from Greeley Tribune’s Chris Casey
Weld County’s projected population growth for the next 15 years ranks as 17th-fastest in the nation, according to an analysis by the Denver Business Journal’s parent company.
American City Business Journals Inc. used U.S. Census Bureau population data and existing rates of growth to predict growth rates in 250 U.S. metropolitan areas over the next 15 years. The analysis shows the Greeley metro area, which encompasses all of Weld County, will grow 60.61 percent by 2025. The statistical area is expected to increase from 226,354 residents in 2005 to 363,539 in 2025.
Greeley is the fastest-growing metro area in Colorado, followed by Denver (78th nationally), Fort Collins (106th), Colorado Springs (122nd) and Boulder (172nd), the study showed.
Fort Collins is expected to grow at a rate of 19.43 percent, from 275,570 residents in 2005 to 329,120 in 2025.
Ranked as the five fastest-growing metro areas by the Business Journals are Raleigh, N.C. (97.66 percent growth from 2005 to 2025), Provo, Utah (96.34 percent), Fort Myers, Fla. (95.28 percent), Ocala, Fla. (88.58 percent) and Austin, Texas (86.79 percent).
The Business Journals’ numbers, which are based on existing growth rates, are more conservative than projections by the Colorado Demography Office, which predicts Greeley’s metropolitan statistical area to have 423,164 residents (85.7 percent growth) by 2025 and Fort Collins’ MSA to have 410,990 (48.5 percent).
Weld County officials note that growth has slowed considerably during the economic downturn, but that certain pockets are poised for long-term growth in line with the projections.
Derek Todd, Frederick town administrator, said the southwest Weld community saw its annual growth rate of 17 percent earlier in the decade slow to 3 to 5 percent in the last couple years. In 2005, the town’s comprehensive plan showed Frederick growing to about 80,000 residents around 2030. While the town of 8,000 still plans to reach 60,000 to 80,000 residents at full build out, Todd said, “the time horizon has been stretched out, I might say even significantly.”
Neighboring towns of Dacono and Firestone each anticipate build outs of similar size, making 200,000 residents in the tri-city area along Interstate 25 a likelihood in decades to come.
It’s now just a matter of how fast it happens. Todd said Frederick’s convenient proximity to Denver, the airport, Boulder and Greeley-Fort Collins helps fuel the growth.
“We still know we’re going to be that big someday because we have that many platted lots” in the comprehensive plan, he said. “We can’t say that will be in another 25 years or so. That number’s going to be stretched out.”
Tom Honn, planning director for Weld County, said the county’s population growth will concentrate in three areas — the southwest of Frederick-Dacono-Firestone and Johnstown-Milliken; the southeast area of Hudson, Keenseburg and Fort Lupton; and the triangle of Greeley-Loveland-Fort Collins, which includes Windsor.
“That’s where (population) is going to go,” Honn said. “It’s not going to be a lot of five-acre lots scattered around the county.”
Eric Doering, mayor of Frederick, said the northern I-25 corridor will soon be the center of a growth boom similar to what the Highlands Ranch area saw in the 1980s and ’90s.
Once the economy revives, he said, “I think this is the place where things are going to happen — there’s available land, there’s available resources.”