Corridors brace for development

FORT COLLINS – Commercial development along three major corridors leading to this city is occurring rapidly in some areas, but not equally, according to Fort Collins development experts.

Commercial sites on East Harmony Road and East Mulberry Street are likely to be hard to find in five years, while development on Prospect Road will continue to lag behind.

Land values, access to major transportation routes, infrastructure, availability of land and zoning are the major factors controlling development, planners and real estate brokers say.

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Roland Mower, president of Fort Collins Inc., a nonprofit organization that seeks to nurture business in the city, predicts that Harmony Road’s beauty will continue to attract high-end, big-image corporations.

To preserve Harmony Road’s appeal, Fort Collins adopted the Harmony Corridor Plan this year. City planners continue to dream of a natural-area visitor’s center on its newly acquired acreage at the Harmony “gateway,” that will set the tone for the corridor.

But over the long term, some factors may slow the Harmony corridor feeding frenzy. Cautious planning is one.

“Because the city has determined it wants employment-based (high-wage and salary) companies for this area, I think we’re going to see slower development over the next five to 20 years,´ said Ronn Frank, a real estate broker with The Group Inc.

And there are other considerations: East of Hewlett-Packard Co., the land drops off.

Mike Smith of Fort Collins Advanced Planning said extending sewage service beyond Hewlett-Packard might carry extra costs because the land is lower than the treatment facility.

“Sewage would have to be pumped back uphill to be treated,” Smith said, adding that it would be costly.

Finally, as commercial and residential development come up against the southern and eastern edges of Fort Collins’ urban growth area, developers will be forced to look northward for available land.

Some potential Harmony Road projects include extended-stay hotels and a variety of large and small shopping centers.

As reported in The Northern Colorado Business Report last month, a Courtyard by Marriott and a Hampton Inn are in the works for opposite ends of the OakRidge Business Park, between Lemay and Timberline roads.

Six shopping centers of different sizes are included in the city’s master plan for Harmony Road.

Besides the existing center that hosts Sam’s Club and Steele’s Market, three others are in planning stages. GT Land Colorado Inc. owns 20 acres on the northeast corner of Timberline and Harmony roads, including the old Harmony School. Stan Whitaker, vice president of GT Land, said the site is designated for a community shopping center. So far, a proposal for a convenience store-gas station has been submitted to city planners, but Whitaker envisions a strictly retail center with a grocery store and perhaps a department store.

GT Land also plans a mixed-use development for its 38-acre site south of Harmony between County Road 9 and Corbett Road, Whitaker said. Plans for retail, office and residential building are winding through the city review process.

At Harmony Road and College Avenue, JD&M Management Co. has proposed to replace an existing mobile-home park with a 375,000-square-foot retail development.

JD&M president Jeff Donaldson said the company is in the process of acquiring new partners, has not yet completed a site plan and still must resolve the issue of relocating its mobile-home tenants. Still, he said, “optimistically, we would like to be breaking ground next summer. But we still have a lot of work to do.”

And question marks still loom over the future of three other important properties. Symbios Logic Inc.’s 100 acres at Harmony Road and County Road 9 may go up for sale if the Hyundai subsidiary pulls out of Fort Collins. Plus, the southeast corner of Timberline and Harmony roads, owned by Poudre Valley Hospital, was viewed as a probable site for a health clinic. Sale of the hospital has delayed plans. And the proposed Golden Meadows Shopping Center, on the north side of Harmony between Wheaton Drive and McMurray Avenue, remains stalled by neighborhood opposition, part owner K. Bill Tiley said.

Prospect Road has many faces

The city’s plan for Prospect Road reflects the multiple personalities of the corridor. Central to this corridor’s development is the Cache La Poudre River crossing and large surrounding wetlands.

West of the river, Prospect Road is nearly built out with residential, multifamily, commercial, office and industrial land uses. East of the river, the city owns land that is being used for graveling operations and an experiment in reusing processed sewage.

“Past the river, there’s not a lot that’s developable until developers come along who can pay for street improvement,” Frank said.

There is no city water or sewage on Prospect Road beyond the river, the city’s Smith said.

The lack of services and the uneven quality of the road itself are a source of wonder to many, including Realty World Rhoades Ltd.’s Tom Nix, who appreciates its function as a truck route from the interstate to Teledyne, the Prospect East Business Park and other industrial users.

“I have just never understood why that road has never been improved,” Nix said.

But Fort Collins City Council member Gina Jannett finds no mystery here. It goes back to the wetlands.

“By law,” Jannett said, “money for street improvement can’t come out of natural-areas funds. That area is controlled by the parks department.” The city will take up Prospect Road improvements in the next four to six months, she added.

As for the Resource Recovery Farm, 309 city-owned acres at the junction of Prospect Road and Interstate 25, Smith estimates that it will probably be in use for the next five to six years.

“That land by the interstate is valuable,” Smith said. “The city might want to sell it to recover some of its costs.” The city uses the land to study the use of sludge to grow corn.

GT Land plans the Interstate Business Park for its 182 acres on the northeast corner of Prospect Road and I-25, Whitaker said. Smith said the infrastructure is already designed. Motels and restaurants can be expected, too. A 30-acre parcel is undergoing preliminary review with the city for highway business use.

West of the river, most available space is zoned industrial. Nix is still looking for buyers for a large field west of Prospect East Business Park, OakRidge Business Park’s northern competition. A similar kind of development is expected for that land, and the city’s Prospect Road Streetscape Program will ensure that it looks similar, too.

The Mulberry Street incubator

A shopping center is a likely future inhabitant for the northeast corner of East Mulberry Street and Lemay Avenue, being marketed by The Group.

According to Frank, residents of the Lindenmeier Lake, Country Club and Dellwood Heights areas complain of having to drive to the south end of town to do their shopping, and this center should address those concerns. The land has been annexed to the city, but the city has not yet seen a proposal.

East Mulberry Street, most of which is and will remain outside Fort Collins’ city limits, will continue to be an incubator for new businesses and a home to those businesses that don’t need a high-end image, Mower predicts.

“Land on Mulberry probably sells for as much as half the cost of properties on Harmony Road,” Frank added. This makes it a good place for startup companies as well as the jumble of heavy-equipment, mobile-home and antique-car dealers, nurseries, and miscellany that is a constant on the street.

Companies such as Advanced Energy Industries Inc., which the Downtown Airpark nourished in its early years, will continue to move on to posher digs in Prospect East Business Park or OakRidge Business Park, said Libby Glass, former manager of Prospect East Business Park.