Windsor builds for the future

WINDSOR — It’s been quite a while since Windsor’s only bragging points were its Eastman Kodak plant and its central location as a bedroom community for Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley.

With nearly $90 million in capital improvements to the town’s infrastructure under way and projects sprouting everywhere, “Windsor is still a player in the market, with strong growth in all sectors,” said Stacy Brown, Windsor’s outgoing director of economic development. “We’re poised and in a position to grow, both residential and commercially.”

With industrial areas such as the 3,000-acre Great Western Industrial Park and recreational attractions such as the Future Legends sports complex and the new Hoedown Hill, Windsor has lots to draw businesses and the people who will work for them.

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So much is happening, she said, that it’s hard for her to keep up with it all.

“I just drive by a place and look and say, oh, gee, there are three more going up,” she said.

At least 116 building permits for single-family detached homes have been issued from Jan. 24 to Feb. 28 alone, representing approximately 32% of the 361 single-family permits the town had projected for the year in its 2024 budget. In the same period, three building permits were issued for a total of 21 multi-family dwelling units, and 332 total building permits were issued for additions such as decks, roofs, water heaters and remodeling, representing 17% of the 1,931 total permits issued in all of 2023.

Major residential projects include Hartford Homes’ 2,600-home Prairie Song, off Colorado Highway 257, and Journey Homes’ 217 single-family unit Travana, off Crossroads Boulevard at Windsor’s southern entrance.

At developer Martin Lind’s Ravina development, “of 200 single-family lots, already 50 are under construction,” he said. “That’s kind of our last production monster we had in our portfolio.”

The town has 60 capital-improvement projects under way.

“Holy cow, we’re running right out of the gate,” Stacy Brown said. “We’re putting a lot of money into stuff behind the curtain, all those things that keep a community running whether you live there or work there.”

That includes a $35 million police center that should be completed in August, Stacy Brown said, “and next will come repurposing of the old police center. It could be a community development spot, or an add-on to the rec center. Who knows?

“We’re repurposing that for 2025, which saves us from adding on to the town hall as the staff grows.”

She noted that the “east side of Windsor is hot right now,” with such developments as the East Pointe retail center at the southeast corner of Colorado Highways 392 and 257. A discount grocer, eateries and car wash are on the way, and Poudre Pet Feed and Supply was able to double the square footage it had by moving there from a downtown location.

The Windsor Downtown Alliance is working on taking electric lines underground, finishing a Fifth Street Plaza project and refurbishing Main Street, and a restaurant space formerly occupied by Betta Gumbo has had four prospective replacements so far, she said.

“There’s also another vacant restaurant space at 408 Main St.,” she said, “but it’s only 600 square feet, so it could be sort of a boutique space.”

Industrial activity also is increasing, she said, and nowhere is that more in focus than at the Great Western Industrial Park located at the southeast corner of Windsor.

Consider the companies operating there:

• Lineage Logistics LLC, a cold storage facility that contracts with JBS USA meat packing company in Greeley.
• Gotham Greens Holding LLC, affiliated with GG Colorado II LLC, an urban, vertical farming facility that produces basil and lettuce for national grocery chains.
• Vestas Blades America Inc., maker of the large windmill blades used for generating electricity.
• Owens-Illinois Inc., now known as O-I Glass Inc. (NYSE: OI), which manufactures glass containers such as the bottles in which Anheuser-Busch places its beer.
• Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB), an oil field services company.
• Intersand America Corp., which produces kitty litter and other products.

“Our key component is that we’re a dual rail serviced park,” said Dean Brown, vice president for industrial projects at Broe Real Estate Group, which owns the park. Broe also owns and operates the OmniTRAX Transportation Inc. shortline railroad company that operates the Great Western Railroad, among others. Great Western is able to connect with both BNSF Railway and Union Pacific. 

Not all businesses in the Great Western Industrial Park use the rail service; Lineage, for example, located there because of the rail service but does not yet use it. The availability of rail service, Dean Brown said, can save companies 10-20% savings on transportation, which gets the attention of those companies that ship nationwide or internationally.

Dean Brown said Great Western is methodically continuing to develop the park, which had its origins with the Kodak development decades ago. Little remains of Kodak, and just last month one of its spinoffs, Carestream Health Inc., a medical imaging company, filed a notice that it was closing and would lay off all its remaining 210 employees. 

Finding a tenant to fill Carestream’s space didn’t fall within the duties of Windsor’s economic development team, Stacy Brown said, because “it’s in the county, but we will try to assist with that if we can. We do achieve benefits from companies that are in our area.” The new tenants “wouldn’t be eligible for town incentives unless they annexed into our community,” she said, “but you never know.”

While Great Western has a plan, change is part of that.

