Tour Touts Regional Development

November 9, 2008 Posted In

By Cari Merrill

For those who live and work in Northern Colorado, Grand Station, 2534 and Presidio are familiar real estate developments.
But for those outside the region, the names are not so familiar.
To showcase the developments in Loveland and Fort Collins, the Northern Colorado chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women, or CREW, organized a bus tour for industry professionals from outside the region.
The commercial real estate bus tour on Wednesday gave about 80 people a chance to see more than 15 up-and-coming projects including Boyd Lake Village in Loveland and the Harmony Technology Park in Fort Collins.
Brady Welsh, an industrial broker with Bitzer Real Estate Partners in Denver, said the tour was a “great showcase of the tremendous growth conditions Northern Colorado is experiencing.”
In a time when the economy is tough and retail sales are down, he is “encouraged” that developments such as The Promenade Shops at Centerra are doing so well as opposed to Denver where he doesn’t see the same retail growth.
And on the industrial side, Vestas’ location in Windsor “is a big indicator renewable energy can help sustain growth in the area,” he said.
The Northern Colorado chapter of CREW organized the tour, hoping to bring more attention to the real estate market in Northern Colorado and help with economic development, said CREW president-elect Nicole Reeves.
“We really wanted to show the commercial real estate industry and show some of the positive things going on in Northern Colorado,” she said.
CREW works to bring together those in the commercial real estate industry, including brokers, lenders, attorneys, title companies and more.
And even though the organization isn’t limited to women, it does have a goal to help educate women in the industry, Reeves said.
CREW has more than 8,000 members in North America and the Northern Colorado chapter now has more than 45 members since it began two years ago.
This was the first year for the Northern Colorado CREW bus tour and organizers are unsure if they will make it a recurring event. If they do, Greeley, Windsor and the Vestas site could be stops for a possible future tour, Reeves said.