FORT MORGAN — Just as there is no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy or debt consolidation company wanting to ease your burden out of the goodness of its heart, HGTV and its hit series “Home Town Takeover” aren’t going to transform an entire village without some strings attached.
And no Colorado town knows that better than Fort Morgan, which was chosen for a major facelift for the show’s second season that aired over six episodes starting in May 2023. But as the town of 12,000 people about 80 miles east of Denver rounds the corner to the three-year anniversary of its makeover, the question is: Was it all it was cracked up to be? According to Brent Nation, Fort Morgan’s town manager … it’s complicated.
“Home Town Takeover” follows celebrity hosts Ben and Erin Napier as they attempt to revitalize small towns struggling with falling populations, dying main streets and economic decline by renovating homes, sprucing up local businesses and creating public spaces to “boost community pride and economic growth.”
The only requirements a town needs to be featured are that it have fewer than 40,000 residents, a main street in need of love and historic architecture that can add to the town’s charm if it is uncovered.
A Fort Morgan resident threw the town’s name in the hat with 5,000 other towns vying to be on the show because big dividends were at stake. Producers would choose six businesses, six homes and six common spaces for a turbo-charged version of the show, which debuted in 2021.
There was also proof that being chosen could generate big outcomes: The town featured in season one, Wetumpka, Alabama, was picturesque enough to have been a shooting location for several Hollywood films in the 1990s and 2000s, but population loss, financial hardships and a category 2 tornado had reduced it to a shell of itself by 2019. After HGTV came along in 2020, Wetumpka’s sales tax revenue increased by more than 300%, downtown area vacancies declined 11% and a spike in tourism spurred town leaders to create its first tourism department.
Fort Morgan was no Wetumpka, in part because it wasn’t struggling all that much when “Home Town Takeover” producers first visited in June 2022. Its population was on a slight incline, its median income was rising, it had (and has) ample jobs between its agriculture and food processing industries and it has fairly solid sales tax revenue as a hub for thousands of area workers.
A mural depicting a bass fish decorates a grain bin adjacent to Colorado Highway 76, Tuesday, December 2, 2025 in Fort Morgan Colorado. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)But its agricultural roots, diverse population, “quintessential small-town feel” and “charming but struggling main street” won over producers. And then they struck a deal with the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade that made a potential takeover even more appealing.
In early 2022, HGTV approached the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media about film incentives when they were scouting Colorado locations for season two of “Home Town Takeover.” That April, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved a Colorado Film Incentive in the form of a performance-based rebate of up to 20% for qualified production expenses. OEDIT spokesperson Alissa Johnson said HGTV anticipated spending more than $2.4 million during filming, generating almost $270,000 in taxes with 19 local hires as part of the production. So the economic development commission approved “Home Town Takeover” for a rebate of up to $490,173.
When then-mayor Lyn Deal heard about the opportunity that August, she said she believed the show could make Fort Morgan “pop” into a more affluent, liveable, tourism-attracting region.
But not everyone would love how HGTV would conduct itself or what it would ask for in return.
Good luck or a headache?
Among the 18 projects the takeover would encompass were several building renovations, some facade fix-ups, a few home remodels and a couple of town-center improvements.
But before anyone knew what they’d be, lifelong resident and artist Ann Iungerich quietly put together Fort Morgan’s application materials without telling the city. It wasn’t until HGTV chose Fort Morgan in its first round of selections that the town found out it was in the running, said Nation. And only then did producers start “having conversations” with people who’d have to help them.
Producers wanted assurances they would have the town’s services if it was chosen. No surprise: It takes municipal coordination to make a TV show work.
“But when they started to come to town, they started to kind of pull us aside as they needed us, saying we had to sign a nondisclosure agreement and they needed to start having meetings with planning and zoning about the remodels, what inspections looked like, expectations, their street closures and all that stuff,” said Nation, who was utilities director at the time.
Then Fort Morgan the financial commitments the town would have to make started coming into focus.
In a community meeting, Deal said “it was possible, even probable,” that its commitments could create dividends in multitudes for the community, wrote the Fort Morgan Times.
The Young Compressor Station, an oil and gas processing and storage facility, as seen Friday, March 21, 2025, in Fort Morgan. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)She pointed to free advertising the city would get when the shows aired, like Wetumpka did, when 24 million viewers tuned in for its town takeover. But the Fort Morgan Times reported donations “thus far, with one small estimate, measured almost $49,000” and “included fee waivers, grant funding, contributions of staff time and road maintenance costs on Beaver Avenue.”
