FORT COLLINS — An Alabama developer of student housing projects is set to build a colony for as many as 700 Colorado State University students just southeast of the campus along the proposed Mason Corridor.
Capstone Development Corp. of Birmingham, Ala., will spend more than $50 million to redevelop the site of the Choice Center retail complex and build a four-story student housing project. The apartment building will stand on the site of a mobile home park that was destroyed in the 1997 Spring Creek flood, killing four residents there.
During the years since the tragedy, the city has leveraged federal grants to make storm drainage improvements both upstream and downstream from the seven-acre site that make it safe for development, city planning officials and the developer said.
Capstone has contracted with the property owner, a family real estate investment company managed by former Larimer County commissioner Cheryl Olson, to buy the land for an undisclosed amount. The site is just southwest of the intersection of South College Avenue and Prospect Road.
“We are fully committed to delivering this project by August 2010,” said Jeff Jones, a Capstone executive vice president who heads a division devoted to campus-edge mixed-use projects. “We’re going to begin work on the site this fall, with vertical construction beginning next spring.”
The project is the first major new development along the Mason Corridor, a six-mile rapid-transit link between Harmony Road and Cherry Street.
“This is a really critical piece of property for that,” Fort Collins planner Anne Aspen said. “The southeast corner of the campus has a master plan in the works, and this project is going to hit first. It’s a pretty big deal.”
Capstone is one of the nation’s premier developers of campus housing communities, with hundreds of projects completed with 55 university partners since its founding 18 years ago. Jones said the off-campus, mixed residential and retail projects are intended to take pressure off single-family neighborhoods close to campuses by offering attractive alternatives for student rentals.
Work with universities
“It is our hope, and in fact our modus operandi, to work closely with universities in planning these projects,” Jones said. “In the end, it will be a winner for the university, for the community and for the students.”
Jones, the property owner and city planning officials say they are all mindful of the significance of the site, where the greatest loss of life occurred during the 1997 flood. It was caused by a thunderstorm that dumped more than 11 inches of rain at the headwaters of Spring Creek, a storm city and federal officials said would occur once in a 500-year period.
“We want to give this property a new beginning, while honoring the historic significance of the site,” Jones said. “One of the things we’re really going to be stressing is all the work that the city has undertaken to improve stormwater capacity at that site.”
Aspen said the flood control improvements will likely lead to a remapping of the site by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove it from the Spring Creek floodplain.
“The odds of having those kinds of effects again, with all the work that’s been done both upstream and downstream, are like a million to one,” she said.
Jones said other Capstone developments demonstrate how the projects reduce conflicts between residents of single-family home neighborhoods and students seeking close-to-campus accommodations. That conflict in Fort Collins led to passage of the so-called “three-unrelated” ordinance that caps the number of residents who can live in a single-family home.
“CSU, like most universities, can only house about 20 to 30 percent of their students on campus,” Jones said. “We understand there are often conflicts between the housing needs of students and the lifestyle of single-family neighborhoods. When you see encroachment, you see so much conflict and acrimony…. Our projects are neighborhood-protective, not neighborhood-disruptive.”
Catalytic project
City finance director Mike Freeman said the proposed project will provide a catalyst for further development along the Mason Corridor, now closer to reality with the infusion of a $60 million federal grant.
“I think the significance is that there will be a few flagship projects that will help create the potential of what the corridor can be,” he said. “This is one of them. It’s got everything — some significant retail redevelopment, student housing, and transit-oriented development.”
If the project opens on schedule, student residents will find a setting unlike anything else in the city. Most of the units in the complex will be four-bedroom flats, with each bedroom having a private bath. Each unit will be completely furnished and include a washer and dryer. Rents likely will start in the low $500s per resident, Jones said.
Each building will have a staffed help desk, lounges for gatherings and a computer center where printers, scanners and other peripherals will be available to residents.