FoCo in 15 Minutes | Passenger Rail Name, Oil Well Cleanup, Midtown Demolition & City Strategy

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This is Live in Fort Collins, where we come to you every week talking to you about things that are going on in Fort Collins, happening, things that happened, city council review, and what you can plan on doing this week. This week, we are just doing audio, which is super unique. So I'm staring straight ahead and not looking at any camera, but hopefully coming at you with some good, valuable content focused around Fort Collins in Northern Colorado, which we've seen public transportation in Northern Colorado always be kind of the center of all jokes. And, you know, we've got some opportunities with the bus staying and, you know, transfer, the max transit. I think that was like early like 2007's multi multi-million dollar project that essentially for all intents and purposes has fallen flat on its face. Ridership is down. City of Fort Collins is trying to rework its transit corridor system.

And over the years, we've seen landline go from, or United give bus options from Fort Collins, Loveland Airport to DIA, and bus staying going down to Denver. From there, you know, it's just always been something that we've struggled with here in Northern Colorado. And we shall see a front range passenger rail, which has recently been dubbed COCO, the Colorado Connector, not a huge fan of that name, but apparently it won 37% of more than 25,000 votes. And eventually this could be a 200 mile connecting rail, passenger rail from Cheyenne all the way down to I think even New Mexico at some point. But second phase, first phase is going to be Fort Collins to Denver. Love being on the first phase of it.

Implementation coming in in 2029 and second phase, Denver to Pueblo coming in at 2031. I think there's still a fair amount of unknowns. Apparently the 2029 implementation has already been funded and that is basically in the works getting ready to rock and roll. But 2031 will have to require some additional funding approval. From there, there could be, and I was really kind of annoyed at the governor's conversation about, yeah, well, there might be a little bit of a district within two miles, two to three miles of the rail system. And I'm like, yeah, from what I've seen, there could be some substantial sales tax. So hopefully everything is reasonable. The amenity outweighs the cost and people can have a second artery from Fort Collins to Denver by 2029. That being in tandem with the three lanes from Bertha to Meade finishing expectations in 2029, the economic artery that is Denver to Fort Collins, I-25, and now potentially the front range passenger rail.

So excited to see that kind of start to take shape. And additionally, moving from there, Larimer County is going to see 50 oil and gas wells plugged by 2028. Ten will be within Fort Collins. And I believe that is the last 10 wells within the Fort Collins boundary, Fort Collins proper boundary. Now in Larimer County, there are 460 active ones and about, there are 228 active wells and 460 inactive wells. It's always interesting as you're driving down and you're going through Larimer County and then especially Weld County, but then you cross over into Boulder County and essentially 0.0 wells there.

Well, Larimer County, city of Fort Collins teamed up. They essentially waived $1.7 million in penalties to Prospect Energy who operates many of these wells and are shutting them down. They are capping these wells. So that's an exciting thing because we have a neighborhood, Hearthfire, that is a pretty desirable location area right by the Country Club in North Fort Collins. And people are always interested in it, but we've had clients that have gone on a contract and know that there's oil and gas, done a little bit of research, spooked them. And they said, you know what? I don't care if it's right, wrong.

I don't want to expose myself to that. So here very shortly by 2028, we will have all oil, 15 additional oil and gas wells capped. If you have been driving around Midtown Fort Collins, you'll have noticed that the Spradley Bar is fully demolished. Now, it wasn't the most beautiful building, but apparently that was built in the 1960s and had some pretty cool design features to it. That being said, there is going to be a historic stone step that will be preserved. And I did drive by it just the other day and I saw this formidable step that is being preserved. So that'd be pretty cool. Currently it is projected to be a quick stop, a gas station on Draken College. So not the most exciting of exciting things, but there's still more lots to be developed. I believe there were four lots available to be developed on this. So City of Fort Collins, I think are moving some of their power stations over here. Quick stop's going to be here. They did have challenges with the old Sherwin-Williams building that was a historic building that couldn't be demolished, which kind of hindered some of these major development plans. That being said, it has been demolished. There's not going to be a used car dealership here. I thought one of the most interesting conversations was when one of the developers came in and the owner of the Spradley Bar, which at the final stages of its life was a Mazda. And they said, you know, these car dealerships have specific design guidelines that we're required to follow. And if we're going to get our lease or a license, I believe, renewed with Mazda, they're going to require a substantial development, which just doesn't make sense and we don't want to do it. So there's a couple options moving forward. Either A, we sell it and develop it into something new or B, we turn this place into a used car dealership. And I've talked about it before that College and Drake is really kind of the center point of Fort Collins at this point with how much development we've seen on the south side of Fort Collins. And no one wants to see a used car dealership at the center point of College and Drake. Save that stuff for North Fort Collins.

