Amid the Colorado Eagles’ cheerleaders and mascot, EDM music, hoots and hollers and silver shovels, Mayor John Gates decided to address the elephant in the room.
Gates, the rest of Greeley’s city council and other key community members were there to break ground on a project that would make Greeley the home of the Colorado Eagles hockey team, complete with a shiny new arena, a huge indoor water park and, they hope, lots of retail. But Gates, one of Greeley’s most popular mayors because of the way he tries to build bridges to resolve dissent, wanted to reach out one more time during his speech.
“I want to acknowledge that there are some with opposing views on this project,” Gates said of the project, which envisions converting 834 acres of agricultural land at the western edge of Greeley into an entertainment district using more than $800 million in public funding. “Cities are often faced with tough decisions. I can confidently say that we are ready to take on this transformative development and that all of Greeley will benefit.”
Well, not quite.
No project in Greeley’s history divided the city more than Catalyst, the city-owned entertainment district, and Cascadia, the adjacent mixed-use development that Eagles owner Martin Lind plans to build to accompany it. The anger was apparent even on Sept. 24, the day of the groundbreaking: When the Greeley City Council was introduced, no one acknowledged the fact that two of its members, Tommy Butler and Deb DeBoutez, weren’t there.
Now, because of a petitions that challenged the plan, the Greeley City Council will ask residents to decide Feb. 24 whether to approve the zoning on the project, or reject it. Rejecting it would delay the estimated $830 million project or even kill it. That’s what Butler argued at the Dec. 2 council meeting: Voters who reject the zoning change would send a clear message that Catalyst should be changed or stopped. Other council members wouldn’t commit to that thinking just yet, although Councilwoman Melissa McDonald, as the question was being referred to voters, did say “your voices are being heard.”
The months-long fight was contentious and, at times, childish. Both sides accused each other of using dark money and ulterior motives and opponents of the project claimed they were forcibly removed from a meeting the way a bouncer would throw out an angry drunk. Lind sued Pam Bricker and Dan Wheeler, two Greeley residents, for helping to lead the effort to gather signatures and for speaking out against the Cascadia plan, saying his reputation was harmed.
Developer Martin Lind speaks about his latest mixed-used development plan, Cascadia, and the city owned Catalyst entertainment district that will be anchored by a new arena for his hockey team, the Colorado Eagles, at a groundbreaking Sept. 24, 2025. (Handout photo)Lind gloated at the premature groundbreaking, praising four people who made up a private group named Greeley Forward that challenged an earlier petition, eventually leading to its dismissal. This group included Leonard Wiest, Greeley’s former city manager who was now CFO of Water Valley, Lind’s Windsor development that marked him as a major player in real estate development and the Northern Colorado economy.
“Those people need a round of applause,” Lind said of the four, “because they kicked their ass.”
That was just round one, as it turns out, and many city leaders say they think the next round will be even bloodier.
The project itself is an interesting enough debate without all the low blows. There hasn’t been a bigger development in the city’s history. And despite all the rancor, those on both sides agree it’s a cool project.
It’s the kind of project that Greeley officials in the past had to envy as its Larimer County neighbors swam in opportunities such as Centerra in Loveland. Greeley is up the U.S. 34 a bit from Interstate 25, and there was always the feeling that everyone, including its own residents, viewed it as a second-class cow town. Gates didn’t want to gloat at the groundbreaking, but he did want to brag a bit.
“I could not be more proud. I truly believe that today will be remembered as one of the most important days in Greeley’s history,” Gates said.
And yet opponents believe that Greeley’s desire to be seen in northern Colorado has created blind optimism. The big opportunity, they fear, could not only cost Greeley its future but leave it bankrupt.
“It keeps me up at night,” Butler, the Greeley councilman, said.
A new nest for the Eagles
A couple years ago, Raymond Lee, Greeley’s city manager at the time, met with Lind to talk about the city’s future. He liked Windsor’s Water Valley, a subdivision that promoted a lifestyle around water. Lind, in recent years, had shifted his attention to building places that promoted family fun, such as Hoedown Hill, a ski and tubing resort that also hosted concerts from bands such as Third Eye Blind in the summer.
The meeting was meant for Lind to be an advisor, not a developer. But when Lind’s plans for a similar development didn’t work out in the Ranch area fronting I-25 in Larimer County, Greeley was happy to welcome him in.
