Greeley no longer No. 1 on Costco’s list for new sites

GREELEY— Some long-held hopes of a Costco Wholesale Corp. (Nasdaq: COST) store coming to west Greeley have apparently fizzled for now.

The big-box giant apparently has abandoned the idea of a west Greeley location as its No, 1 choice, but AJ Roche, director of project development for Roche Constructors Inc., said he hopes the door hasn’t been completely shut to lure the retail giant to the area.

“We haven’t received a definitive answer of a location, but we heard after their multiple visits to our site and other Northern Colorado locations, our Greeley site is not in the No. 1 spot,” Roche said.  “We’ve just heard we are not No. 1. We still hope to continue the conversations with them. And we are pursuing other” big-box retailers.

The Roche family owns the property and submitted plans in 2023 for the development of the 292-acre Uptown project, located on the southeast side of Weld County Road 17 and U.S. Highway 34. In May, Roche submitted a rezone for the property, which includes 56 acres of industrial property and 235 acres of commercial high intensity.

Roche said with the Delantero project to its east containing mostly residential, it made sense to move much of its residential pieces out of the project with the exception of one small parcel for multifamily.  Putting in more industrial pieces in the property also helped bring traffic counts down to a more reasonable level, Roche said.

Potentially losing the project was met with mixed emotions from others in the development game.

Windsor developer Martin Lind, who has planned a sports arena-hotel-water park concept directly across from Uptown on U.S. 34, said his project could help site selectors realize that Greeley is sincere in developing so far west. The city of Greeley has yet to approve the project. Decisions are expected by early February.

“We reached out to Costco, and said west Greeley would be a great location for you,” Lind said.  “They weren’t sure they wanted to get that far off the interstate. But we don’t have anything to show them until we have it. If they saw the gravity of Cascadia and proved it was not a pipe dream, they’ll have to come back and take a look.”

The biggest obstacle in the area is the intersection of U.S. 34 and Weld 17, which most agree is congested and unsafe. The City of Greeley is looking to revamp the intersection in the next couple of years. At a work session on Jan. 14, the Greeley City Council discussed creating an interchange there, and creating a multi-modal crossing and mobility hub at 131st Avenue and U.S. 34 as their top two priorities to send to the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is an organization that helps distribute federal transportation dollars and helps prioritize the statewide transportation plan. The group is set to discuss regional priorities on Feb. 6.

Roche and potential users of Uptown are waiting for improvements to the intersection, given that it is the crossroads into multiple Northern Colorado cities, in addition to the amount of traffic new development will create.

“Initially, the city told us 2027, and now they’re saying with potential development to the north they’re saying 2028,” Roche said of when the intersection could be improved. “From all the potential users we’ve talked to including Costco, their openings fall within those years or even a year or two or thereafter. Nobody is in immediate need … there’s no big hurry.”

The lack of public infrastructure also may be a bit of a hangup for big development, but Lind said his project would usher in more than a quarter billion dollars worth of infrastructure that surrounding development could use.

“(Cascadia) is burdened with that heavy lift of infrastructure which helps the entire region. Greeley will be way ahead of getting big infrastructure done,” Lind said. “Normally, a project wouldn’t have been burdened with that. We’ve cooked it into the sausage.”

Roche said he isn’t too worried about the lack of public infrastructure at this point.

“I don’t think the infrastructure would be for our piece specifically. There’s nothing from an infrastructure perspective, nothing that could hold us up,” Roche said. “We have plans in place, depending on where Delantero is, some of ours would have to tie into what Delantero is doing, but we’ll have places to go with water and sewer.”

As to where Costco has designated as its No. 1 new site, it remains unclear. Lind discarded rumors that Costco was looking to locate near the Bass Pro Shops site at Crossroads Boulevard and Interstate 25.

Johnstown’s burgeoning centers also could be prime territory given the scarcity of Costco locations in Northern Colorado, with the closest stores in Timnath, Longmont and Thornton.

Johnstown economic development director Sarah Crosthwaite said she had not heard from the big-box giant.

“That’s certainly a user we’d like to see in our community, but there are no updates I could give you,” she said.

Loveland would be another possibility for Costco. Marcie Willard, economic development director for Loveland, said she had no information about about any potential Loveland sites Costco was entertaining.

Jenifer Murillo, who is in charge of location development for Colorado Costco stores, said it is the company’s policy not to comment on new locations.

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