Loveland advances Draper garage pact

LOVELAND – Acting as the Loveland Urban Renewal Authority, members of the Loveland City Council on Tuesday night gave first-reading approval to a cost-sharing agreement that will help developers of downtown’s Draper Project design a parking garage for it.

The vote was 7-1, with Mayor Jacki Marsh the dissenting voice, expressing concerns about the height of the structure and the shadow it would cast and adding that “I’m not sure this is the right place” for the 277-space, $12 million garage.

Under the agreement, the city would chip in half of the $670,000 cost of designing the garage and reimburse the developer, Draper LLC, for its half once the design is completed. The cost of the garage, which would become the property of the city, would be capped at $12 million, with the developer responsible for any costs that exceed that cap unless they’re the result of change orders from the city.

The entire Draper Heartland project, which has been in the works for six years and comes with an estimated price tag of around $45 million including the garage, would add five stories of redevelopment including 96 residential units and 14,559 square feet of commercial space. The garage, to be located on the site of a city-owned surface parking lot on the southwest corner of Fifth Street and North Jefferson Avenue, would provide a net increase of 115 parking spaces, 106 of which would be allocated to Draper tenants for a fee.

The project would extend along East Fourth Street, encompassing a site that includes the long-vacant Heartland Cafe and, previously, Draper Drug. It would incorporate five current structures including historic buildings at 315 and 333 Fourth St.

Draper LLC, a consortium called BH Developers, is led by chief executive Curt Burgener, Ashley Stiles of Tribe Development, Jeff Smith from Tryba Architects and Jay Hardy from Hardy Investments, who previously worked on the Foundry development in downtown Loveland.

Design of the garage will be coordinated by the developer along with representatives of the city, the Downtown Development Authority and Ditesco Construction Services, which the city hired in July for an $195,417 appropriation to serve as its representative on the project. Council members were told Tuesday night that the garage would include technology such as license-plate recognition for fee enforcement and guide lights and signage to indicate how many and where open parking spaces are.

The city also has committed to $870,000 of funding for other related improvements.

Funding for the garage design would come from LURA, its Finley Block funding, future DDA district sales, general-fund dollars and property-tax increments, according to information provided to the council. The developer has completed half the design work but has said it needed the city’s help to finish it.

“I don’t really love that the city is paying for the design,” said Councilor Andrea Samson before the vote, and Councilor Richard Ball, noting that the garage would replace the 56 spaces in the city lot behind the venerable Black Steer restaurant, called its west-facing facade as depicted in the developers’ slide show “butt ugly” and “worse than the back of a steer.”

Marsh, before voting no, bemoaned approval of “another project that doesn’t feed our general fund for at least 25 years.”

However, most councilors congratulated the city’s, DDA’s and developers’ work since last fall in negotiating the pact, and Councilor Dana Foley added that if the Draper project helps cure blight in that area, “it’s worth it.”

The council will consider the plan again at its Sept. 6 meeting.

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