Cheyenne I-25 development comes slowly

CHEYENNE — Randy Bruns of Cheyenne LEADS can envision the day when much of the land along the Interstate 25 corridor between Wellington and Cheyenne will be developed by firms needing access to America’s interstate highway system.

After all, he’s already seeing development intensify along one of the major transcontinental crossroads that bisects I-25 in Cheyenne — Interstate 80.

“There’ll probably be a few gaps of several miles when you get south of the Wyoming-Colorado border before you get to the Wellington area, but we’re going to see the area immediately adjacent to Cheyenne develop first and then spread south just as we’re seeing Fort Collins and now Wellington spread north.”

Not only are the “economic ripples” of the Front Range economy moving up I-25 but Cheyenne is located at one of the nation’s key east-west, north-south intersections, I-25 and I-80.

“With these two busy interstates crossing here, they’re going to be drivers of the Cheyenne economy for the foreseeable future.´ said Bruns, president of LEADS, the Cheyenne and Laramie County corporation for economic development. “I mean that’s just a given, it’s a geographic reality.

“We know it’s going to happen,” he added. “The real key is for us to be prepared so that we can manage it and so that it happens in a way that maximizes the advantage to the community.”

Bruns said while he sometimes gets impatient and wishes those economic ripples would work their way northward a little faster, “the fact that they aren’t big waves that just hit you all at once, it gives you a little opportunity to be prepared for them.”

A classic cloverleaf

The actual I-25/I-80 interchange is a classic cloverleaf that — because of adjacent wetlands and the Union Pacific Railroad — has been difficult to develop in the past but that, too, is changing with interchange and highway improvements offering better access.

One of the hottest commercial developments has been in the northeast quadrant of the interchange, where a new Wingate Inn is nearing completion across from the Hampton Inn, Home Depot and Outback Steakhouse — all new in the last two years.

Another hot area is the I-25-College Drive interchange, just a mile south of I-80, where a new Love’s Truck Stop just opened and other commercial development is possible.

Meanwhile, LEADS has staked a claim on land in the northwestern quadrant of the interchange, west of I-25, north of I-80, and south of Wyoming Highway 210 for a potential new business park called the West Industrial Park.

Laramie County voters will decide Nov. 4 whether to approve allocating $2.7 million in 6th penny Specific Purpose Tax funds to acquire the property and extend water and sewer infrastructure to the new park.

Another potential site for commercial and industrial development lies at the east end of the Belvoir Ranch, purchased earlier this year by the city and the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities. Although purchased primarily for its water well fields and a new landfill site, the ranch offers recreational potential at its west end and commercial/industrial development potential at its east end, near Coastal Chem Corp.

Meanwhile, LEADS still has space at its original Cheyenne Business Parkway, located about four miles east of I-25 off I-80 and could acquire some additional land just east of the Business Parkway if Laramie County acquires a University of Wyoming research farm at the I-80-Archer interchange.

Single landowner may hold key

New homes line the I-25 corridor north of Cheyenne, but LEADS members have long been looking south along the I-25 corridor as the best potential for commercial and industrial development.

Much of the land on both sides of I-25 from the College Drive interchange south to the Terry Bison Ranch interchange near the Colorado state line is owned by a single landowner, Warren Livestock Co., one of the illustrious early Wyoming ranch companies started by the state’s first governor and senator, Francis E. Warren.

According to Bruns, that property will be a key to how and when additional development occurs along the I-25 corridor between Cheyenne and Colorado.

“That owner is in the driver’s seat as to how that develops,” Bruns said, “but there’s no doubt in my mind that the economic pressures are going to be there to develop that land.”

Warren Livestock and LEADS worked closely together on a proposed site for a proposed Owens-Illinois bottle manufacturing plant, and Bruns added that the Warren Livestock owners are “doing some very careful planning” for future development so they can do it “under their terms rather than other people’s terms.

“We’ve seen what’s happened along the I-25 corridor in Colorado and also have fielded a lot of inquiries up here, so we know those economic ripples are going to move north and we’re trying to be prepared for them,” Bruns said.

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