DDA prepares $68 million bond request

FORT COLLINS – Projects in downtown Fort Collins, including a $30 million amphitheater and a high-rise hotel, will be bundled in a $62.2 million package for which the Downtown Development Authority will seek bonding permission from the city.

The lengthy project list also includes $5 million for alley improvements under a master plan covering most of the city’s downtown core and money for the Fort Collins Museum and Discovery Science Center that will take shape in the next year.

The bond request, the largest in the city’s history for downtown improvements, likely will head to the city council for approval later this summer, said DDA project manager Matt Robenalt. A council work session on the package will convene July 22.

The Colorado Legislature in May approved a measure extending the DDA’s tax-increment financing authority, paving the way for the bond request.

“It’s only possible to begin this discussion because of the legislation that was signed into law this summer,” Robenalt said. “When that happened, it felt to all of us like the gates were open again.”

The biggest pieces of the bond package are the amphitheater that the DDA plans to build on the northwest corner of Mason Street and Mountain Avenue and the public component of a private hotel project that city officials hope will be built on the block bounded by College Avenue and Remington, Oak and Olive streets, now taken up by a public parking lot.

Other components of the bond request include support for urban redevelopment projects including the Penny Flats, Solar Village and One Library Park residential projects, engineering and design studies for a new community market and streetscape improvements throughout the downtown district.

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