Developer wants to give city more attractive front door
FORT COLLINS – Mike Donaldson thinks the time is right for improving the business environment on East Mulberry Street in Fort Collins.
For years, East Mulberry – which serves as the primary entrance to downtown from Interstate 25 – has seen little in the way of business development. A few restaurants, some strip centers, a couple mobile home parks, a cemetery and some still-open farmland are the main attractions along the unimpressive corridor east of Timberline Road.
“I’ve been (living) here for 50 years and not much has happened,´ said Donaldson, owner of Donaldson and Co., with offices on East Mulberry Street. He has been a developer of commercial and residential projects in Fort Collins and Greeley for the last 20 years. “Somebody has to do something.”
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Donaldson’s current big project is the 163-acre Fox Run mixed-use development in west Greeley. But now he’s poised to get the business ball rolling on East Mulberry Street with Peakview, a 40-plus-acre mixed-use project about half a mile west of I-25.
The project, located at the northeast intersection of Mulberry and Greenfields Court, would convert farmland that grew onions and pumpkins this year into a landscaped, multi-use development next year with several retail business sites and the possibility of up to 300 units of housing with everything built around a 100,000-square-foot, big-box-style anchor.
Donaldson admits it’s been a challenge getting Peakview ready to break ground. He hopes to do so by next spring or summer if Larimer County commissioners – the property is in the Fort Collins Growth Management Area but outside the city limits – give their approval. The issue was to come before a hearing on Dec. 20, after the Business Report went to press.
Earlier attempt failed
An earlier development attempt – then-called Valley Business Park – was scuttled after environmental concerns were raised about the project’s potential impact on the Cooper wetlands area on the property’s eastern border.
Those concerns have since been addressed, said Matt Lafferty, Larimer County planner who’s worked with Donaldson on the Peakview project. “The biggest controversy was with the wetlands, and it took years to come to an agreement and a plan to put development on the site,” he said.
The Peakview plan calls for a 100- to 150-foot buffer between the wetlands and the development, with landscaping improvements to set off the wetlands area and keep it attractive to wildlife.
The one remaining hurdle for development, according to Lafferty, is a traffic plan that will allow vehicles to easily and safely enter and leave the area. While Greenfields Court would eventually connect with Vine Drive about a mile north as more development occurs, the initial configuration would require most traffic to enter and leave at the Mulberry-Greenfields intersection. An existing frontage road complicates traffic flow.
Lafferty said it’s possible commissioners will require a roundabout just north of the intersection to help facilitate traffic movement.
Retail needed
Donaldson said while he’s not had any tenants sign up yet, he has had discussions with several major corporations including King Soopers, Target, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Donaldson, one of the founders of the Mulberry Corridor Owners Association, a business group dedicated to promoting more business growth along the corridor, said the addition of several new housing developments in the area just east of I-25 and impending growth in Timnath have made an eastside supermarket or other large retail site more attractive to potential high-profile tenants.
“It’s a good market,” he said. “Somebody’s going to get it going.”
That’s echoed by Gary Sauder, Donaldson and Co.’s CFO. “There’s really no retail or service establishments in this territory, and a lot of new people are moving into these new subdivisions.”
Donaldson is hopeful that Peakview will help stimulate other local developers to come up with projects that will ultimately turn the East Mulberry corridor into the entrance he believes it should be as the front door to a city that was named “Best Place to Live” by Money Magazine last summer.
“We think this is a good first step,” he said, “especially if we’re talking about the No. 1 city in the country.”
FORT COLLINS – Mike Donaldson thinks the time is right for improving the business environment on East Mulberry Street in Fort Collins.
For years, East Mulberry – which serves as the primary entrance to downtown from Interstate 25 – has seen little in the way of business development. A few restaurants, some strip centers, a couple mobile home parks, a cemetery and some still-open farmland are the main attractions along the unimpressive corridor east of Timberline Road.
“I’ve been (living) here for 50 years and not much has happened,´ said Donaldson, owner of Donaldson and Co., with offices on East Mulberry Street.…
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