Mind the guardrails: State places cautions on major tourism projects in Windsor

WINDSOR — Northern Colorado is getting closer to being on the map of hot spots in Colorado. 

For Windsor, that means a four-star golf resort and conference center that will not only attract local, national and international visitors but also will provide local jobs.

Coming down the homestretch of pre-development details, officials expect conditions to soon be agreed on so the project can move into the next phase.

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“We hope to move from renderings to designs to site plans in the second quarter of 2016 and be up and running in 2018,” said Stacy Johnson, Windsor’s director of economic development.

PeliGrande Resort has been in the works since last year by a coalition of officials, consultants and developers. On the shores of Lake Water Valley, near New Liberty Road and Marina Drive. Adjacent to Pelican Lakes Golf Course, the proposed PeliGrande is one of four elements of the $333 million project that involves two other municipalities.

In addition to the $109.9 million PeliGrande Resort and Windsor Conference Center, those elements include the $24.5 million Stanley Film Center in Estes Park, and two in Loveland: the $138.3 million Indoor Waterpark Resort of the Rockies and the $60.9 million U.S. Whitewater Adventure Park.

According to Johnson, the entire project in all three municipalities will generate a total of 4,150 new jobs, with 2,650 of them annually recurring after construction is complete. 

PeliGrande will include a 300-room four-star resort hotel with two full-service restaurants, an upscale lounge, a luxury spa with massage, yoga, stress management and other healing services, a fitness center and 58,500 square feet of ballroom, meeting and pre-function space and retail services. 

As developer of PeliGrande, Martin Lind, chief executive of Water Valley Land Co. in Windsor, worked with Windsor officials to invite Steven Schussler of Schussler Creative to consider adding a nationally recognized restaurant to the resort.

Schussler, developer of the Boathouse restaurant, which has its first location up and running in Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., has committed to the project.

Go NoCO, a nonprofit formed by the three municipalities and Larimer County, originally applied for the four-element project funding through the Regional Tourism Act program. 

“We call the whole project Go NoCO,” said Patrick Brady, Go NoCO board president.

“The RTA was an economic-development tool set up by the Colorado Legislature to pull Colorado out of the doldrums.”

Overseen by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, the RTA was designed to support unique and extraordinary attractions that draw out-of-state visitors and generate new out-of-state overnight stays.

The anticipated annual total visitor days for the entire Go NoCO project is 1,123,595.

Since December, when the EDC approved the request for $86.1 million total in incentives to get the project rolling, all parties involved have been hashing out the final requirements laid out be the EDC.

“We’re working with the state on what they call ‘guardrails,’ ” Johnson said. The conditions aim to make sure the project is aimed for success.

“One of the guardrails was that the PeliGrande wouldn’t receive any money until the Boathouse was up and functional, but we’re not asking for money for the Boathouse,” she said. “The problem with that is that it would put all the power into the hands of the Boathouse.

“When tied together like that, it would give the power for negotiating to just one entity. They could say they’re not going to move forward until they get things that could stop the entire project from moving forward.”

Johnson added that the Boathouse isn’t looking to do something like that but in a worst-case scenario, it’s an example of what could happen to derail the NoCO project if the guardrail stays in place.

She described the state’s reasoning for its guardrails as cautious — making sure the project goes ahead as planned rather than being abandoned part of the way through.

“The nonprofit Go NoCO board is focused on making all of it workable for all sides,” said Brady.

“The last conference call we had seemed like we were all on the same page,” Lind said, referring to negotiations with the state. “Everybody really is rowing toward the same shore.

“These deals are big and complicated and take a lot of patience and energy,” he added.  “If it were easy, it would have happened a long time ago.”

Over the next couple of weeks, meetings should be complete and agreements in place, according to Johnson.

“I do think we’re going to have some exciting milestones and announcements every quarter now for the next couple of years,” Lind said, “hopefully starting with the third quarter of this year.”