Infrastructure is a huge piece of a proposed hotel, hockey arena and water park in west Greeley, and Greeley leaders are considering creating a general improvement district to fund it. Creating such a district, however, could help other development already on the books out west.
The city of Greeley is still crunching numbers and working out deals to bring the $1.1 billion proposed project to fruition. City leaders intend on bringing a deal to the city council this month for approval. Part of the deal is understanding the finance puzzle that is necessary to fund the project, which as presented included creating a nonprofit entity to take out the bonds, creating a general improvement district and floating bonds for water and sewer improvements.
Last week, Community Development Director Brian McBroom sat the council down in a work session to explain general improvement districts, which is being considered as one piece of the funding puzzle to finance the project, which is just north of U.S. 34 and east of Weld County Road 17.
“The GID has started to factor very large in the overall financial model,” McBroom explained to the council. “I like to think of a GID as a supersized metropolitan district. The goal is to fund infrastructure. It allows growth to pay its own way. They can then be paid for by properties that benefit from those projects.”
With development going that direction anyway, the infrastructure would have to be built out anyway. For Windsor developer Martin Lind — who brought the Cascadia project to Greeley — it becomes a concept of “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
“You could have the lowest taxes in the world, but if you don’t have an interchange, nobody’s coming,” Lind explained in an interview about how a general improvement district will generally improve the entire west side of Greeley.
At present, two other major developments are on the books: Delantero, an 800-acre chiefly residential development west of Colo. 257, and south of U.S. 34, and Uptown, which is more commercially focused, abutting Delantero and stretching west to Weld 17. Groundwork on both developments, directly south of the proposed Cascadia site, has yet to get started, but they would both be in the general radius of a Cascadia GID.
As originally proposed, the Infrastructure costs of the Cascadia project come out to roughly $183 million, which includes stretching gas, electric and telecommunication services to the site west from Promontory, the city’s westernmost development. Revamping the intersection of Weld 17 and U.S. 34, as well as building a bridge over U.S. 34, also are huge parts of the infrastructure plan, improvements upon which all westward development will need to rely.
Delantero and Uptown could piggyback on Cascadia’s infrastructure, which could usher their development in faster.
For A.J. Roche, director of project development for Roche Constructors Inc., having Uptown be a part of a general improvement district could solve some initial problems he has encountered.
“We’ve been told the intersection improvements were going to happen in 2028, and the stadium would be completed by 2028, so the infrastructure would line up with that for the initial phase (of our project),” Roche said. “We wouldn’t be able to put anything on our site without that intersection being improved.”
Additionally, Roche was at first having to look toward connecting sanitary sewer both to Windsor and the Delantero project.
“It would more clearly define what we are doing with that,” Roche said of the possibility of being involved with an intergovernmental agreement (IGA). “For us, it’s more like the question of sanitary sewer. Where does that go? We have an IGA with Windsor. Early on two years ago, they thought a portion of that could tie into Windsor. And the other portion of our site would flow east through Delantero. Now they’re just saying we’d go straight north to a regional lift station. It makes things simpler for us, because we wouldn’t have to do anything on our site for a lift station.”
Roche said he has yet to have formal discussions with the city about potential inclusion in a GID.
Richard Dean, principal in Stratus Companies CBB-I LLC, which has been working on Delantero for the past four years, said if Cascadia does come to fruition, there is still time to adjust their infrastructure plans if they are included in the GID.
“I do think that everyone working together will benefit the whole region in terms of traffic and infrastructure,” Dean said. “Cascadia will enhance the value of our property, but it also creates the infrastructure. I’m excited about it. But we are a little ahead of where they are” in the development of the project.
Lind said of Delantero: “I think they see the value in not having to be the pioneer in west Greeley, but actually being able to piggyback on it. The GID can solve for an awful lot of upfront costs for them.”
In his presentation to the city council, McBroom explained that he could think of few drawbacks to creating a GID, which at present is being modeled for 12 mills in property tax. One drawback, he said, is being mindful that such a district, and other metropolitan districts that could come with the infill developments in Cascadia, don’t add up to such high prices that the project loses its competitive advantage when trying to attract retailers and office users.
“We’re mostly talking about vacant land, so there’s a low assessed value, which means borrowing power is fairly low,” McBroom said. “The GID debt will occur in phases, as assessed value increases, the borrowing power increases. It may be necessary to phase in the large infrastructure pie as the assessed value allows. This could be an additional property tax that properties in the GID would have to pay, and we would need to be mindful of the total tax burden of properties in the GID.”
All things being equal, higher prices on one end could balance out the other, Lind said. Greeley is generally considered to have cheaper water-tap fees, and lower taxes than other Northern Colorado cities. Consequently, housing prices are lower.
“The GID has to bring value,” Lind said. “That’s a billion-dollar deal. You can’t have broken infrastructure getting to it, if you have the ability to be a bit more expensive but still have all your companies’ success because the traffic moves, it’s the tide that rises all boats.”
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