And Nation said that didn’t include the headache the town would encounter when things like streets needed shutting down, or “the talent was coming to town.”
Once the takeover was underway, they would get calls from producers “at 7 or 8 a.m. saying, ‘we need the 200 block of Main Street closed off at night’ or the stars were coming and they needed more security,” he said.
When the latter happened, they’d “get 24-hours notice” and have to scramble for extra officers.
“And that’s the other wild thing, the stars, they’re here for very little actual filming,” he said. “The contractors and everyone are doing the work behind the scenes. Then the actors come in and they’re all like, ‘Hey, look what we did. We just made this.’ No, you didn’t. But you get to see the Hollywood side of that.”
Yet town employees were “constantly responding at a moment’s notice to what their schedule was, and it was tough because everything that had a physical build involved some type of inspection. So our building inspectors were having to go to houses and make sure things were done correctly,” and if they weren’t, the town would have to instruct the contractors to change them.
Nation wanted to tell The Colorado Sun about the “financial aspects” of things like added people power. But he couldn’t because HGTV is “very specific that we’re not supposed to disclose in any interviews the financial ramifications of the show,” he said.
Some loved it
It was a different story for some of those on the receiving end of the takeover, though.
The Queen Lounge received exterior work, a new sign, a stage and installation of a decorative panel ceiling, The Fort Morgan Times reported. The total value of that work was $52,500, with $26,000 in supplies purchased in town, including use taxes of $1,040.
All home and businesses owners pay for their own renovations on these shows including Zazzy Cafe, which received a new wall, awning, flooring and lighting — work valued at $56,374, with $23,000 in supplies purchased in town including use taxes of $920.
One residential property received a substantial remodel that generated a use tax of $2,839.52.
And Mosqueda Delicacies, an upscale ice cream shop, received a makeover that owner Gloria Mosqueda said led to a surge in business once the episode about it aired.
“They took over the shop for eight weeks to do the remodel,” she said. The timing was perfect, because she needed surgery and “a sign” from God that she should do it. Being chosen was the sign. And after her segment aired, in June 2023, she said business went crazy.
The interior of Mosqueda Delicacies as seen Friday, March 21, 2025, in Fort Morgan. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)Before the show, she and her sister would tally up the number of visitors they had in a day, “and I think the most we had in a weekend was maybe 30 or 40,” she said. “But when the show was going to air, they really promoted it,” and afterward a guest book she made to capture all of their new business filled with “hundreds and hundreds of comments.”
Other projects that saw spikes included China Grove Apparel, the town’s only edgy clothing store at the time; Morgan Lanes bowling alley, for which the artist Iungerich created a 9-foot-tall bowling pin and 5-foot-tall bowling ball that sit in front of it; and Just Rustic Custom Woodworking, which benefited twofold because owner Jason Labonte spent three months doing contract work for the show.
New murals, helping to identify Fort Morgan as an “oasis on the plains,” were also painted on two grain bins and on properties at the intersection of Main Street and Railroad Avenue.
And Beaver Avenue, adjacent to the town park, named after the big band artist Glenn Miller, was blocked off and transformed into a full-time pedestrian park, said Nation.
“We put up blockades and closed it off to traffic,” he added. “They put in these little bench areas to sit in and we had these little grain bins that were supposed to be used as kiosks people could sell stuff in.”
But after nearly three years, some of the takeover’s success stories are gone or degrading.
After the takeover
Nation said the planter boxes on Beaver Avenue, “not the best quality construction,” ended up falling apart, and that at a certain point, “people started clamoring that they wanted the street reopened.”
Then unhoused people started sleeping in the grain bins, he added, so they were removed “for public safety.”
A quick search of China Grove Apparel and Zazzy Cafe shows both are “permanently closed.”
Brent Nation stands for a portrait, Tuesday, December 2, 2025 in Glenn Miller Park in Fort Morgan. (Jeremy Sparig, Special to The Colorado Sun)And while a mural on one side of Main Street and Railroad Avenue is still bright and vibrant, one across from it is fading.
“I don’t know if they just didn’t use as good of paint on (the drab one), but it’s definitely in need of some rehab,” Nation said. But one of the good things that came out of the takeover is that the town now has Affiliated Main Street Community status and is working toward full accreditation with the Colorado Main Street Program through the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, he said.
And even though Fort Morgan didn’t see the same success as Wetumpka, town documents show it did see a sales tax spike of more than $300,000 between the months of April, when the takeover started, and June, when it ended.
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