Renderings offer first views of Eagles’ proposed Greeley home

GREELEY — Architectural renderings released to BizWest by developer Martin Lind give a first peek at his vision for an arena in west Greeley that would be the new, larger home of the Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team as well as three ice sheets for youth hockey programs and other public use.

Lind told BizWest on Saturday that the new center could provide “enormous new access to ice for all skills.”

He said 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 master plan for The Ranch called for that arena to be “repurposed” and a new arena to be built that would seat 8,000 people for hockey or 9,000 for concerts, both including suites, and have a youth-hockey training center with multiple ice sheets. Larimer County in February selected Lind’s The Ranch Development Partners as the developer of the new arena and youth-sports training center, but what has happened since then remains unclear, and BizWest has submitted an open-records request to that county to uncover the details.

Meanwhile, Lind’s focus has shifted eastward, and on Tuesday night the Greeley City Council will hold a special meeting to consider a memorandum of understanding between the city and Lind’s Windsor-based Water Valley Co. to evaluate the feasibility and public benefit of developing land in west Greeley for the arena as well as a hotel and water park as part of a mixed-use, transit-oriented entertainment district.

Lind has been buying parcels of land on the west end of Greeley and now has approximately 800 acres, some of them noncontiguous, either purchased or under contract there.

The proposed site for the complex, according to the MOU, is west of the Promontory mixed-use development along U.S. Highway 34.