The Foothills mobile home park nears approval

FORT COLLINS — A mobile home community with room for 201 units on 52 acres is nearing a start date with a Fort Collins Planning & Zoning Commission review Thursday.

The Foothills has wended its way through about two years of approvals and five rounds of modifications and responses to questions and community input. This most recent and likely final nod involves allowing about 2.5 acres of pocket parks to replace the one-acre park ordinarily required.

Approving the project development plan means the applicant can begin to apply for permits.

The applicant is Sun Land Development. Sun Land is an affiliate of Sun Communities Inc. (NYSE: SUI), a Michigan-based real estate investment trust with $1.8 billion in annual revenue and a $23 billion market cap.

Sun Communities owns and runs mobile home parks, RV parks and resorts and marinas, with 10 mobile home communities in Colorado: Skyline and Timber Ridge in Fort Collins, and others in Dillon, Granby, Larkspur, Firestone, Evans and Pueblo.

The 10 communities in Colorado had 3,440 developed spaces with 1,225 undeveloped and 99% occupancy, as of June 30. Companywide Sun owned, operated or held stakes in 569 U.S. properties and 153,300 spaces.

In August, a Sun affiliate bought 127 acres in Weld County for $4 million, with plans to develop a mobile home community in Fort Lupton called Willow Bend.

The Foothills is at 6750 S. College Ave., southeast of the intersection of South College Avenue and East Trilby Road. About 10% of its acreage is wetlands.

Earlier this month, the Hickory Village mobile home park in Fort Collins sold to an out-of-state buyer for $23.3 million.

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