Residents have mixed reviews of West Greeley Project

GREELEY — Those residents who hadn’t yet heard about impending plans for west Greeley got a crash course Thursday about the $1.1 billion project that would bring an ice arena, a hotel and convention center, and 12-slide waterpark to Weld County Road 17 and US Highway 34.

Described as an opportunity to bring a legacy to Greeley with amenities, jobs and housing that had until now been out of reach for this once small town 15 miles east of the center of gravity in Northern Colorado, residents gave mixed initial reviews of how such a project could change the character of the town whose bragging rights included having the largest Fourth of July rodeo and being the site for James Michener’s novel, “Centennial.”

Greeley City Manager Raymond Lee presented the project to the packed house at Zoe’s Event Center in downtown Greeley, detailing it from the seed project of 300 acres, to an eventual catalyst of a 1,500-acre magnet of business and commercial growth to keep sales taxes, jobs and residents in Greeley.

“We don’t want growth just to happen to us,” Lee told the crowd. “We want to make sure we’re strategic in how the growth happens in our community and how we’re planning and capturing that revenue.”

The city will hold a second event for the community at 10 a.m. Saturday at Zoe’s downtown.

The project starts with a 300-acre development that would build an arena for the Colorado Eagles minor league hockey time, plus extra sheets of ice for youth hockey, as well as a 350-room hotel and water park, in addition to a plaza with restaurants and shops. Surrounding uses would come later, including 6,000 residential units, and much more business. The project also would bring several water features, including waterfalls and fountains that would be choreographed to music, and even an equestrian center.

Jim Sereff, who with his wife, Suzanne Sereff, owns Warm Hugs Mixes & Gifts in downtown Greeley, hadn’t yet heard of the West Greeley Project. As he listened to the half-hour presentation Thursday, the massive plan piqued his interest as a downtown business owner.

“Becoming a destination is a wonderful thing, and I’m glad we have a vision for this,” he said. “I think it will generate business for downtown Greeley.”

Carolyn Stanley, a 30-year Greeley resident, agreed: “I’m very excited. You look at Fort Collins, and they’ve got so much stuff to offer. For Greeley, it’s coming along. I’m just very excited about it.”

Lee presented the plan as one of many major projects that would redefine Greeley in years to come, along with the new major open space acreage the city recently purchased called Arroyo del Sol, which would tie into the West Greeley Project as a wildlife and open space corridor in and around the Cache la Poudre River.

But that project worried one resident, who said Arroyo del Sol shouldn’t become a “zoo.” Suzie Muttel, a Greeley resident since 1999, said the project as presented seemed as if it would be an environmental nightmare, with parking lots and light pollution that would prevent animals’ free movement through the area.

“I think attending the public meeting was worthwhile,” Muttel said after the meeting. “Reps from the city, the Eagles and Water Valley were all open to hearing my concerns and gave me their contact information to follow up in more detail. I left feeling like my concerns mattered and that there is time in the development process for significant changes to be made.”

Mary Monahan, a 40-year resident, said she felt the project in no way represented an amenity for Greeley.

“It’s very expensive for anyone to go there and do anything,” Monahan said. “The amenities Greeley needs is more open space where people can relax and not have to spend a lot of money to have a good time.

“I don’t think the jobs are going to be good-paying jobs,” she added. “Once this is built, there’ll be jobs in which people will not be able to afford a house for what they get paid. Ultimately, the people who will be on the hook for this $1.1 billion are the residents of Greeley.”

Lee explained to the audience that while there are monetary risks to the project, there are likewise risks in doing nothing, including having to react to growth rather than plan for it. Residential and commercial developments already are on the books in west Greeley, but the hotel-arena project could actually bring much of the infrastructure to the area on which other developments could piggyback.

Lee said that if the City Council approves the project, the city would get started in 2025 by issuing $115 million in certificates of participation to fund the planning and design work. “The money we take out in 2026 will also be debt fund, used to pay back that $115 million in 2025,” Lee said. “This project as it is modeled now, there are no tax increases to citizens. It does use debt, but we’re also anticipating how that gets paid back in the success of the project.”

He added that city officials anticipate having the $115 million paid off in the first two years after the project opened to the public.

The success of the project is hinged greatly on the popularity of the Eagles, a team that has a growing fan base and is a 20-year generator of ticket sales, said Marcus Pachner, who represented developer Water Valley Co. because its president, Martin Lind, was on a pre-planned family vacation overseas. Pachner said 25% of the Eagles’ fan base are Greeley residents.

“Want to create that sense of identity, a new cornerstone for west Greeley,” Pachner told the audience. “This is not a build-it-and-see-if-people-will-come (project). We are bringing the anchor and the activity of youth hockey and all of those amenities around that.”

Lee told the audience: “This is a game-changer project for our community and in the business within our community.”

Still, the numbers all must work out in the end, Lee said. That may take another couple of weeks.

“We wouldn’t do this haphazardly and just pop things out there and say, ‘We hope for the best,’” Lee said in an interview after the presentation. “We’re being very strategic in how we provide public safety, how we provide water, how we provide transportation services. This is the real reason we wanted to master-plan this community because it gave us some control on how development would happen.”

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