local breweries in Fort Collins. I think last year the Maxline Red won, if I remember right. But anyways, speaking about the summer activities, they're not going to do the Fort Collins Fourth of July parade this year. They're going to do something else instead of that, something that kind of is more interactive and gauging because they said attendance of the parade has actually been decreasing over the years. Security issues have increased, which from my understanding is actually why they no longer do the Bohemian Nights New West Fest is because of security issues, insurance policies that these companies have to have, including on these parades.

It's just a big ordeal. So the City of Fort Collins is going to do something else, still going to have the 5K, fireworks, food stands, all of the different things, but no parade this year. And I'm good with it, honestly, I think we've gone to it in a couple of years. Actually my wife was the Grand Marshal a couple of years ago, which would have been cool if she was the Grand Marshal of the last parade, but hey, no big deal. But I don't think you could throw candy last year, so that was kind of interesting, so just kind of a home home deal, but got to plan something else for this Fourth of July.

I saw some construction work going, or some fences at the Spradley Bar on the College and Drake Corner. Now, what's cool about seeing this is it just shows activity, because the King Soopers that was the Kmart, that Kmart was there for like 10 years, and at least the Spradley Bar was only vacant for like a year on one of the most, if not the center point in Fort Collins. Technically that's College and Prospect, I would say College and Drake is a little bit more of the center point, but it has already got fences up around it, it's going to be demolished, and if everything goes to plan, it's going to be a quick trip.

So it's literally going to be a gas station, which I've already talked about it all my lives. I kind of made a comment that said, hey, you know what, there were some really cool plans there, but because of historical building issues with what was the Sherwin-Williams building, they couldn't demolish it, so the plan just didn't work or pencil, I'm not sure exactly what, and now instead it's going to be a quick trip. But better than kind of a dilapidated falling down building, it will be beautiful, and then I'm sure there will be other stores and things that pop up there, but that is middle of Fort Collins.

Speaking about developments, the Book Ranch never attended or went to the Book Ranch, I do know people that have, apparently it was pretty disgusting, anyways it was kind of a porn store in Fort Collins. That recently traded hands and is in the ownership of a developer who owns the adjoining parcels, so it seems like the empty lot that is adjacent to the Book Ranch and a lot to the east of it, I believe it is, those three are kind of going to probably be a joint and a big multi-use development there. Probably very similar to, I think it's 830 North College or 830 College, which was built by the traders not too long ago, just a couple of blocks south of that, not even a couple of blocks south of that, but right across the street from the CSU Fieldhouse, multi-story building, ground level retail, apartments above, and it sounds like that's probably what's going to go there, but that's the development, conceptual review, 6 to 12 months out, build process, probably another 24 months out from there, so two years before we see that thing vertical.

Speaking about this development that's happening on the west side of town, it's called Polestar, and that has officially broken ground. Now this is kind of a communal living, 144 housing units, 20 acre sites, 18 single-family homes. What else is on there? 450 square foot micro apartments on there, next to traditional single-family homes. This was in Hawaii, and it burnt down, I think, it was during the fires, and so they were looking for a new location and found Fort Collins. It will be a new urbanism feel, super interesting, but that's been in the works for like five, six, seven years, and it's finally breaking ground and going vertical, so that'll be a really interesting development.

I don't know all of the ins and outs. I think you have to be a community member. I don't, so you have to be a community member of it. You own partial stakes of the development, so anyways, interesting project, and then again, one of the most untapped resources and assets of all of northern Colorado, the regional airport, northern Colorado regional airport, is expected to break ground on their widening of the airport beginning June 1st, and this is going to take probably, 200 days. I think their original estimate was like 100 days, but it's probably going to take closer to 200 days because they're going to be working at nights and then evenings.

They're going to try to offset some of the annoyance to the users of the airport or minimize the disruption, but that's happening. That's the second pillar to fall, and the third is the physical tower, which I have talked about just recently. They have received grant funding or they're in line to receive grant funding for a physical tower, and that's the three things. A $22 million terminal, airport widening from 100 feet to 150 feet, and then the physical terminals or physical tower. Those three things are in the works. We could see commercial airlines by 2030, that's my guess. City council, we're talking about a lot of affordable housing projects, initiatives, what they can do, that there's gaps, not as big as gaps as far as units needed, what they thought, but how could they put in policy and plans to get to work on that sooner than later, whether that be land bank, relieving fees for developers. There's always a gap for developers that they get low income housing tax credit, LIHTC, and then there's just a little bit of gap needed. One thing that the city of Fort Collins could do is potentially waive fees.

So they're really trying to figure out how can we fast track some of these developments and make it a little bit more enticing and affordable for them to do that. Activities to do this week, International 5K Color Run, that is on March 28th at Laurel Hall, Fort Collins, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. There's a NOCO Fishing Expo at Ball Arena or the ranch complex area, and that is March 28th, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. So if you're a fisherman, want to go get new gear, see exhibitions, that is going to be happening on March 28th, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. This has happened. This is the 18th annual NOCO Easter Keg Hunt put on by Avogadro's Numbers, kind of like an Easter egg hunt, but for beer drinkers, starting at Avogadro's Numbers, March 28th, again, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This is really pretty cool. I saw this and I had to read it like three times. The Division 1 men's ice hockey regionals are going to be held at Ball Arena March 27th and 29th. I mean, we're talking Division 1 men's hockey just in Loveland. That's pretty darn cool and I think that's kind of like this push of the ranch complex, what Cascadia was going to be, wanting to bring bigger events to the region.

And I would have to say, this is the first time I've ever seen it. Now, Harlem Globetrotters would come and that was always exciting. I think we've had some pretty big comedians that have come, the Lincoln Center, but it's things like this that are like, okay, we're kind of at that teetering edge of like, all right, we're not big enough to just consistently have big plays, big events, big concerts, but every once in a while, I kind of like, hey, this is not small by any means. And then finally in Windsor, March 27th, 10, 15 to 12, 15 p.m. egg hunts, Easter eggstravaganza. So those are some things to do this weekend. I feel good. I'm at 13 minutes. This generally runs between 16 to 17 minutes.

Biggest takeaways today, a lot of developments still happening in Fort Collins. Like we work with a lot of buyers, sellers and investors here in Northern Colorado. A lot of developments still happening. People making millions, tens of millions of dollars of development decisions on a daily basis that are happening in Northern Colorado, which is exciting. And otherwise, it's going to be a dry summer. Be safe starting now. I mean, I remember we started going camping basically spring. As soon as there was snow gone or we could get up in the mountains without having to get stuck in mud, we were going camping when we were in high school. So if you've got a youngin and they're going to camping, just hopefully tell them to be safe.

I appreciate you guys watching and until next week, have a great day.