FoCo set to dissolve metro district

FORT COLLINS — The City Council Tuesday is likely to dissolve a residential metro district, thought to be the first time it will have made such a move.

“I don’t believe we’ve ever done this,” said Clay Frickey, redevelopment program manager for the city. Commercial developments where the infrastructure has been built out and the mill levy is no longer part of the picture have dissolved their metro district structure, he said. This dissolution is different.

The move isn’t controversial as the original developer, who had seen the project through entitlements, didn’t begin work or borrow money. A new developer, with as-yet unrevealed plans, is requesting the dissolution.

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Waterfield was set by spring 2019 for 498 townhomes and single-family detached units with 10% of them affordable housing under new urbanist design principles — smaller lots and yards, pedestrian-focused, and with rear-entrance garages tucked behind homes to enhance views from the street.

Public benefits required for metro district approval in this case included energy efficiency, transportation-focused changes, and public spaces. Costs of a half-dozen of these elements were estimated at $30 million, the dissolution proposal in the council packet said.

The previous developer, Denver-based Thrive Home Builders LLC, backed out of Waterfield this year. Fort Collins-based Post Modern Development LLC is now heading it up.

Thrive is working on a metro district north of Waterfield, a development called Sonders. Post Modern, led by Joseph “J.D.” Padilla, hasn’t submitted plans or an application for a new metro district, Frickey said.

Robert Rogers, of Centennial-based law firm White Bear Ankele Tanaka & Waldron PC, which has a Fort Collins office, requested the dissolution, a letter in the agenda packet shows.

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