Inside the Windsor boom: Town sees broad mix of residential, industrial, recreational, retail projects

WINDSOR — You have to forgive Stacy Johnson if she doesn’t know which way to point in Windsor these days.

“When people ask me what’s happening in Windsor these days, I ask, ‘Which way do you mean? North, northeast, south, east  … It’s just a sign that we have a great bunch of developers working here,” said the director of Windsor’s Economic Development Department.  “The phone has just been ringing off the hook. I guess everyone in Northern Colorado is the same, but we’ve got a lot of land ready to develop.”

That said, perhaps directionally is the way to begin what’s going on in Windsor these days, and to the east, there’s more than enough to chew on.

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First on the plate would be the planned 2,787-unit RainDance development in Windsor, which will include a championship-level golf course — developers are aiming at a PGA-level course — as well as a new marketplace to town. The 1,100-acre property, near New Liberty Road and Crossroads Boulevard on the southeast edge of the existing town, is just one of many residential area acres in a town growing by leaps and bounds.

So much, in fact, that the developers at RainDance will actually begin building homes before the golf course, though Johnson said that is largely because they are working on possible incentives for the course. This is a town that issued 690 single-family building permits last year — more than either nearby Fort Collins and Loveland — so it appears that there’s no time like the present to build homes here.

This year seems to be keeping track, with 260 new single-family home permits issued by the end of May. The town has several large developments underway, including South Hill, the Ridge at Harmony Road, Highland Meadows Golf Course and Water Valley South.

Johnson said the town is working diligently to bring more industry and other business to towns, with 10 business parks and three more commercial areas. However, she said more of those areas are filling up quickly, and a large area of potential industrial land was recently taken off for books for the development of Rocky Mountain Sports Park, the $225 million temple to baseball.

At the recent groundbreaking for the East Pointe project, the site of a former car dealership near Main Street and Weld County Road 17, developers were already noting that many of the 11 available lots had already been filled. So far, the Human Bean, Doug’s Day Diner and Kum & Go have all announced plans to be part of the neighborhood retail center.

Also to the east lies one of Northern Colorado’s most promising industrial parks, The Great Western Industrial Park. The 3,000-acre master-planned development has distinct advantages in location and transportation and logistics infrastructure, said Eric Halverson, director of land development and acquisitions at OmniTRAX Inc., owners of the park.

“We’re almost equal distance between I-80 and I-70,” Halverson said. The park also features easy access to Northern Colorado’s main north-south transportation routes, Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 85, and of course the other east-west highway, U.S. Highway 34.

However, the industrial park’s direct rail connections to two Class I railroads, BNSF and the Union Pacific, really set it apart in terms of transportation infrastructure and logistics. Windsor is also across I-25 from the Northern Colorado Regional Airport.

“We work closely with the town of Windsor, as well as regional and state economic-development services to try to bring unique manufacturing opportunities to Colorado, both rail-served and non-rail-served,” Halverson said. The park also has a Foreign Trade Zone designation, and state tax breaks available via the Weld County Enterprise Zone.

Halverson said the park is now speaking to a number of new prospective manufacturing concerns, noting the company was on the verge on new announcements. “We’re intending to expand our freight movement as it pertains to both the region, and our existing clients,” Halverson said.

But while things are hopping on the west and east sides of Windsor, things may be most interesting on the north. Here plans are for a bit of city built for baseball, or perhaps a shrine, which is hailed as the largest sports park in the world.

Rocky Mountain Sports Park centers around a 10,000 -seat professional baseball stadium, for which developers hope to attract a minor-league team. However, the promoters seem to stress that they will bring that same big-lights feeling to the 64 fields, as well.

The park features a “Miracle Field” and programs for physically challenged athletes, five 5 high school or collegiate fields, 10 youth fields in two 5-plexes, four T-ball fields in a single 4-plex, 16 tournament baseball fields in four 4-plexes, and 16 tournaments softball fields in four 4-plexes. In addition, there are 12 multi-use fields for football, soccer and lacrosse, as well and indoor practice and training facilities centered on baseball training.

There are plans for an athletes’ dormitory, but developers have plenty of pad space to accommodate other businesses and are actively seeking hotels, office, medical facility and other retail businesses. Each of the four-field complexes will feature a concession stand, and the park also plans a souvenir trophy shop, a pro shop, a retail shop with Rocky Mountain Sports Park apparel and other baseball/softball items, and several restaurant spaces that will leased to restaurant operators, including beer huts.

Developers hope for an initial phase to open in the fall of 2018, with a full opening in 2019. Johnson said the owners of the 640-acre site were going through planning steps to create an industrial park here, though those plans turned on a dime once she introduced them to the ballpark developers.

On the south end of town, South Gate Business Park already has five commercial tenants and appears to be filling fairly rapidly. To the west, retail and commercial space appears to be filling in quickly around the Highland Meadows golf course and community, as well.

But the middle of town is getting a makeover, as well. The Windsor Mill was being redeveloped into drinking and dining establishments in partnership with the Windsor Downtown Development Authority and a town commitment of $2.34 million toward public capital and façade improvements, prior to a fire that gutted the property, .The former grain mill at Third and Main streets was one of the last buildings damaged in the 2008 tornado to be restored or replaced.

“There’s something going on in every corner,” Johnson reiterated. “We’re getting a number of bigger restaurants, as well as quick-serve (restaurants), and that seems to be the interesting push today.”