Former Coloradoan home gets extreme makeover

The recent history of downtown Fort Collins is partly one of risk-takers, people who stake a fortune on a commercial development, betting on potential rather than banking on immediate success.

Gene Mitchell filled that bill in the 1970s with Old Town Square. Walt Brown did the same with the spec-built Opera Galleria. In both cases, the success of those projects arrived later than either developer would have wanted.

Fort Collins real estate investor Chris Ray, with a project to remake the building that for decades served as home to the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper and its predecessor, the Courier, is in the…