Lind has acquired land for Colorado Eagles arena, hotel in Greeley

GREELEY — Windsor developer Martin Lind has acquired two contiguous parcels of land on the west side of Greeley as he works to assemble properties for his massive new arena, hotel and water-park development.

The Greeley City Council on Tuesday will conduct a special meeting to consider a memorandum of understanding with Lind’s Water Valley Co. to develop a mixed-use project that could include a new arena that would serve as a new home for Lind’s Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team.

The draft memorandum of understanding describes land under consideration as “property to be located on the west side of Greeley — generally west of Promontory with close proximity to Highway 34 and within the previously established and defined growth management area.”

That’s exactly the location of Lind’s initial purchases, totaling 221 acres. Vima Partners LLC, an entity controlled by Lind, in February paid $675,000 to Sara M. Kinnison for 75 acres on the west side of Colorado Highway 257, and he followed that acquisition with a larger deal in May, paying Skyway Properties I LLC $2.5 million for 145 acres. That adjacent property is on the east side of Colorado Highway 257.

Lind, one of Northern Colorado’s most prominent developers, told BizWest Monday that he is under contract for additional acreage that would take his holdings in west Greeley to about 800 acres.

“I think that by the end of this week, we will close on another parcel that’s in the same quadrant, and I think that in the next 60 days, we’ll have another parcel closed, which will give us a total of about 800 acres in that area,” Lind said.

He said he began acquiring properties along the U.S. Highway 34 corridor because of growth potential in the area.

“The good news is, it’s big parcels of land, and we have land acquired right now to do our project, so we’re not beholden to anybody,” Lind said. “We just think it’s such a bigger vision than just any one project. We just think this will be a catalyst of a big, big thing.

“Everybody in my industry knows that west Greeley is the behemoth,” Lind added. “West Greeley has water, stable soils, available land, so it was more of a kind of a place to put some money from some 1031 sales we had. As you know, I love Northern Colorado, and that’s where I want to stay. It just is a very logical place to put money.”

According to the Greeley City Council meeting packet that the city posted late Friday, the project would include a new 8,600-seat arena for the Eagles that would also house an ice center with at least three sheets of ice that could be used by the Northern Colorado youth hockey program.

Lind told BizWest that the proposed new arena would be able to seat 8,500 to 9,000 people for hockey and 10,000 to 12,000 for concerts, up from 5,200 and 6,800 respectively at Blue Arena, the 21-year-old facility at The Ranch Events Complex east of Loveland. That facility, formerly known as the Budweiser Events Center, has been home since it opened to the Eagles, an American Hockey League franchise affiliated with the National Hockey League’s Colorado Avalanche.

The Greeley development — with the working title of the “West Side Project” — could also include retailers as well as mixed-income and affordable housing, all served by a transit center and multimodal hub with connections to local, intercity and national bus service.

According to the city document, “the West Side Project is intended to be a catalyst for development on the west side of the city that will provide significant social and economic benefits to the city and its residents, including job creation, public transportation options and increased tax revenue.”

BizWest reporter Dallas Heltzell contributed to this report.