St. Joseph Church eyes former Steele?s Market

By agreement, no one ? not the buyer, nor the seller ? is talking about a deal that could turn the former Steele?s Market site in downtown Fort Collins into growing room for St. Joseph Catholic Church.
But St. Joseph?s parishioners, at Mass services on Sunday, Dec. 12, viewed a PowerPoint presentation and received a six-page prospectus describing the potential transaction.
?The property owners have offered the site of 1.84 acres to the parish for a price of $3,500,000,? says the document titled ?Strategic Expansion Plan for St. Joseph Catholic Church.?
?They have agreed to allow us until January 1, 2005, to pull together the information and make a decision on whether to proceed with the purchase.?
In November, parishioners were informally surveyed to gauge their support for the project, a process that netted the church a commitment of more than $1 million to support the project with gifts or loans, the document says.
No question, the deal would solve problems for St. Joseph. Hemmed in on a dense downtown site on Mountain Avenue just west of Howes Street, the church recently expanded its school to include space for junior-high grade levels. Any further expansion would have to chew up already constrained parking space and playgrounds.
?As population continues to grow in Northern Colorado, especially in northern and northeast Fort Collins, there will be increasing needs for parish services and facilities at St. Joseph Parish.?
The document spells out possible strategies for the vacant Steele?s property, including:
n Renovating and leasing building space to commercial tenants, while continuing to use the ample parking on the site for Sunday Mass services.
Eventual development of a youth center that would ?include community youth, not just parish youth,? according to the document, offering after-school activities for grade-school-age children.
n Longer-term plans for remodeling or tearing down the existing buildings to accommodate a two-story parish social center and youth center.
The property, owned by Fort Collins residents Bill and Laura Everly, three years ago was the subject of a controversial plan to build a high-rise residential loft and commercial center. But Mountain Avenue neighbors, including St. Joseph parish, objected to the project, arguing that it would leave them in perpetual shade. The opposition convinced the owners to abandon the high-rise plan.
Fort Collins commercial real estate broker Dave Veldman, a personal friend of the Everlys who was also the development consultant on the loft project, said last week all parties had agreed not to publicly discuss the St. Joseph purchase prospect.
The Everlys purchased the property in 2000. Steele?s leased the space back until closing the store in 2001, a prelude to a bankruptcy that shut down all of Steele?s Northern Colorado markets. It?s been vacant since then.
In the pitch to parishioners, St. Joseph officials described the purchase of the 1.84-acre site as ?a rare chance to take care of present and future needs of the parish that will not likely arise again.?
The document describes a finance plan, now being negotiated, under which the owners would carry a 10-year, interest-only loan at 3.5 percent ?after a down payment of several hundred thousand dollars.?
The loan period would allow the parish to pay off its current debt and obtain a new loan for the balance of the purchase price, church officials say.
The church?s analysis of comparable property sales in downtown Fort Collins ranged from $42 to $52 per square foot, with an average of $47.80. The sale offer to the church is for $43.67 ? a fact that the document says makes the deal ?a sound investment on its own merits.?
Part of the strategic plan is linked to the proposed building of a Catholic high school in Severance, where the Archdiocese of Denver has closed on a 46-acre tract of agricultural land, recently annexed to Severance and rezoned for commercial use, to locate the school.
?A healthy and growing parish will result in increased enrollments in its grade school that will help to feed students to the future new high school,? the document says.
With an eye toward other potential buyers for the property, church officials warn in the document that failure to pursue the purchase would jeopardize the parish?s ability to expand.
?This is a preemptive move to be sure the parish is not land-locked into a no-growth situation,? the document says.

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