Urban renewal marches on as state changes some rules

 
“Urban renewal is a sensitive topic in Colorado. Beyond the familiar philosophical debates involving some variation of blight vs. gentrification vs. historic vs. economic development vs. public health vs. the free market vs. property condemnation vs. Blucifer, a persistent dispute smolders between local governments over tax money and equity. At an interesting time when opportunity zones now merge with a lively urban redevelopment market, it is timely to note that a few key urban renewal finance rules in Colorado have changed, and the implications for developers, citizens, investors and local public treasuries should become more clear soon. In the next downturn, will private-public partnership-driven urban renewal keep momentum?

Standing on the College Avenue bridge as it stretches north from Old Town Fort Collins across the Cache la Poudre River, visitors see clear evidence of the town’s western pioneer heritage, neatly juxtaposed among state-of-the-art civic and commercial projects. Every direction the eye looks, a grand civic project of its own time is in view, usually near an equally grand civic project from an entirely different time. To the southeast, the Colorado State University Powerhouse Energy Campus (circa 1935 and 2014); to the southwest, the hyper-modern Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and OtterBox Digital Dome Theater (circa 2012); to the south, historic Old Town (circa 1867); and to the northeast, the world-class Innosphere technology incubator (circa 2010). At this historic crossroads along the Poudre River, urban renewal does not seem anachronistic or disjointed, not despite the visible paradoxes, but rather because of them.”
 
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Smith, Andy. Colorado Real Estate Journal 6 MArch 2019.