Loveland manufacturer closes doors, files bankruptcy

LOVELAND — It was good while it lasted.

Turmoil in the oil and gas industry resulted in the closure and bankruptcy filing of a major sales-tax payer in Loveland, Tri-Point Oil and Gas Production Systems LLC, located at 5100 Boyd Lake Ave.

The 95,000-square-foot building now sits empty and is listed for sale or lease with Cushman and Wakefield commercial brokerage.

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Tri-Point, a Houston-based company, was recruited to Loveland in order to consolidate its Erie and Brighton locations. It manufactured oil and gas separators for customers in Colorado and North Dakota. 

Tri-Point purchased Leed Fabrication Services in 2016; Leed had been operating in Loveland since 2013. 

The city of Loveland offered sales-tax rebates in February 2019 to lure the company’s point-of-sale location from Erie to Loveland, but the company never collected on the incentives because it had not completed its end of the bargain, said Kelly Jones, city economic-development director.

Jones said the company did establish Loveland as its point-of-sale location and did pay sales taxes to the city. “It was a huge amount of sales taxes for the city,” she said.

The original deal documents presented to the city council anticipated $981,000 in sales-tax collections in 2919 and perhaps as much as $2.5 million in 2020.

In return for making Loveland its point-of-sale location, the company was supposed to receive a rebate of one-third of its sales taxes collected in the first year and one-sixth of its taxes in years two through five. It also was to receive a use-tax waiver worth $35,125 and building-permit fee waivers of $29,126.

The company planned to add 24,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 5,000 square feet of executive office space. It said it would add 25 jobs over five years.

The exact employee count at the time of closure is not certain, but about a year ago it had between 150 and 160 employees.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy action was filed March 16 in the Texas Southern Bankruptcy Court in Houston, with the company claiming assets of between $10 million and $50 million and liabilities of between $50 million and $100 million. Among the listed creditors are the Larimer County Treasurer, $97,817; Pawnee Leasing Corp. of Fort Collins, $24,344; and the city of Loveland, $396,278.

The debt to the city stems from an incentive arrangement with Leed Fabrication, which received deferred transportation improvement fees from the city that had not been repaid as of the date of Tri-Point’s purchase of Leeds. Jones said payment of the fees is in dispute between Leed and Tri-Point. Jones said the city still hopes to collect the fees from Leed, but if the court determines that Tri-Point is responsible, then it becomes part of the bankruptcy.

The property at 5100 Boyd Lake Ave. is owned by Monomoy Properties of Loveland, which bought it in September of 2019 for $10.25 million. Personal property on the site owned by Tri-Point is valued by the county at $1.94 million.

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