Timnath Transformation: Major expansions ahead
TIMNATH – The online resource Wikipedia once described Timnath as “a small agricultural/farming community” that “has remained virtually unchanged in recent decades.
Now, however, it acknowledges that “encroaching growth of both Fort Collins to the west and Windsor to the south have placed the town in an area considered favorable to development.”
Growth along the Front Range urban corridor indeed has turned that once-rural town into a thriving community, one of the fastest growing in Colorado, with big-box retailers, sprawling new residential developments, and all the traffic and controversies that go with it.
Costco quickly followed Walmart into Timnath at the busy Harmony Road interchange along Interstate 25 southeast of Fort Collins. Proposals for new subdivisions are common at town board meetings, and none has gained more excitement than Ladera.
Connell LLC, developers of the planned 240-acre Ladera development, envisions a dynamic mixed-use project on land that now is a working gravel pit and asphalt plant operated by Connell Resources. Included would be a four-story, 126-room hotel that would be a dual-branded La Quinta Inn & Suites and Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham. Ladera, to be located south of Costco, would include 650,000 square feet of retail development, 110,000 square feet of office space, 800 attainable housing units and 50,000 square feet of mixed-use development.
The developers describe their vision for Ladera — the name comes from the Spanish word for the slope of a hill or lakeside bank — as “an economically invigorating commercial, residential and recreational development at Timnath’s front door, with homes, office space, retail stores and entertainment venues.”
Timnath voters have approached Ladera cautiously. Last year they soundly rejected a Topgolf golf and entertainment complex because neighbors worried about the lights and noise – but especially the 156-foot nets’ hazard to wildlife along the nearby Cache la Poudre River. However, in April, they just as overwhelmingly rejected another citizen-initiated measure that would have restricted annexation of land containing active mining permits.
The state approved Connell’s reclamation plan in 2001 and holds a $532,504 reclamation bond to ensure the site is reclaimed to the approved post-mine land use. Connell intends to complete the reclamation of the mining permit area in phases and have them released from the mining permit.
Since reclamation plans have changed since 2001 and now include a mixed-use development, Connell will have to file an amendment to its permit that must be reviewed and approved by the state.
The Timnath Town Council last year approved a pool of economic incentives to attract small businesses to Old Town and the Harmony Road corridor. In July, Walker Manufacturing, which has made high-end lawn mowers in unincorporated Larimer County since 1988, asked to be annexed into Timnath and said it wants to add office and manufacturing space.
In-N-Out Burger, the 76-year-old California fast-food drive-through chain that made its first foray into Northern Colorado by opening a site in Loveland last year, now is looking at a location along Interstate 25 in Timnath as part of the Ladera development.