F.C. developer takes large role in Laramie hotel, convention project

LARAMIE, Wyo. – Five years after late Fort Collins real estate developer Bill Neal and partner Fred Croci envisioned it, a hotel, conference center and retail project in Laramie is at last moving toward a groundbreaking.

When construction begins on the UW Plaza project in May, as university officials hope, it will become the most ambitious commercial endeavor in the city’s history.

Croci, managing broker at Wheeler Commercial Property Services LLC in Fort Collins, picked up a major portion the project after close friend Neal died in a July 2004 plane crash.

As the Northern Colorado Business Report was going to press Croci was preparing to sign a 100-year lease on a 10-acre land tract on the University of Wyoming campus, immediately southeast of War Memorial Stadium, to accommodate a retail-office-condominium project.

“This is something the university has needed for a long time,” Croci said. “We’re in the process of getting our plat approved and the lease signed. It’s only been five years.”

Components of the project include a 125-room Hilton Garden Inn hotel, a 23,000-square-foot conference and education center and a 10-acre retail-residential complex that will include 10 “game-day” condominiums for sale to Cowboy boosters.

“There hasn’t been anything in the city, on the commercial side, that’s as big as this,´ said Phil Harris, UW’s vice president for planning and budget. “One of the things that’s been a hindrance for us is our inability to bring in major conferences. This will solve that.”

Lease, purchase

Croci’s lease deal with the university is the simplest among the land transactions approved last month by the UW Board of Trustees. The Michigan-based developer of the hotel-convention center will lease its 2.5-acre building site from the UW Foundation, with a provision to purchase the land and hotel-convention complex over a 25-year period.

Wheeler Commercial’s portion of the project totals 100,000 square feet and includes a 30,000-square-foot, three-story office building, more than 55,000 square feet of retail space and the 10 condominiums.

Retailers, restaurants and other users have already shown strong interest in the project, Croci said. None will be named until leases are signed.

“The condos are the unique features in this project,” Croci said. “There are lots of people who travel to Laramie from all over the state for sporting events, and this gives them a place to call their own for the weekend. Each has a first-floor, flattop garage with a party deck above.”

$6 million gift

Neal and Croci had been working with UW administrators on UW Plaza until Neal’s death, and Croci stepped up his interest in the project this year. A key to pushing toward groundbreaking came in the form of $6 million in private donations to help fund the convention-hotel portion of the project.

A Holiday Inn Express developer has purchased land just east of the project, and will provide additional lodging space for the convention center, Croci said.

Fort Collins architect Dana Lockwood, who produced concept sketches for the retail-office-condo project two years ago when Neal and Croci were meeting with university officials about the project, will continue his design work for Wheeler’s part of UW Plaza.

Casper, Wyo.-based GSG Architecture PC, with a credit list that includes the Wyoming Union on the UW campus and the Nicolaysen Art Museum and Discovery Center in Casper, has begun design work on the hotel-convention center portion of the project.

“The week after Jan. 1, we’ll all get together and talk about the next steps,” Harris said. “It will be a great thing to get this going.”

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