The company previously master planned the entire property in an effort to speed development once individual properties were sold to companies seeking to locate there.

It also added residential and retail to the development mix, with a commercial neighborhood and adjacent residential now planned for the northwest corner of the project.

Dean Brown said Great Western is seeing a lot of interest in Windsor.

“We’re constantly chasing four or five prospects; it’s challenging on the industrial side,” he said, referencing headwinds in the development world that includes interest rates and inflation. “Nobody is signing on the bottom line just yet,” he said.

Dean Brown said that in addition to rail service and proximity to highway transportation networks, the industrial park has another attribute: power.

Kodak when it was formed required dual transmission power lines. That power still exists, which offers redundancy to manufacturers that don’t want to be dependent upon just one power source. 

With power, proximity, transportation and, as Dean Brown said, the tendency of Windsor-area workers to be “well-trained, who aren’t likely to jump jobs,” Great Western expects strong continued interest in the industrial park.

Finding workers is one of the challenges of the economic-development team, but Stacy Brown noted that crowds of job-seekers filled a 74-booth regional job fair on Feb. 28 at the Future Legends sports complex. It was a chance for employers to survey the local workforce — but also an opportunity to display town attractions such as Future Legends.

For decades, the Northern Colorado sports world has revolved around the college programs at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley; Colorado State University in Fort Collins; and the Blue FCU Arena in Loveland, home to the Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team.

But that center of sports gravity may be shifting a bit toward Windsor as the Future Legends complex has established itself over the past few years as a youth and professional athletics hub.

“We’re definitely on the right track for our vision to be displayed for everyone to see … which is to create an all-encompassing sports and entertainment facility,” Future Legends executive director Casey Katofsky told BizWest.

Formed in 2021 and home to the Northern Colorado Rain FC of the USLW League (women’s soccer), the Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC of the USL League One (men’s soccer) and the Northern Colorado Owlz of the Pioneer League (baseball), the 118-acre complex at 801 Diamond Valley Drive includes a stadium and athletic fields, along with an indoor sports arena. It also will include hotels and multiple restaurants.

Hotel construction “is the most complicated piece,” Katofsky said, declining to predict when the Future Legends lodging component could be ready for its first visitors. 

TicketSocket Park, the future home of the Owlz that Katofsky said is “on track to be open this year,” is expected to have capacity for more than 6,500 spectators at sporting events and more than 15,000 for concerts.

“That makes us one of the biggest outdoor venues in the state,” Katofsky said.

Such a venue, along with the professional teams that call Future Legends home, can help galvanize sports fans across the region, organization leaders said. 

“In the marketing team, we’ve really challenged ourselves to get our name out in Greeley and Loveland and Fort Collins to make one big, cohesive Northern Colorado fanbase,” Future Legends communications manager Blake Baker said. 

Getting Future Legends off the ground has not always been a smooth process. There have been lawsuits filed by several contractors and construction companies that worked on aspects of the sports campus, and, in 2021, a  U.S. Department of Agriculture investigation into the potential presence of an historically significant drainage ditch in Windsor led to a months-long work stoppage on the east Windsor site. When the Owlz debuted in May 2023, the team’s first game against Rocky Mountain Vibes was postponed in the fourth inning due to lack of adequate light on the field. 

“We’ve seen previously that there are things we just can’t control,” Katofsky said.  “… We’re blessed to wake up in the morning and do what we love. This is what we love, this is what we’re passionate about, so I wouldn’t use the word ‘challenge.’ Every day is a new task for us to continue to try to do our dream.”

Winter recreation in Windsor took off this year as well, with Lind’s 12-acre Hoedown Hill skiing, snowboarding and tubing facility opening adjacent to his RainDance National Resort and Golf property. “We tested last year, we experimented into operation this year, and I’m going to say it was a raging success for families,” Lind said.

The site could host mountain biking, ziplining and concerts this summer, he said.

“We’re real busy with expanding the entire family entertainment resort business” at the Water Valley complex, he said. “A resort hotel at the golf course is in the design stage now, with cottages that will work for summertime stay and play. We’re really missing that boutique experience in Northern Colorado, and this will help with that.

“We’re also remodeling pretty much all the food and beverage sites we have,” Lind said. “We’re setting the stage for bringing people into town and having a pretty exciting experience, with lots of variety.”

Looking to the future, Lind and Stacy Brown said “water and workforce” will be Windsor’s biggest challenges.

“Water prices are up and land availability is down,” Lind said. “The threshold of demand is not being met and, when that happens, you have affordability problems.”

“I-25 got expanded, and we’re ready for more already,” Stacy Brown added. “Interest rates for housing and workforce for commercial will be our biggest issues.

“It can be a struggle,” she said. There are a lot of elements out of our control, but the whole town is dedicated to helping.”