City Council, there was a meeting that was discussing an ERP system upgrade, kind of behind the scenes things. There was an update from the Poudre Fire Authority, as well as the district attorney, some good information and data in those. And then they approved 70 appointments for boards and commissions. One thing I've thought about doing, one, zero interest in city government as far as running for any type of council, campaigns, anything along those lines. But being a part of a board and commission could be really interesting. Specifically, I think planning and zoning. I just think there's a lot of cool developments that really don't ever get to the public eye or the first time anyone's reading about them or hearing about them. It's when the shovel's hitting the dirt and they're like, what's going on there? And even at that point, a lot of people are like, what's going on there after it's been halfway built? So a lot of cool information on some of these boards and commissions. Things to do this weekend. You've got the Horsethooth Half Marathon. I'm not a big runner myself, but this is kind of a fun one ending at New Belgium Brewery.

So you can kind of start and stop with the end in mind of going and having a couple of beers. I've never been a big under... I've never understood the drinking culture along with running. Now maybe, now I have had two, this is sad to say being in Fort Collins, I've had two refreshing beers. I enjoy having a glass of beer, drink a beer, a pint of beer, but I have had two refreshing beers in my life. And that was one when I was doing some landscape on the first house I bought right around in 2012. My wife and I went inside on a sunshine wheat and it was absolutely wonderful. The second one was a 90 shilling after a basketball game.

So while I don't fully understand it, I think if you're putting and exerting that much effort during a run, having a refreshing beer would probably be pretty tasty. From there, Great Western Trail Race on April 18th in Severance, Colorado. There is a third Friday foodie walk downtown from 5 to 8 p.m. The final Foothills Winter Farmers Market is this Saturday, Saturday, April 18th. Got a friend there. She sells soaps, some other makers items. So go support local vendors and food this Saturday at the Foothills Mall, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There's a polar plunge, which actually might be polar. I was thinking when I wrote this, or was kind of filling out the things to do this week, I was like, what polar are we talking about? It's been freaking hot. But we are going to see some freezing temperatures this weekend, which if you were like me, didn't look at the weather when you started up your sprinklers this past weekend because you looked at your grass and you're like, holy cow, it's dry as can be.

It needs some love. And you took it upon yourself to start up your sprinklers. And then, you know, lo and behold, you get a couple of people suggest to you like, hey, it's supposed to get freezing temperatures this weekend. I'm not going to blow them out, that's for sure. But I am concerned about my backflow preventer. So I am going to put, there's an insulating wrap around it. I'm going to do that. Should be okay for the few days, but it is going to drop into the high 20s, low 30s overnight, Thursday and Friday. So make sure to prepare for that. If you have started up your sprinkler systems, your underground sprinkler should be just fine. You know, it's not going to get the freeze temp. It's not going to get to that depth, but your backflow could. So just make sure to keep an eye on that, keep it insulated. But that is going to be in Windsor at Windsor Lake on April 18th, 8 AM to 2 PM, polar plunge, 5K run and fundraiser. And then finally, April 18th and 19th at the Ranch Events Complex, there's going to be a 3D printing festival, Showcase Maker's Marker Technology and Innovation. I am so excited for the future and like my kids, as far as what kind of games and toys they're going to be playing with. Because I mean, a 3D printer is pretty darn cool and I don't have any experience with it myself.

But between that and all the technology moving forward, I think things like this are just kind of cool. And so maybe we'll make a stop this Saturday out there. Otherwise, that is our first audio only thing, Fort Collins Live. And would love to know kind of what your thoughts are about the front range passenger rail. More than anything, I'm going to do a prerecorded video about that next week. And I'm going to kind of go into a little bit more depth about it. But I mean, my understanding is they're going to have three trips per day. And I don't know how many people it can hold, but if we're talking 50, 100, I just don't think that's going to... That doesn't move the needle. So you're talking 300 a day, but that is 300 people that are potentially off road of I-25. So what's the number that actually makes sense? And is this more of a gimmick thing like, hey, we have the front range passenger rail, or does it truly open up economic opportunities, especially in places like Meade, where now all of a sudden you're potentially along the rail system and you get a major municipality built out because now there's a stop there. And it could be pretty engaging for people like, hey, listen, I don't have to pay Fort Collins prices and I don't have to pay Denver prices, but I get to enjoy them both. So I'd love to know what your thoughts are about the front range passenger rail. Appreciate you guys listening. And until next week, have a great day.