Arts & Entertainment  June 28, 2016

GRIT Athletics eyeing new training facility in Fort Collins

FORT COLLINS — Colorado entrepreneur Ryan Wood, a cofounder of athletic apparel giant UnderArmour, is planning to build a 6,600-square-foot training facility that will be used by a local nonprofit youth wrestling organization.

Officials for Berthoud-based design firm TBGroup recently filed concept review plans with the city of Fort Collins for the project, which would be located at 822 SE Frontage Road at the junction of Interstate 25 and East Mulberry Street.

Plans for the facility, which will be leased by GRIT Athletics, show offices, locker rooms and a weight room, in addition to training space.

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GRIT Athletics founder and executive director Bill Greenwood said this week that the hope is to break ground on the facility in six or seven months and have it move-in ready a year from now.

GRIT — Grace, Righteousness, Intensity, Toughness — is a Christian-based youth organization that offers wrestling programs for ages 5 and up and a running program for kids age 7-15. Greenwood and his wife, Bernadette, founded GRIT in 2008 as a way to honor their 6-year-old son Nicholas, who was killed in an accident at their home. What started as an idea for a youth wrestling tournament in honor of Nicholas ended up blossoming into a much larger endeavor.

“The closer we got to that tournament, the more I thought, ‘If this is going to have Nicholas’ name on it, it’s going to have to be great,’” Bill Greenwood said.

GRIT currently leases about 4,000 square feet at 1830 W. Laporte Ave. in an aging former Forney Industries building. But Salud Health Center LLC bought that property last year, with plans to build a new clinic on the site.

Greenwood said he got to know Wood — a former Dallas Cowboys football player whose ventures also include founding Steamboat Springs-based Sweetwood Cattle Co. — as Wood’s own kids participated in GRIT’s program.

“He offered that he might have some solutions to our needs as far as a building went,” Greenwood said. “He’s been very generous to us.”

FORT COLLINS — Colorado entrepreneur Ryan Wood, a cofounder of athletic apparel giant UnderArmour, is planning to build a 6,600-square-foot training facility that will be used by a local nonprofit youth wrestling organization.

Officials for Berthoud-based design firm TBGroup recently filed concept review plans with the city of Fort Collins for the project, which would be located at 822 SE Frontage Road at the junction of Interstate 25 and East Mulberry Street.

Plans for the facility, which will be leased by GRIT Athletics, show offices, locker rooms and a weight room, in addition to training space.

GRIT Athletics founder and executive director Bill…

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