Developer Martin Lind pays $15.2M for historic Weld County farm, plans to preserve it for ag
WELD COUNTY — Windsor developer Martin Lind grew up a half-mile from the Thornton Farm, a 320-acre agricultural property outside the town. Now, after purchasing the property in December for almost $15.2 million, Lind wants to preserve the bulk of the land for agricultural uses.
Lind’s Vima Partners LLC acquired the property, located on the southwest corner of Weld County Roads 17 and 62, at 7710 Weld County Road 62, from Thornton Farms Partnership LLP.
“It’s a historical farm for that area, and my vision for that area is to create a fairly significant agricultural open space forever,” Lind told BizWest. “It’s going to take a lot of work to do that, but that would be the vision, is to try and keep an agricultural presence in the middle of all of Northern Colorado for the next 50 generations.”
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Lind likened the property — and plans to preserve it — to Central Park in New York, a vast, 843-acre open area surrounded by development.
“If it wasn’t for that [843] acres of Central Park in Manhattan, I don’t think people could exist,” he said.
Lind plans to formulate a comprehensive plan for the property, including determining which houses, barns and other structures will be preserved.
The property also came with water and mineral rights and is nestled between other Lind holdings, including land to the west of the farm and 100 acres to the east and annexed to Windsor.
The farm was designated a Centennial Farm in 1996. The Centennial Farms and Ranches program originated in 1986 and is administered by History Colorado, honoring farms and ranches that have been in the same family for at least 100 years.
The Centennial Farms website lists the farm as originating in 1895.
Barbara Thornton Frey, whose grandfather, Wilbur Thornton, acquired the land from a railroad in the 19th century, said it was always her goal to sell the farm to someone who would preserve it as agricultural land.
“That’s why I wanted to sell it to him [Lind] because he said he would keep it as a farm,” Frey said. “I’d been looking for a way to keep it as a farm. We can’t keep it in the family because we don’t have any farmers. There are just no people coming along in our family who would farm it, and choosing a farmer … that’s difficult, especially when you’re out of state.
“He’s talked about keeping it a farm forever, and I absolutely agree with that,” she added. “And so I really did want to sell it to him eventually.”
Frey said the farm has produced a variety of crops, including corn, black beans and beets.
Melvin Martin has farmed the property for the Thornton family for “many, many years,” Frey said, “and I had always said I would not consider selling it until he retired because I just wanted him to do whatever he wanted to do, a wonderful farmer.
“You couldn’t ask for a better family or a better farmer,” Frey said, adding that Lind has said Martin could continue to farm the land. “We worked it out … he said that Melvin can farm it as long as he wants to, exactly the way he wants to.
“Once he assured me that if Melvin wanted to continue, he could, with the same contract he had with us, then I was happy to sell it to Martin.”
Lind said that he and Frey “have had a great relationship for decades, and she has always wanted to see her dad’s farm stay ag, and it would be my vision if we can put it together to keep it ag, and that whole neighborhood, to keep it intact.”
Frey said preservation of some farmland is “very important” for Northern Colorado.
“So much of it’s been used up with small developments, and sort of a patchwork,” she said. “Considering what great farmland it’s been, it would be a shame to lose that, I think. We still need to do some farming.”
