Growth slower in NE Colorado

Booming economy of Front Range not reaching plains yet

Comparing what’s happening in the Front Range economy to what’s happening on Colorado’s Northeastern Plains is really like comparing apples and oranges.

While both areas have felt the benefits of a growing and dynamic state and national economy in the mid- to late-’90s, these are two entirely different worlds.

Out on the Plains, away from the hustle and bustle of the Interstate 25 corridor, life moves at a much slower pace. Here, growth is defined by the construction of a few new houses and the occasional modest commercial development.

And once in a while, if the stars line up correctly, a major new employer comes along like the Sterling Correctional Facility did in 1998.

But that’s the exception to the rule in the world of Northeastern Colorado.

“We’ve seen some new subdivisions and some new business growth but nowhere near the level of the Front Range,´ said Ken Strohson, Logan County planner. “If you’re talking about a boom, it just isn’t the same.”

In general, it might be said that the farther you get from the bustling Front Range, the slower and more relaxed is the local economy. And while many of these communities were once utterly dependent on agriculture for their economic health, that’s changing.

New employers are coming to Northeastern Colorado and existing employers are expanding their operations, creating broader-based employment opportunities often no longer tied to local agriculture.

Fort Morgan

Fort Morgan, located about 50 miles east of Greeley, is the Morgan County seat and home to Morgan Community College. The boyhood home of 1940s band leader Glenn Miller, Fort Morgan is diversifying its economy to provide jobs and economic prosperity to its 11,000 residents.

Jim Zwetzig, a local Realtor and city mayor from 1992 to 1998, said Fort Morgan still depends heavily on local agriculture and the sugar beets processed in the Great Western Sugar plant on the town’s north side.

“Sugar, that’s always been the backbone of Fort Morgan,´ said Zwetzig.

But the town has landed some other significant employers, like Leprino Foods in 1994.

“They were a fantastic addition to the community,´ said Zwetzig. “It was a major coup for the city.”

Leprino Foods, which primarily produces mozzarella cheese, employs about 260 people. Larry Jensen, Leprino corporate spokesman in Denver, said the company chose Fort Morgan when it decided to close its plant in southwest Nebraska and relocate to Colorado.

“I guess the primary reason was the principal supply of milk was located in Weld and Morgan counties, and Fort Morgan was geographically in the center,” Jensen said.

Fort Morgan’s gain was Sterling’s loss in 1998 when Excel Corp. closed down its Sterling plant and expanded its Fort Morgan facility. The meatpacking company employs more than 1,800 people, making it by far the biggest employer in Morgan County and the Northeastern Colorado region.

Residential growth in and around Fort Morgan has not been flashy but it has been steady through the 1990s, after stagnating in the 1980s. The city is adding new homes – primarily on its south side – and a thriving country subdivision called Morgan Heights with its own sewer and water district has sprung up a few miles north of town.

But one issue – water – is clouding the future of Fort Morgan’s development. Until last year, the city got its water from city wells. The water was unmetered and the cost was low. But the city wanted to provide a better quality of water for the future and secured voter approval for a new $40 million water-treatment plant and storage reservoir.

Ron Shaver, Fort Morgan utilities director, said the cost of the improvements was a shock to some.

“They went from unmetered water to some pretty significant rates,” he said. “As with anything, water is now a substantial part of development and adds substantial costs to developers.”

Brush

Just nine miles east of Fort Morgan lies its sister city, Brush. Although less diversified than Fort Morgan and without its county seat and higher-education amenities, Brush also has come through the 1990s with a fairly healthy economy, according to City Administrator Scott McClure.

Brush saw its population grow by about 1,000 residents during the ’90s, with a population now estimated at about 5,150.

McClure said the pace of growth is slow but steady, with about 15 to 20 new houses built each year.

But the town did suffer a slight blow to its economy in 1998 when the High Plains Youth Center – a detention center for teens open since 1988 – was closed by the state after a male juvenile committed suicide. As a result, 140 employees lost their jobs.

“We really anticipated we’d see more effect from that, but we really haven’t felt it,´ said McClure. “When it closed, we didn’t notice. It wasn’t a big shock.”

McClure said some High Plains employees moved to take other jobs. Others, thanks to a strong national economy, quickly found other jobs in the local area, he said. Still, McClure said Brush would like to see the now empty facility utilized.

