Fort Collins still a real-estate draw: high livability ratings offset tech layoffs.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: Who Owns Colorado?

WHILE MOST PLAYERS IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY HAVE complained the past two years of declining sales and see-through buildings, Fort Collins developers have chugged along meeting a demand that has ups and downs in different segments of the market.

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The Fort Collins Building Department says 2003 demand for single-family-home construction permits as of August had fallen an average of 23.5 percent, but multi-family projects worth $26.1 million added up to a 66.7 percent rise in demand for those products.

In addition, at least three new grocery chains have stores underway and a 700,000 square-foot shopping mall may find its way onto Fort Collins' borders.

"We're pretty busy," said Cameron Gloss, director of planning with the City of Fort Collins, understating the obvious. "Even with the tech layoffs that we've suffered, the employment figures seem to say that we're pretty stable. Couple that with all the top-10 lists that we're on and there's a continued interest in Northern Colorado and Fort Collins."

AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) has listed the Loveland-Fort Collins area as one of the top three retirement communities for several years in a row. In the May/June issue of AARP's magazine, Fort Collins made No. 1.

Several developers point to the lists as reason for the continued demand for new homes and expanding retail base in the town.

"There is a continual influx of people at every level, from professionals to young couples, singles, empty nesters and retirees," said Jon Prouty, president of Lagunitas Redtail Inc., a Fort Collins developer. "We keep getting rated number one, number two or number three in national magazines of nice places to live, and that contributes strongly."

It also helps offset the high-paying jobs that were eliminated from tech companies like Celestica, LSI Logic, Hewlett-Packard and Agilent, all major employers. It also may have led to another trend

Developers uniformly say that after nearly a decade of demand for high-end homes, they are now concentrating on entry-level and first-trade-up buyers, with homes selling in the $150,000 to $250,000 range. The largest project in town, Rigden Farm, is concentrating on that segment almost exclusively, building 1,100 homes on 328 acres, with single-family models starting at $185,000 and multi-family selling for $160,000 to $210,000.

"That market is deep; that's why we're here," said Fred Croci, project manager and...