A tale of two cities--in one: entertainment venues are hot in downtown Fort Collins, but residential demand isn't ready for prime time.

Fort Collins is about as hot and cold as it is possible for a municipality's downtown real estate market to be at one time.

The hot part is what has been going on in Fort Collins downtown for the past five years or so, and what it all could add up to a few years hence.

This part of the Fort Collins story is so hot that some have portrayed conflicts among all the power brokers looking to add to the central city's roster of entertainment venues. This is not true, however, as it appears all of the power brokers are going to build new entertainment venues downtown.

The not-so-hot part is that the Fort Collins real estate market, like most but not all real estate, has cooled. Here is an example: A development called Mason Street North, a mixed-use development near downtown Fort Collins and adjacent to 90-acre Lee Martinez Park, next to where billionaire Pat Stryker has planned one of those entertainment venues, and right by the projected kayak park. Of its original 20 condos, Mason Street North has six units for sale, including a one-bedroom for $179,900.

Now, $179,900 is not a number you will see in Boulder, for instance, where residential real estate demand continues at an exuberant pace.

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Mason Street North has cut prices of its remaining six residential units. So how about a 1,280-square-foot two-bedroom condo with mountain views for $325,900?

"Some things have picked up recently: We have two recent tenants. But that $179,000 unit would be selling for $500,000 in Boulder, and the standard two-bedroom unit would be, you know, $800,000, not $250,000," says John Wolff, principal of Boulder-based Wolff Lyon Architects and both partner in and designer of the Mason Street North project.

"I don't know what to say about the Fort Collins market," he adds. "We had really hoped that some of the trends we've seen in other places, like Boulder, were going to be as strong in Fort Collins. I'm not sure that's the case. There does seem to be life in the downtown market, which is good, but maybe not as much as the people involved in projects like ours had hoped."

A lot of the visible progress around downtown fits right in with the city's plan to encourage residential and mixed-use infill development on the circumference of the center, which would be Old Town Fort Collins, and attractions such as Beet Street (named for the sugar beet industry that used to fuel northeast Colorado's ag economy). Beet Street, as we speak, is a Fort Collins innovation, a year-round series of cultural programs modeled on the New York Chautauqua. (Boulder's Chautauqua grew from the same movement in the late 19th century).

The city plans to build for Beet Street a 4,000- or 5,000-seat amphitheater and ancillary facilities, including a hall of philosophy, a community market and convention space, says Downtown Development Authority director Chip Steiner.

Independently of that, the city is planning a 1,600- to 1,880-seat performing arts hall. "So there's a lot of activity," Steiner says.

Much of this activity comes thanks to the Downtown Development Authority, which has helped finance the renovations of the downtown's heartbeat, Old Town Square, and its tiny outdoor theater/gazebo, as well as numerous downtown shops, the Northern Hotel and the Larimer County Justice Center. Steiner's fear is that the Colorado Legislature won't renew DDA's tax increment funding, which is due to expire in 2011.

Other downtown projects include the imaginative Tenney Court Alley and Trimble Court Alley. The first of potentially dozens of duded-up downtown alleys, these connect with walkways and bikeways through the city's new infill projects.

Those award-winning infill projects, many financed in part by the city or DDA, include the Cortina (mixed-use), the Armstrong Hotel, Old Town Lofts and Urban Living Lofts. A newer project, Boulder-based Coburn Development's Penny Flats, includes Penny Lane, a walkway that connects its residences with Martinez Park and downtown.

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Plus, downtown transportation now on the drawing board, such as the Mason Street transportation corridor, should help glue it all together. So should plans to connect it all to the Poudre River through the River District Project.

Someday the Fort Collins real estate market will recover, and some of these projects will fall into place, and some people will look pretty smart because prices today are low.

"We were intrigued by Fort Collins for some time, looking for the right opportunity to get involved with a project up there," says Coburn director of development John Koval.

Coburn responded to a request for proposals submitted by the city "to come up with a plan heavily slanted toward residential to get people living downtown and working, dining, shopping and using downtown and get that nighttime synergy and activity happening from residential base," Koval says.

And now all it needs to do is happen.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MURRAY J. ELLIOTT

RELATED ARTICLE

1 PENNY FLATS

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LOCATION: 204 MAPLE ST.

DEVELOPER: COBURN DEVELOPMENT INC.

PHONE: [phone]

SIZE: 200,839 SQUARE FEET TOTAL HABITABLE FLOOR AREA; 147 RESIDENTIAL UNITS; TOTAL PROJECT SITE AREA: 2.8 ACRES

PROJECT TYPE: MIXED USE RESIDENTIAL/COMMERCIAL COMMERCIAL SQUARE FEET: 29,246

GROUND-BREAKING: FEBRUARY 2007

BUILD-OUT: 2011 (EST.)

Parking garage, slab and site work are done, reports Coburn Development director of development John Koval, "and we just started to go vertical with the first building, which will be 25 units and about 4,000 square feet of commercial space."

2 MASON STREET NORTH

LOCATION: INTERSECTION OF CHERRY AND MASON STREETS

DEVELOPER: WONDERLAND HILL DEVELOPMENT CO., BOULDER

PHONE: [phone]

SIZE: ABOUT ONE-HALF BLOCK

PROJECT TYPE: MIXED-USE

COMMERCIAL SQUARE FEET: 16,500

GROUND-BREAKING: 2005

BUILD-OUT: 2006

Twenty residential units, including three three-bedroom units and 17 two-bedroom units are being built, most of them 1,000-square-foot and 1,200-square-foot condos. The variety of floor plans, walkways and courtyards reflect the architectural challenges of the irregular shape of the infill lot and its utility easements, says John Wolff of Wolff Lyon Architects.

3 TENNEY COURT ALLEY

LOCATION: MID-BLOCK BETWEEN COLLEGE AVENUE AND MASON STREET, ACCESSED FROM MOUNTAIN AVENUE

DEVELOPER: CITY OF FORT COLLINS

PHONE: [phone]

SIZE: TENNEY COURT ALLEY IS 250 FEET LONG AND ABOUT 20 FEET WIDE

PROJECT TYPE: PLACE-MAKING

COMMERCIAL SQUARE FOOTAGE: ONLY THE SPACE REQUIRED FOR AMENITIES SUCH AS ENZIO'S ITALIAN KITCHEN'S OUTDOOR DINING.

Tenney Court Alley and Trimble Court Alley (which is about 20 feet wide by 180 feet long) are precursors of perhaps 20 or more downtown alleys Fort Collins plans to treat similarly.

4 145 E. MOUNTAIN AVE.

LOCATION: SEE ABOVE

TELEPHONE: [phone]

SIZE: 15,000 SQUARE FEET

PROJECT TYPE: COMMERCIAL-OFFICE

BUILD-OUT: FIRST QUARTER 2008

145 E. Mountain Ave., once home to Tailgate Tommy's bar and, earlier, The Coloradoan newspaper, next year will become the operational headquarters of whatever they decide to name the entity resulting from the merger of Fort Collins-based Private Escapes Destination Clubs and Orlando, Fla.-based Ultimate Resort. (The company's CEO will remain in Orlando.) Private Escapes has 45 employees now; the new company will have about 125 workers. The company plans a huge open office on one floor and an employee lounge on the second floor's large open deck, CFO Karen Siwek says.