Windsor’s commercial side plays catch-up

WINDSOR — Windsor, the sleepy little town that straddles the border of Larimer and Weld counties, has felt the effects of the ’90s boom like no other town in Northern Colorado.

Town planning director Joe Plummer estimates that since 1994, the town has had a growth rate of between 12 percent and 13 percent annually. However, Plummer believes the residential growth that has doubled the size of the town in nine years is finally slowing down, while commercial growth has accelerated.

With regard to residential construction, “we’ve had an upward spike from 1994, and it’s been going up constantly since then,” Plummer said. “This particular year, we’ve leveled off.”

As of Nov. 30, 1999, the town had issued 290 residential building permits, and Plummer expected that number to increase to 320 or so by year’s end. That’s down 14 percent from 1998, when 335 permits were pulled.

That number is important to Plummer because for him, it’s an indicator of the way in which commercial development will follow. This year was a busy one for commercial building in Windsor. On Nov. 30, 1997, seven permits for commercial construction were pulled. On the same day in 1998, nine were pulled. This year, 23 were pulled on that day.

“One of the biggest drives [for commercial development] is population,” Plummer said. “We are at 10,000 [people] now. That is a threshold that business and commercial interests actively look at. We are getting more interest in commercial activity.”

Just this year, the commercial activity has included the following: an Arby’s Roast Beef Restaurant; a Burger King; Beehive Homes, an assisted-living center; an 11,879-square-foot clubhouse at Pelican Lakes in the Water Valley subdivision; a building for Lee’s Hardwood Floors; a soap and lotion factory; a powder-coating operation and a self-storage business in the Windsor Tech Business Center; three commercial/retail buildings; an office and storage building; and a professional office building. Finally, The Egg and I, the latest addition to a local restaurant chain, will be built in the Windsor Town Center.

Construction also continues on the 21,000-square-foot Poudre Valley Health System medical office building at the southwest corner of 14th Street and Colorado Highway 392. And several other projects are flowing through the pipeline:

* Western Plains Health Network’s 18,000-square-foot medical office building, at 13th Street and Colo. Highway 392, will sit kitty-corner from the PVHS medical building.

* Americinn, a $2.2 million, 31,769-square-foot motel to be built in the Westgate subdivision near Interstate 25, is pending approval by the water and sewer district.

* Boltz Building, an addition to a dentist office at 519 Main St., is awaiting corrections.

* Blue Dot Rentals, an equipment-rental store, will sit on the northwest corner of Main and Second streets.

* Commercial buildings in the Burlington subdivision at the southeast corner of Birch and Seventh streets are under review.

* Kindercare, a child-care facility, is making corrections to its building application.

* Napa Auto Parts, to be located at the southeast corner of Main and Third streets, has yet to submit a building-permit application.

* A Safeway supermarket, to be located at the southwest corner of  County Road 15 and Colo. Highway 392, is making corrections to the site plan.

* Schmidt Earthbuilders, a contractor at Highlands Industrial Park, has final site-plan corrections under review.

* Tortilla Marissa’s Mexican restaurant, in the Showtime Video complex, had a building permit in process as of Dec. 1

* Universal Forest Products, a lumber sales office at Walnut Street and Colo. Highway 257, is making corrections to its site plan.

Also to come, a retail building in the Windsor Manor Business Park, along with the Westgate Retail Center and Windsor Commons.

However, don’t expect a surge in commercial building to bring a halt to residential development, says Martin Lind, co-developer of the Water Valley subdivision on Windsor’s west side. Lind is big on the town’s potential for residential development. Once known as a cheap alternative to increasing home prices in Loveland and Fort Collins, Windsor is aiming at a new market.

“Our market is people who want to have a nice yard and a nice place to live,” Lind said. “We aren’t sold on the idea that people want to move to a postage-stamp-sized lot. We’re the center of everything. We are 10 minutes away to the best that Northern Colorado has to offer — dining, recreation, everything.”

Lind sees that central location as another reason why office space is on the increase in Windsor.

“Accountants, attorneys, investment firms are looking to locate here, and I think it’s because they have clients in Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley, and they can reach them easier,” he said.

But developer Stan Everitt, executive vice president with Everitt Cos. Inc., doesn’t see commercial development growing much more in Windsor for the future.

“It’s questionable this will continue,” he said. “I don’t think you will see the continuation of residential growth that we have had.”

And as residential growth slows and outlying rural development siphons some of the homes away from the town, it’s likely commercial building will also slow.

“Windsor has the ability to be served by a certain number of doctors and restaurants, but retail outlets will be few and far between,” Everitt said, adding that the municipal government would probably encourage the residential slowdown ­ quietly.

“Windsor is very conscientious in managing growth,” he said. “They will want the residential component to slow down to allow the commercial growth to catch up.”

Despite predictions that Windsor will continue to be a hotbed of residential development because of its location, Everitt says factors such as availability of land and water and getting subdivisions through the approval process will slow things down.

“Just because it looks good, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” he said. “I think [Windsor planners did] a very thorough analysis and have raised their entitlement fees and permit fees and put land dedications into the mix for parks and schools, all of which is appropriate.”

Finally, commercial development will continue in Windsor, but the town’s small size and its proximity to larger communities such as Greeley, Fort Collins and Loveland work against such growth in certain ways.

“Windsor is more likely to get specialty shops and interstate retail more conducive to the traveling public rather than a factory outlet mall,” Everitt said. “You aren’t going to get a general merchandise retailer to move to Windsor. It’s unlikely that Wal-Mart would say, ‘Let’s put one in Windsor.’ They would be building a new building to attract the same customers.”

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