Innosphere talks with Fort Collins about expansion

FORT COLLINS — Rapidly growing startup incubator Innosphere ran the idea of adding a three-story office building past Fort Collins’ development review staff on Thursday, however, the one-acre tract where it’s looking to build, adjacent to its current campus, is what city planner Clark Mapes called “a very historically significant property.”

The plan that Innosphere and applicant Michael Bello, senior project manager for The CPI Group, submitted for development review called for a new office building at 232 E. Vine St. that would require demolition of an existing outbuilding at the southeast corner of the tract as well as an addition to an existing home that dates to the 1870s.

“The plan anticipates demolishing the northernmost addition and leaving the other addition in place so we are not touching or impacting the historic house in any way,” the application said. “Therefore, the project will consist of the development of the new office building and associated parking only.”

Innosphere and its contractor “would not be touching that house at this point,” Maps said. “They’re interested in some use for the house, but they don’t have that figured out yet.”

The tract, which would contain Innosphere’s third phase of development, is surrounded by the Lake Canal and Old Town North residences to the north, Innosphere Phases I and II to the east, the parking lot for a whitewater park on the Cache la Poudre River and some commercial buildings to the south, and vacant commercial property that will be home to the Power House 2 project to the west.

According to Ansel Watrous’ “History of Larimer County,” pioneers Alexander and Emma Barry arrived in the area in 1871 and bought agricultural land just north of the city and the river. They built the home in 1875 and farmed there until 1902, when they sold it to the Fort Collins Sugar Co.

Innosphere, a 25-year-old 501(c)(3) organization that works to create jobs and grow the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem by offering its clients access to a broad network of specialized resources, bought the land in 2021 for $1.1 million.

“In that sector of town, it was very significant in its day,” Mapes said, “so the idea of how to get a pretty big office building in there needs to do some more exploring of possibilities.”

Mapes said the site “also runs along a very old irrigation canal that has giant trees along it that are a pretty significant natural feature.”

He acknowledged that Innosphere “would like to get their administrative functions out of their existing building, but that was when this was going to be a one-story building.”

Mapes and Innosphere CEO Mike Freeman agreed that the idea remains in the formative stage.

“Innosphere is in the very preliminary stages of just exploring potential options for the site in order to better understand the costs of potential future projects,” Freeman said Friday in an email to BizWest.

Added Mapes, “There’s more to come, for them and us.”

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