Lake Bluff secures zoning for West Greeley land

GREELEY – A Denver development group is working toward a nearly 800-acre, mixed-use development that could bring thousands of homes and hundreds of acres of commercial and open space to west Greeley in the coming years.

The Lake Bluff development – bordered by West 10th Street on the south, Weld County Road 62 on the north and Colorado Highway 270 on the west – is in the preliminary planning stages. The Greeley City Council recently approved planned unit development zoning for the entire 793-acre development, a classification that was years in the making.

Greeley planner Mike Garrott said the PUD zoning gives the developer some more flexibility compared to traditional zoning. In general, the plan calls for 3,000 dwelling units of varying densities, 100 to 150 acres of commercial development and 200 acres of parks and open space. The PUD zoning allows for specific sections of the development to be somewhat larger or smaller and more or less dense. Garrott pointed out that it is also a bit more expensive and time-consuming to get through the process.

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Years in the making

Development lead Westside Investment Partners has already been working on Lake Bluff for several years. Several groups and individuals own the land with Westside heading up the overall development process. In addition to Westside, two families – the Hertzkes and the Rothes – have held large portions of land for generations. Our Savior Lutheran Church also owns a site within the development area.

“We are an opportunistic investment and development shop,´ said Otis Moore, principal at Westside. “We came across this one four to five years ago.”

Westside is not unfamiliar with Northern Colorado, specifically Greeley. The group owns the former Hewlett Packard Co. facility at 10th Street and 71st Avenue, along with the 112 acres surrounding it. Morris said there has been interest in the property and that they are considering all options, including multiple users.

Moore explained that the process to get the Lake Bluff property ready for development was a long one largely because the site is outside the mid-range expected service level – a growth area boundary – for the city of Greeley.

Lake Bluff will include the normal amenities one might expect in a master-planned community, such as a community center, as well as open space and recreational trails. The plans also include two schools – elementary and middle – that would be part of the Windsor School District.

Sustainability will also be brought to the forefront. In a first step toward that focus, the developer is planning water drainage that will take into account the natural lay of the land and water flow in order to avoid unnecessary street/gutter diversion.

Diversity part of plan

Another feature in the development will be diversity.

“The idea is to have a good socioeconomic mix,” Alan Cunningham, a community planner with PSC Group Inc., which is consulting on the Lake Bluff project. “We’re shooting for a true mixed-use development.”

Lake Bluff will have everything from starter homes to high-end homes overlooking the nearby bluffs. The hope is to have families move through the development as they reach different stages in life.

“We’ve worked hard on this project to make it an attractive master-planned community,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham and Moore expect the development to compete regionally with other communities, such as Water Valley and Centerra, while at the same time offering something new to the Greeley market.

“We looked around Greeley and saw there was a dearth of master-planned communities,” Moore said.

Garrott agreed that Lake Bluff is a unique project for Greeley, given the PUD zoning, size and natural features. By contrast, the Promontory development, also zoned PUD, is approximately 500 acres, according to Garrott. The Promontory project was approved in the late 1990s.

Ready to move forward

Westside and the other Lake Bluff property owners originally started working toward setting up a metropolitan taxing district to fund infrastructure improvements for the development. However, getting a metro district approved without a land-use proposal in place would have been very difficult.

With the zoning and general layout now in palce, the development is ready to move forward to more detailed levels of planning, but Garrott said indications are that there is no immediate hurry to get to the next stage.

Conditions for offering metro district bonds are not the best, nor are conditions for traditional financing. Moore plans to look at all financing options.

He also said that while Northern Colorado is positioned well for economic recovery, the economy has tempered the build-out timeline. Lake Bluff was always slated for a 15-year build-out, Moore said, and he would like to see Phase 1 begin within 18 to 24 months.

“Anyone saying that the economic conditions have not altered their timelines is not being honest,” he said.