NCMC Inc. buys 662-acre Niobrara Energy Park

WELD COUNTY — The entity that owns North Colorado Medical Center has purchased the Niobrara Energy Park in far north Weld County for $4.9 million as a real estate investment.

NCMC Inc. purchased the entire 662-acre property — located approximately 3.3 miles east of Carr — from Niobrara Energy Park LLC, closing on the transaction Aug. 8. The sale amounts to approximately $7,401.81 per acre.

Niobrara was developed as a shovel-ready park for a future industrial site with the largest self-sustaining microgrid in the world, powered by on-site natural-gas generators, solar panels and other nearby renewable-energy resources. It was pitched as an ideal data-center site due to its proximity to several fiber network lines spanning the country.

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The project was being marketed as early as 2012 and officially hit the market in 2015, but never found a buyer.

Craig Harrison, president of the project’s developer Harrison Resource Corp., told BizWest in 2013 that the development would likely cost $4.3 billion between building out the power sources and the data center itself.

Harrison declined to comment via email Wednesday afternoon.

NCMC executive officer Jeff Carlson told BizWest the nonprofit’s board purchased the land as a real estate investment, but declined to specify future plans to commercialize the site. The group does not plan to build a health-care facility on the property, he said.

Carlson said the deal is not related to Banner Health’s $328.4 million buyout of the Greeley hospital announced earlier this month. In a statement announcing the deal, NCMC Inc. said it will make $59.4 million from the sale of the hospital and combine it with its existing assets to create a new philanthropic foundation to promote health and education initiatives in the county.

Editor’s note: This story is breaking and will be updated.