3 days Ago By Dallas Heltzell
GREELEY — Despite hearing more than two and a half hours of comments from members of the public, many of whom opposed the project, the Greeley City Council on Tuesday voted to advance plans for a massive $1.1 billion arena, hotel and water-park development for the city’s western gateway that includes a complex and risky financing plan.“Big night, lots of opinions, but I think Greeley changed Northern Colorado tonight,” said Windsor-based developer Martin Lind, the project’s driving force, by telephone after the vote.
“The success of this project is now of the utmost importance, and we’re starting now, putting the right ingredients into the sausage maker to end with a perfect product.”Proposed by Lind’s Water Valley Co., the project at Weld County Road 17 and U.
S. 34 would include a core entertainment district dubbed “Catalyst” with a new arena and home for Lind’s Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team, three sheets of ice for youth hockey programs, a high-end 351-room hotel, a spa and conference center, a 100,000-square-foot 12-slide water park that Lind predicts would attract 350,000 visitors a year, a central plaza as a gathering space designed for community events and socializing, and a “Cascadia Falls” water feature with an adjoining amphitheater.The city of Greeley would purchase the land for the entertainment district from Lind’s companies, which has been systematically buying parcels in the area.
Meanwhile, Water Valley would own “Cascadia,” an adjacent mixed-use project that is anticipated to include 11,248 single-family units, 4,980 multifamily units, 1.65 million square feet of retail space and more than 8.9 million square feet of non-retail commercial space.
Lind said the residential element would offer a range of housing options across the spectrum that would support Greeley’s goal of providing accessible and affordable housing.To make the project work, however, the city is being asked to provide “moral obligation funding,” a financing mechanism through which a government pledges a moral — but not legally binding — commitment to a project or debt.Among the items the council approved were:• A Pre-Development Services Agreement with a Water Valley entity called Trollco Inc.
for providing master development services for the “Catalyst” project to include design and construction of the new arena, ice center, hotel, water park and supporting public improvements, to be compensated through a fee-for-services arrangement.• First reading of an ordinance concerning financing of the PDSA as well as certificates of participation related to the lease-purchase agreement.• A resolution expressing the intent of the city to be reimbursed for certain expenses relating to pre-development services for the design and construction of the entertainment district.
The financing plan for what still is dubbed the “West Greeley Project” has four major components:• Issuance of $115 million in certificates of participation, or COPs, which would be used in stages to fund pre-development activities from schematic designs all the way through earth moving.• Bond financing of around $832 million through a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, with the city having a moral obligation on the reserve fund by maintaining it at $33.2 million on an annual basis.
For any year in which the project didn’t generate revenue, the city would be obligated to make sure that the reserve fund remains whole.• Annual economic-development payments of $12 million, increasing by 2% annually.• Formation of a general improvement district that would provide $129 million for onsite infrastructure and amenities, including $55 million of enterprise funds for water and wastewater improvements that would be repaid from the GID over time.
By 2032, the city estimates, the bulk of that payment would be covered by revenue from the project, and by 2038 more-than-sufficient revenue should be available to cover the economic-development efforts.But council members Tommy Butler and Deb Deboutez bristled at the project’s cost, the risk in using other city properties as collateral, and the possibility that huge expenditures would drain money needed for some high-profile downtown projects.The moral obligation “will lower the city’s credit rating, and all these other projects will be more expensive,” Butler said.
“If you can’t afford something, you shouldn’t buy it. This project is one of those things,” he said. Contending that “the numbers don’t add up,” calling the proposed development “not fiscally responsible” and citing “a graveyard of failed arena projects” including the Future Legends sports park in Windsor and the 1stBank Center being demolished in Broomfield, Butler said failure this time would mean “deep cuts to already underfunded city programs and services.
”He pointed out that Lind’s development “is closer to two other cities’ downtowns than ours,” and stated that Windsor’s central core is nine minutes away, while Johnstown’s is eight minutes away, but “our downtown is 25 minutes away during rush hour.”Deboutez said she was “not opposed to development in west Greeley, but I just don’t think we need to completely finance it. This is a billion-dollar project, and we’re going to start collateralizing all our assets.
“We have limited capacity to invest in downtown, which this council unanimously supported,” she said. “After the COPs are extended, we will take out bonds and cover the cost of construction for more than $800 million instead of asking the voters for a dedicated source to pay for the financing.”Deboutez contended that the plan creates “the largest moral obligation ever taken by a municipality in the state.
In fact, it is twice the moral obligation of the city of Denver for Union Station and the Colorado Convention Center combined.”She said the water park could be successful, but that others in the area — including Water World in Federal Heights and the Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs — are in much larger metropolitan areas.“I think this is too risky to take on,” she said.
“We need to slow this down, investigate more, and let’s put some money into COPs for downtown.”Councilman Brett Payton, however, said the idea that Greeley would be choosing Lind’s project over major initiatives downtown is a “false dichotomy.”Loveland, he said, “has figured out how to have a retail center and rebuild their downtown too.
Just because we make an investment somewhere doesn’t mean we give up on somewhere else.”Council member Johnny Olson agreed with that sentiment.“This isn’t a choice between West Greeley and downtown,” he said.
“We’re saying yes to both. Fear cannot be the thing that holds us back.“It’s about Greeley’s future,” he said.
“It helps fund things we’ve been needing for years.”Pointing out that 30% to 35% of Greeley’s tax dollars are spent in other cities, Olson said “people leave town to shop and find entertainment, and we lose that money every single day. This project helps reverse that trend and gives residents a reason to stay, spend and invest here, keep the dollars local, strengthen our economy and build our tax base.
”Even if Lind’s project were to fail, Payton said, “we’ve still got the land, and growth is coming.”Legal advisor Dalton Kelley, an attorney at Denver-based Butler Snow LLP, echoed Payton’s comment, adding that if “the city owns the land, the city owns the plan.”Responding to questions about offering discounts to area residents, Lind noted that “this is your ice.
You can do any discounting you want. And if you do, guess who’s going to want to move their kids to Greeley.”Fielding a question from Butler about why Larimer County last year first accepted, then rejected, Lind’s plan for an upgraded arena at The Ranch Events Complex, Lind said Larimer officials “didn’t take the time to invest in third-party consultants to vet this out like you did.
”And just in case the Greeley council turned down his project, Lind said, “the mayor of Johnstown came (during the council meeting) and said they’ll take us if you don’t want us.”Mayor John Gates said that “to fund a project of this size without a tax increase, I would have never said that was possible. I don’t believe failure has ever been an option for Martin Lind.
”In case Greeley residents were to launch a petition drive to overturn the council’s approval, as Timnath voters did to stop a Topgolf facility and Fort Collins voters did twice to force their city council to repeal changes it had made to the city’s land use code, Lind said he wouldn’t be worried.“I’ve been through referendums before” in the 1990s, he said, “and we landslided that vote. So we’re up to the challenge and would enthusiastically take it on.
”Asked to outline his next steps, Lind said the first one might be catching up on sleep for about a week, but then “we’re going to be super busy. This was a vote to start the engines.”This article was first published by BizWest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement.
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