“I was honored,” Lind said of the meeting with Lee, who was recently hired as city administrator in Portland, Oregon. “Rather than grow a quarter-mile at a time, they wanted a bold vision. It’s got the potential to change Greeley for sure.”
They came up with Catalyst, an entertainment district owned and built by the city and anchored by a hockey arena large enough to provide three sheets of ice and a venue for concerts large enough to attract music and shows the city has trouble getting outside of the Greeley Stampede each summer. There will also be a 100,000-square-foot indoor water park, a concept popularized by Great Wolf Lodge with locations around the country including Colorado Springs, a full-service conference hotel, plus 3 million square feet of retail and restaurants and businesses. Lind’s Cascadia will be a mixed-use community with neighborhoods, parks and office space.
Greeley needs to build the entertainment district, or the arena at least, by 2028 because that’s when the Eagles plan to move in. In September, the city signed a 40-year agreement with the team that starts for the 2028-29 season. The agreement, Gates said at the time, ensures “Greeley will be home to professional hockey for decades.”
Cheerleaders and the Colorado Eagles mascot helped celebrate a groundbreaking for the City of Greeley’s Catalyst project on Sept. 24, 2025. The project would include the new home of the Eagles starting in the 2028-29 season. (Dan England, Special to The Colorado Sun)Analysis by CBRE, an international commercial real estate group, suggests the Catalyst entertainment district could spur nearly $500 million in construction spending and generate $44 million a year in new tax revenue.
Opponents who filed a petition, and the two council members who voted against Catalyst, dispute just how much revenue the city will take in, but they don’t really dispute that it is a exciting opportunity for Greeley.
“We aren’t opposed to the project. It might be a great thing for everybody,” Bricker said in an interview. Bricker, who helped circulate petitions and spoke out against it, is the former director of the Downtown Development Authority and a longtime Greeley resident who founded the Greeley Creative District, the Greeley Blues Jam with her husband, Al, and helped grow the Weld Food Bank. “We just don’t want to have a billion dollars from our city to pay for it.”
That, in a nutshell, is what sparked the opposition in the first place. Why is Greeley spending so much money to develop a project itself instead of having Lind, or someone else, do it? And why is Greeley putting itself at risk?
Well, Lind isn’t a commercial developer, for one thing, but the real reason goes beyond specialties: The city contends that the project likely wouldn’t happen otherwise, said Winna Ironkwe, a city spokesperson.
Good, quality development, the kind that Greeley struggles to attract, needs to be incentivized, Ironkwe said, which is not unusual. Greeley is handicapped by its distance from I-25, and it needs a reason to get retailers to choose Greeley over the more affluent Fort Collins and Loveland. Even Johnstown, with 20,000 residents, or one-fifth the population of Greeley, has a big shopping center right off of I-25.
“There are other options outside of Greeley,” Ironkwe said, “so why choose Greeley?”
The city believes the Eagles can be a successful economic development tool — businesses and restaurants around its current home at The Ranch are evidence. Catalyst, therefore, is an investment to attract the kind of retail Greeley desires.
There are indicators that Greeley really needs that retail. It’s residents are shopping elsewhere, leaving their tax dollars in other communities, Ironkwe said.
“We see people go to Centerra and Fort Collins, and those are dollars that are leaving Greeley,” Ironkwe says. “What can we bring here so people don’t have to leave Greeley and we can keep those revenues?”
Sales taxes, not just property taxes, pay for the services residents need to thrive. Greeley is, quite frankly, growing faster than the city’s ability to pay for those services. In fact, Greeley will surpass Fort Collins in population by 2026, but the Greeley doesn’t have near the retail shopping centers.
“We need a tax base to keep up a level of service our residents expect,” Ironkwe said. “We have to find it somewhere.”
“I felt railroaded”
Mary Metzger was an involved, informed citizen. She did not intend to get into politics. But that changed after a meeting about the Catalyst project hosted by the city a year ago.
“I went there with the expectation that they would inform the citizens,” she said. “They didn’t. It was an infomercial.”
She wondered why the city was taking what she thought was a huge risk for a hockey rink and a water park, but officials didn’t allow her to ask questions about the project.
“I was offended by that,” she said. “I felt railroaded.”
