Planners approve 1,200-home development in west Greeley

GREELEY — More development will be popping up on Greeley’s western side, all the way to 101st Avenue.

The Greeley Planning Commission on Tuesday approved 277 acres of industrial, commercial, and residential uses north of West 10th Street, west of 101st Avenue and east of Missile Silo Road.

The subdivision, called Poudre Heights, will be financed by a metropolitan district and will eventually require a traffic signal on U.S. Highway 34 as well.

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“I’m a local developer, and I’m excited about doing a cool project for Greeley that can add much-needed housing,” said developer Brian Smerud of Poudre Bay Inc., based in Windsor. “With our commercial and industrial options, we’re excited about attracting good-paying jobs and much-needed retail and other services with our mixed use.”

The planning commission approved the project, which makes iit ready for infrastructure and construction. At full buildout, it could have up to 1,200 residential units, and potentially add up to 2,200 people to Greeley’s population. The plan calls for upward of 1 million square feet of commercial and industrial space.

“We anticipate having commercial along 10th Street, and with the industrial zoning, we’re after primary employers,” Smerud said. “Greeley doesn’t have very much entitled industrial land at all. Weld County has purchased big chunks of that in east Greeley.

“Here, we’re looking for primary employers, such as manufacturing,” Smerud said. “We’ll start marketing more now that we are through the platting process. There’s a lot of infrastructure that still needs to go in there. There’s still a lot of capital that needs to go into infrastructure.”

Smerud said he wants to secure a residential builder before beginning infrastructure work. “We’re talking with national builders who have never built in Greeley as well as regional and local,” he said.

The entire project also will have roughly 50 acres of open space, trails and parks. In various spots throughout the development, plans call for plaques and sculptures, and streets will be named for the natural features in the area, such as Vulture Circle Ridge, Croppie Creek or Eagle’s Nest Overlook, to name a few.

While the planning commission generally approved of the project, commission member Erik Briscoe said he didn’t want U.S. 34 Business (10th Street) to become another bottlenecked street with more traffic signals.

“As we continue to look at this, we’re talking about a light at 83rd, 101st, at Promontory, on a Business 34 stretch, that seems like a lot of signalized intersections in what is that a mile, or two?” Briscoe said July 9 during a public hearing on the subdivision. “I don’t want to see us look like Harmony Road in Fort Collins, where it’s gridlock. This is a great project. I love to see the development rolling west instead of leapfrogging, but I would love to see a second bite at the apple with regard to traffic and access. I think we got it wrong at 83rd, and we’ve had some accidents.”

Smerud said the signalized intersection is more of a government requirement.

“This is the design that government is implementing, not us,” he said. “Those will be synchronized, and we shouldn’t have gridlock.”