As Rigden Farm project blooms, foreclosures loom

FORT COLLINS – A metro Denver developer faces a foreclosure sale to satisfy $5,869,919 in debts claimed by the bank that financed a multifamily housing project called The Willows at Rigden Farm.

The apparent failure of a large part of the Willows project, evidenced by chain-link fencing that rings the foundations of more than a dozen townhomes and duplexes near Timberline Church off Timberline Road, is a glaring exception to what is taking place throughout the rest of the Rigden development.

And, according to a real estate broker listing the properties, a string of arson fires two summers ago might have set the project’s failure in motion.

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The developer named in five separate foreclosure notices is CRF Development Co., a company listed in Colorado Secretary of State records with an address in Centennial, a suburb southeast of Denver.

Telephone messages left for the person listed as CRF’s principal manager, Donald W. Gregg, were not returned. Likewise, the Denver lawyer listed on the foreclosure statements as representing creditor Centennial Bank of the West did not return phone calls.

Larimer County Public Trustee Angela Dazlich has scheduled a bid-opening on the public foreclosure auction, covering all five filings, for 10 a.m. June 28.

Rigden rolls

Meanwhile, builders are hard at work on a half dozen distinctly different housing projects on the 308-acre Rigden Farm, ranging from single-family homes to row houses, townhomes, patio homes and senior independent-living apartments. The resulting mix in large measure fulfills the vision of Rigden’s founder, Bill Neal, who died with two others in a plane crash in Fort Collins in July 2004.

“Is Rigden rolling? You bet it is,´ said Fred Croci, managing broker at Wheeler Commercial Property Services and Neal’s partner from the beginning in the Rigden venture. Case in point: National mega-builder D.R. Horton’s Melody Homes division has put up about 120 homes in the past six months, Croci said, and according to the builder all but a handful are sold.

Other success stories – the Spectrum senior independent-living center, Seven Oaks Academy and the Pioneer School for Expeditionary Learning – are either built or taking shape, and the King Soopers-anchored commercial center at the southeast corner of Drake and Timberline roads is complete and bustling with shoppers.

All of which makes The Willows, and an adjacent subdivision renamed the Courtyards – also covered in the foreclosure – a couple of nasty thorns on Rigden’s blooming rose.

The listing agent for The Willows and Courtyards projects, Denver real estate broker Steve Gensler, said troubles began for the project’s developer in the wake of a series of construction-site arson fires that plagued southeast Fort Collins in August 2004.

Two Willows townhome buildings, both nearly complete and with 19 of their 26 units under contract to buyers, were destroyed in the arsons. Three Fort Collins and Eaton men, ranging in age from 18 to 21, were later convicted and sentenced for their roles in the fires.

Fire’s fallout

The fires were so intense, and so much water dumped on the sites by firefighters, that even the foundations had to be demolished, Gensler said, adding that insurance coverage fell well short of the cost of rebuilding. Not only that, but the fallout from the fire extended beyond the buildings that the arsonists hit, Gensler said.

“I would say about half the other presales then dropped out,” he said. “Most of the investor people dropped out, and I think the fire and the aftermath was the biggest cause of that.”

When would-be homeowners and investors cancelled contracts on the properties, CRF raced ahead, trying to get other new homes on the market, Gensler said.

“I think their biggest mistake was to try to catch up, and build everything at once,” he said.

Gensler said he, too, was a victim of the Willows failure. “Between lost commissions and advertising costs, I’m losing about a half million (dollars),” he said. “But I think this will get cleaned up. It’s too valuable a piece of property.”