Metzger and other residents spoke at a contentious Greeley City Council meeting on May 6, but the council voted 5-2, with DeBoutez and Butler opposing, to approve an ordinance that authorizes the city to fund the project using Certificates of Participation (COPs), a method that puts up city buildings as collateral to secure a loan.
Suzanne Taheri, a Denver lawyer representing Greeley Deserves Better, a group opposing Catalyst, said Metzger’s experience was pretty common in those city presentations.
“They were pretty opaque about it,” Taheri said. “Nothing was said about the financing. I don’t think people really understood it until the ordinance was passed.”
The city did post an extensive report on its Speak Up Greeley website that includes detailed explanations of the financing, how much it will cost and who will pay for it.
Unsatisfied with the council’s decision, Metzger joined Bricker and others to gather signatures for a petition that would put the COP funding mechanism before the voters. They worked with but didn’t join Greeley Deserves Better because Bricker and Metzger believed, as did the group and its other members, that a project that big deserved a vote by the people, and the way the city was paying for the project made them nervous.
The group hired paid circulators to gather signatures, but many others, such as Metzger and Bricker, also worked long hours. They turned in more than 8,000 signatures — people who signed needed to live in Greeley and be registered to vote — and verified 5,538 signatures, 1,000 more than the 10% from the last city election that was required.
This is when Greeley Forward, a group that supported Catalyst and Cascadia, stepped in to challenge the petition. The group included Weist and Zach Bliven, the owner of Gibson Energy; John DeWitt, a real estate agent and former chairman of the Greeley Stampede; and Tom Hacker, a former spokesman for the City of Loveland and a former business reporter for the Greeley Tribune and other publications. Greeley Deserves Better was represented by Bricker and Dan Wheeler, a commercial real estate agent and developer, and others.
At the hearing, both attorneys made a few legal arguments back and forth that would test our readers’ patience beyond what’s already written here. Karen Goldman, the hearing officer, ruled in favor of Greeley Forward and, essentially, the city, finding that the ordinance was administrative and the petition was invalid. This issue is still working its way through the courts. But with the issue now going before voters, it may not matter, at least not right now.
How accurate is the forecast?
Catalyst’s opponents have questioned CBRE’s revenue forecasts. Forecasting is, of course, a tricky business.
“Some of the financial assumptions are just wild,” said Michelle Lyng, the spokeswoman for Greeley Deserves Better. “They’re overestimating the draws of the Eagles by a factor of many.”
Catalyst’s home, right now, is an agricultural field, without any neighbors, and even when the arena and water park are built, opponents worry that it will take too long for those additional draws to crop up.
“It’s an area in the middle of a field,” Butler said. “If you were there, why would you put up a restaurant in the middle of a field?”
The concept plan for West Greeley includes about 100 acres devoted to the Catalyst entertainment district anchored by an arena for the Colorado Eagles, the minor league hockey team now based at The Ranch in Larimer County. (City of Greeley map)Butler acknowledges that if the project is the success it’s projected to be by CBRE, the city would get back the money it invested and more. He agrees that Greeley suffers from what city leaders call “leakage,” aka residents who live in Greeley but shop elsewhere. But Butler objects to the city spending so much to get it.
“There are a lot cheaper ways to get retail,” Butler said. “West Greeley has a high median income. We need to be proactive. We can pitch businesses.”
In addition to the hundreds of millions the city will spend on construction, Greeley also pledges to make an annual $12 million economic development payment to cover what is essentially a mortgage on Catalyst. In other words, if there isn’t enough revenue to cover the mortgage the $12 million should close the gap.
“We can’t afford that,” Caldwell said. “Where is that money coming from?”
Greeley, in fact, can afford it, Ironkwe said, without reducing services or raising taxes. The money comes from its general fund. The users, or tenants, will pay for water, sewer and other utilities, and a special taxing district will handle infrastructure improvements.
“Things are tight,” she said, “but this is an investment. We need to invest in economic development.”
If voters give the go-ahead, the city believes all project costs will be paid off by 2038. If the vote goes the other way, Lind and the city could come back with another proposal, but they would have to wait a year to try again.
The city will continue to work on the land, as it can do some things under its current zoning for agriculture, in the hopes that residents will vote for the project. Greeley Deserves Better, which changed its name to Greeley Demands Better because of the second petition, says its own polling shows that residents will reject it.
Regardless of what happens, residents got their wish: The chance to vote on the proposal.
“It’s all we’ve asked for,” Bricker said.
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