Plan would add 175 apartments to Fort Collins’ River District

FORT COLLINS — Fort Collins city planners will get a first look Thursday at a Texas developer’s proposal to add 175 apartments and 2,300 square feet of commercial space to the city’s Downtown River District.

Realty Capital Residential, a 37-year-old developer based in Irving, Texas, is proposing the complex — a five-story building with 120 units and a four-story building with the other 55 — on an elongated two-acre tract along Willow Street stretching from a wide northwest end on Linden Street to a sharp point facing Lincoln Street. The developer would own and manage the rental units and ground-floor retail spaces.

According to the application submitted by Spencer Long, a Realty Capital development partner and Fort Collins native, “With the increased demand for housing in Fort Collins, the infill development at 360 Linden St. seeks to provide more units in the housing stock while making efficient use of limited urban land, and on a property that is uniquely challenging to develop for any use.”

The tract, purchased in 2015 by Blue Ocean Enterprises and originally proposed as the site of a distillery, has been used as an overflow parking lot for the Ginger and Baker restaurant. Three small buildings on the site would be demolished to make way for the development.

As of Wednesday afternoon, calls to Blue Ocean had not been returned about whether it would retain ownership of the parcel or sell it.

The site, approximately 130 feet wide and 700 feet long, would include 147 parking spaces.

Concept review is the first step in Fort Collins’ planning process. A favorable reaction from the planning staff would send the plan to an administrative review before the Planning and Zoning Commission.