ballot may chart course for redevelopment of big fort collins stadium site

Voters in Fort Collins may be called upon to help decide what should be built at the 161-acre site of the Colorado State University’s former Hughes Stadium.

That 34,000-seat stadium, located at 2011 S. Overland Trail, was demolished in 2018 after the school’s Colorado State Rams moved into a new facility on the main campus of CSU.

Ever since that demolition, city officials and both neighborhood and community activists have been engaged in a sometimes rancorous dialogue trying to determine what kind of a development will replace the west Fort Collins stadium.

Earlier this summer, members of the Fort Collins City Council voted against rezoning the site as a necessary first step in the proposed development of a subdivision that would have included up to 700 single-family homes.

Those homes would be developed by the home building company Lennar, which earlier signed a development agreement with CSU. Lennar has said that the project cannot go forward without the zoning change.

Last month Lennar and CSU jointly submitted to the city a plan calling for the creation of three separate zoning designations for the site that would allow for both residential and mixed-use development.

Now a move is underway by a group called PATHS, otherwise known as Planning Action to Transform Hughes, to put on the ballot a question that will give local voters a say in the zoning of the site.
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That move would require a petition drive garnering the signatures of just under 3,300 registered voters to put the question on a ballot.

By Garry Boulard

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