Legal & Courts  November 12, 2004

Severance courts Catholic high school

SEVERANCE – With proper blessings, 46 acres of land south of Severance will become home to a 500-student Catholic high school serving families throughout Northern Colorado.
And, as the project moves forward, town officials and real estate pros say the first Catholic high school north of metro Denver also will become a magnet that pulls Severance’s town center a mile southward toward the site.
A retired Greeley doctor and a Windsor developer are leading the effort to rezone and annex the land, located at the southwest corner of Weld County roads 72 and 23, to accommodate the school and, eventually, a new Catholic church.
“We have the blessing of the archdiocese on the site,´ said Dr. Richard Kemme, a retired orthopedic surgeon and member of Greeley’s St. Mary’s Catholic parish. “Years ago they decided they wanted to build a high school up here, centrally located among Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley. This is pretty much the ideal spot.”
Kemme has spent the past year shopping for a suitable site, scouring a territory that spreads from eastern Loveland through Windsor to Severance.
The search ended on farmland owned by Lory and Lynne Ferguson, between Severance’s Stone Creek and Park View subdivisions just west of WCR 23.
If the $650,000 land deal closes as planned in December, the hard work of fundraising for the new school will begin, Kemme said.
Severance’s town board on Nov. 17 will take up a recommendation from its planning staff to annex the land and rezone it from agricultural to commercial use.

New town hub
The new zoning could lead the way to development of a commercial and cultural center at the road junction, forming a new hub for Colorado’s fastest-growing town.
“That’s the plan,´ said Windsor developer Kevin King, who is shepherding the land through the annexation process.
“I think this is going to be the impetus to create a commercial center for this town.”
While the school would be a tax-exempt institution, athletic facilities and meeting areas could be available for community use, offsetting that exemption, he said.
“It doesn’t create a tax base, but it creates an amenity that this town doesn’t have, and one that it really needs,” King said. “I don’t see a negative here.”
Fort Collins developer Stan Everitt, who is involved in several Severance projects as a partner in the Everitt Cos., said the town’s comprehensive plan steers growth toward the intersection of the two formerly rural county roads.
A Catholic church and high school would form a perfect nucleus for that move, he said.
“This is a really big deal for the town,” Everitt said. “My take on it is that it’s a perfect fit, and complementary to the community’s desire to grow. I think the funding will come, and that the demand is there. From a regional standpoint, it couldn’t be in a better place.”

First move north
The Archdiocese of Denver, the Catholic headquarters for the northern half of Colorado, operates 39 elementary schools – including those in Greeley, Loveland, Fort Collins and Longmont – and six high schools, all of them in metro-Denver.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Denver said demographics made the site a logical choice for the church district’s first Northern Colorado high school.
“There’s a need, and there is certainly growth in that area,” church spokesman Sergio Gutierrez said. “Part of the process is a feasibility study, and that hasn’t been engaged yet. But I know that our superintendent has been in constant contact with Dr. Kemme and with the leadership at St. Mary’s in Greeley.”
A St. Mary’s official said the location would draw from Catholic elementary and junior high school enrollments in Greeley, Fort Collins, Loveland and Longmont.
As the Northern Colorado Business Report was going to press, the Greeley parish was preparing to host Denver Archdiocese school superintendent Richard Thompson and the church district’s chief financial officer for a tour of the site and meetings with parish and town officials.
“If everything goes well with the town, the sale will more than likely close in December and then the real work starts,´ said Susan Benke, business manager for St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
“Once we get the land, we have to determine how many parents can afford tuition at a Catholic high school. It is substantially higher than it is for elementary schools.”
Catholic elementary school tuition ranges from $2,800 to $3,600 annually in the archdiocese, with high school figures starting at about $6,500 and rising to $8,000.

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Long process
Benke and the archdiocese’s Gutierrez said a feasibility study and fundraising for the school could stretch the development process to at least four years.
But the church has already enlisted Denver architect Ron Falaede, who has won two national awards for his design of the St. Mary’s school in Greeley, to do a preliminary land plan for the site, and continue with building designs.
“I’ve worked with the archdiocese for a number of years, and I think they want this to happen,” Falaede said. “But they’re realists, too. In their hip pocket, they have this reality check.”
Project organizer Kemme said that the site selection process steered him away from Loveland and Windsor partly because the two seemed disinterested in working with a tax-exempt religious group, preferring to court commercial businesses that generate sales tax revenue.
But Severance Mayor Pierre De Milt said Severance’s special circumstance – as a small but explosively growing town – has led to near unanimity among board members and town planners that the school would offer benefits.
More than tax
“The feeling that the majority of municipalities would have is that it would do them no good,” De Milt said. “But our little community is small and growing, and we’re thinking a little differently about it.”
Falaede said the willingness of the town to forego tax revenue in exchange for other benefits would pay off for Severance residents.
Apart from the Severance site’s obvious advantages, with all necessary utilities at the 46-acre parcel’s doorstep, moving forward with the project there offers a chance at community identity, he said.
“I think it was fantastic that when Severance was presented with this idea, they thought of it as a part of defining who they are,” Falaede said. “To have this facility, and the athletic facilities that are required for accreditation, are something that can really contribute to the town. Their vision of themselves goes way beyond their tax base.”

SEVERANCE – With proper blessings, 46 acres of land south of Severance will become home to a 500-student Catholic high school serving families throughout Northern Colorado.
And, as the project moves forward, town officials and real estate pros say the first Catholic high school north of metro Denver also will become a magnet that pulls Severance’s town center a mile southward toward the site.
A retired Greeley doctor and a Windsor developer are leading the effort to rezone and annex the land, located at the southwest corner of Weld County roads 72 and 23, to accommodate the school and,…

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