DDA directs $34M to downtown Fort Collins’ look
“Drive around downtown Fort Collins, and you will see a wealth of ways the area has been deliberately developed.
There’s Woodward’s campus under construction on Lincoln Avenue and a new home for Wolverine Farm Publishing on Willow Street; Encompass Technologies’ new headquarters along the banks of the Poudre River and hundreds of new apartments.
All are among 118 sites within the Fort Collins Downtown Development Authority’s boundaries that have benefited from $34 million in public money — tax dollars used to mold and maintain the character of downtown.
That was the genesis of the DDA when it was founded in 1981.
Old Town was full of shuttered buildings; Old Town Square was just a dream.
State legislation allowed downtown development authorities to use tax increment financing — money gained as increased property values led to greater tax revenues within the district — to fund downtown improvements.
Property owners from mom-and-pop shops to multimillion-dollar international companies have sought funding from Fort Collins’ DDA in amounts ranging from $5,700 to nearly $17 million for Woodward. Some have returned to seek DDA funding time and again.
Three companies, Blue Ocean Enterprises, Brinkman Partners and Coburn Development, have gone back multiple times, securing thousands — and sometimes millions — of dollars from the DDA.
That’s prompted DDA leaders to ponder whether the number of requests from the same owner and the owner’s ability to pay for improvements on its own should be part of their process to determine what is funded.”
Ferrier, Pat. Coloradoan 17 March 2015.