“We’d welcome somebody to come back and reopen it,” he said.

McClure said Brush’s small downtown has seen several new businesses open, including a new Family Dollar department store. A new motel was recently built and a new assisted-living center opened last year.

McClure said even though growth is slow in Brush – estimated at less than 1 percent annually – it fits in with the local culture of small-town life.

“When you bring people in slow, you can blend them in easier,” he said.

McClure said while many Brush residents work in nearby Fort Morgan (“We’re almost an extended suburb,” he said), the town also employs many people in several local nursing homes and assisted-living centers and in two nearby power plants.

McClure said with all the local power generation and a pure water source from a nearby sand dune aquifer that needs no pretreatment, the town is poised to expand in the years ahead.

“Capacity wise, we’re good to about the year 2015 or 2020, he said.

But growth is already putting a strain on Brushs recreational resources. The town hopes to “de-Bruce” its revenues and seek a $3 million bond issue that would fund improvements in two parks.

“It’s much needed,´ said Lance Schwindt, recreation director. “Right now we have so many baseball and softball and soccer leagues that we can’t handle it with our current facilities.”

Morgan County

Located within easy driving distance to Denver-area sports teams and other big-city amenities, Morgan County has seen fairly strong growth in the latter 1990s, said Lisa Noble, Morgan County Economic Development Corp. executive director.

“Over the last five years things have really been steadily increasing,” Noble said. “We’re continuing to get more interest from the Front Range and the Denver area.”

Noble said she’s seeing growth “spread across the county,” with development in unincorporated areas generally outpacing growth in the cities and towns.

But some towns are growing rapidly. Wiggins, located in the westernmost part of Morgan County, has recently seen “a lot of residential growth” due to its proximity to Denver and Denver International Airport, Noble said.

“One of the biggest barriers” to rural and small-town development now is the lack of a high-speed Internet connection, Noble said. But that may be changing soon.

A statewide network is now in the first stages of being established to link rural communities to the Web, Noble said, which should dramatically help businesses in those areas and make them more attractive to new business.

Logan County and Sterling

Much farther away from the Denver and Front Range economic action is Sterling, the county seat of Logan County and home to Northeastern Junior College.

Out so far in the state’s northeast corner, Sterling continues to occupy its own economic sphere, a hub of employment and commerce for such tiny nearby communities as Atwood, Merino, Iliff and Fleming.

Sterling gained about 1,000 residents during the 1990s, now boasting a population of about 12,000 in a county with a total population of about 19,000.

“It’s been kind of slow and steady, with a normal increase from year to year,´ said Joanne Poret, Sterling city planner, of the city’s economic development. “For a while, things were looking bad, but about 1996 things started to change.”

Indeed, the early 1990s were tough for Sterling and the surrounding area.

“(Growth) was flat for the first couple years through the mid-’90s,´ said Ken Strohson, Logan County planner. “Over the past two years or so it’s been in the one-half to 2 percent range, with 1 percent being about average.”

It didn’t help that Excel Corp., a beef-producing facility and one of the area’s biggest employers, decided to move its operations to Fort Morgan in 1998. But helping to offset that loss – by far – was the addition that same year of Sterling Correctional Facility, the state’s newest and largest prison with 2,500 inmates and nearly 900 new jobs.

The new jobs at the prison are adding more than $81 million annually in paychecks spent in Sterling and other local communities, according to prison spokesman Major Lloyd Waide.

And things are looking up for Sterling in other ways, partly due to the prison opening and other local economic development. Housing permits doubled from 1998 to 1999. The local Kmart closed, but that was offset by the opening of a Wal-Mart Super-store. Gibson’s, another department store, closed in the 1990s but the building has been redeveloped into a home for smaller retail businesses. And the city has brought in other business, including Sykes Inc., a customer-support center for computer hardware and software that added 320 jobs to the city’s economic base.

Now, the city faces an unexpected dilemma, said Pam Gumina, Sterling’s assistant city manager. With one of the state’s lowest unemployment rates at about 3.5 percent, the problem now is finding enough people to fill any new jobs that can be lured to the area.

“It’s a big issue,” Gumina said. “Our labor pool is very short. When we look to expand our business, we have to be very realistic about what that means.”

Gumina said Sterling is now a great place to find work.

“If you’re unemployed in Sterling, it’s not because there isn’t a job,” she said.

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