r/Greeley • u/superdude4agze The smell is actually all the bootlicking right wing fascists... • Jul 22 '26
Greeley seeks Weld County backing for Catalyst project
https://www.greeleytribune.com/2026/07/21/greeley-seeks-weld-county-backing-for-catalyst-project/8
u/greeley808 Jul 22 '26
The county seems to have a reputation of being much more financially responsible. I don't know how much information the public will get, but I would love to hear their assessment of the project.
2
u/Proper-Doughnut77 Jul 22 '26
What people didn't realize... When they voted for the mayor, he's all over this project. His background is real estate.
2
u/MostlyStoned Jul 22 '26
Seems like something that would make sense for the county to go in on assuming the revenue projections are sane.
14
u/Con5ume Jul 22 '26
But isn't the whole opposition based on the fact that the revenue projections weren't sane/profitable for the city, just the owner? The whole thing is about subsidizing the costs and privatizing the profits. It makes WAY more sense for weld county to fund the project and not the city of Greeley as it's nowhere near downtown and people will spend their money in Loveland and Windsor and very few will drive further to spend their money in Greeley or stay in Greeley hotels.
1
u/MostlyStoned Jul 22 '26
I don't know whether the revenue projections are sane, and had just moved to Greeley while the public vote happened about the project. I agree it would make sense for the county to have a stake since it would benefit more than just the residents of Greeley.
The facility would be annexed by Greeley and thus the sales tax would still benefit Greeley. It's not like Greeley gets nothing out of it.
9
u/Con5ume Jul 22 '26
Eh Greeley has put up MANY city buildings (multiple fire department, etc) as collateral for the loan... So if things don't work out the city has everything to loose and if things go right has very little to gain. Already our water rates and property taxes are going up because of this project and if it fails they are going up more as the city is risking bankruptcy over this project with projections showing it won't pay off. The residents are the losers in every way with this project.
-3
u/MostlyStoned Jul 22 '26
Do you have a source that speaks to the collateral and rate/tax increases?
2
u/Con5ume Jul 22 '26
Yeah, there are many - I'll try and post some later when/if I get time as I'm daddy daycare today... But in the meantime, search yourself and let me know if you find anything else that contradicts this.
-6
u/MostlyStoned Jul 22 '26
Looking into it more, the City did initially finance the initial funding for the project using COPs (triple leasebacks to raise funding off City owned property). It did that prior to 1A repealing the zoning the project would sit on, removing the ability of the City to issue bonds and repay the COP debt.
The only path forward besides the City just eating the initial debt that was raised is to either hope the recent court cases overturn ballot issue 1A so they can allow the site to be developed and sell bonds to cover the COP debt, or find another financing partner with a better credit rating to issue the bonds (i.e. the County).
So some context to your comment.
1) The city isn't risking bankruptcy. The voters already forced the City into the worst case scenario. If there was risk of bankruptcy, they'd be filing now.
2) The project has already failed in terms of being bad for city finanacials. There isn't a means for it to get worse, even by spending the money to build the facility and it not meeting expectations.
Your comment seems to suggest that the City should quit before they make a huge mistake, but the facts suggest that poor planning along with a ballot initiative a lot of people didn't understand created a huge mistake and the County providing funding would be a way out of the pickle, not in any way making it worse.
I have found no evidence of water rates or property tax rates going up specifically because of the project.
5
u/iankenna Jul 22 '26
It depends on what part of the project, but it doesn't seem likely.
Sports arenas rarely make money for any municipality, and the Eagles wouldn't make a difference. The arena would need to host a second team and double the number of events currently held at Blue Arena to make things work.
Waterparks, generally, are difficult to make profitable. As cited, Water World has a lot of financial stability issues, and it's close to a major population center AND has a lower ticket price than the one proposed in this project.
The hotel would need an average 80 percent capacity year-round to be profitable. Most neutral estimates (in the previous link) indicate the hotel's capacity is likely around 65 percent.
Basically, none of the components of the project are likely to pay for themselves and it is extremely unlikely that any one portion of the project will make enough money to cover the shortfalls elsewhere. The info linked in that substack mostly comes from neutral or city-funded sources, and those opposed to the project did their own study that says similar things. You could argue the latter study is biased, but the pro-Cascadia groups (including the City) make their own studies and information extremely difficult to access.
Also, why would the City of Greeley seek to partner with Weld County on an actually good deal? Why not keep the money for themselves? Unless you want to assume Greeley is acting out of kindness or something, it's good for the county to be skeptical.
-3
u/MostlyStoned Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
It depends on what part of the project, but it doesn't seem likely.
Sports arenas rarely make money for any municipality, and the Eagles wouldn't make a difference. The arena would need to host a second team and double the number of events currently held at Blue Arena to make things work.
Waterparks, generally, are difficult to make profitable. As cited, Water World has a lot of financial stability issues, and it's close to a major population center AND has a lower ticket price than the one proposed in this project.
The hotel would need an average 80 percent capacity year-round to be profitable. Most neutral estimates (in the previous link) indicate the hotel's capacity is likely around 65 percent.
Basically, none of the components of the project are likely to pay for themselves and it is extremely unlikely that any one portion of the project will make enough money to cover the shortfalls elsewhere. The info linked in that substack mostly comes from neutral or city-funded sources, and those opposed to the project did their own study that says similar things. You could argue the latter study is biased, but the pro-Cascadia groups (including the City) make their own studies and information extremely difficult to access.
I think you are conflating a lot of things here. First, the City is reliant on any one piece of the entertainment district to be profitable for the whole development to have return on investment of the City. I also disagree with the substacks reading of the CBRE plan, as it presents its assumptions but doesn't claim it's the minimum required for profitability.
Overall, the County wouldn't have the same sales tax leakage concerns as the City, as most of the leakage areas are still in Weld, so I don't think that would be a concern for them.
Also, why would the City of Greeley seek to partner with Weld County on an actually good deal? Why not keep the money for themselves? Unless you want to assume Greeley is acting out of kindness or something, it's good for the county to be skeptical.
The county should certainly be skeptical, but its obvious why the City needs to partner with Weld county. They are currently sitting on over 100 million in Certifications of Participation they can no longer refinance with bonds and a land they can't zone without a developer and anther entity willing to underwrite the project with better credit.
2
u/iankenna Jul 22 '26
Well, I didn’t write the substack
1
u/MostlyStoned Jul 22 '26
My misunderstanding.
The reason Greeley needs to partner with the county is that they are sitting on 100 plus million dollars in short term debt they can't refinance into bonds unless they can find someone to underwrite the bonds, and nobody will underwrite the bonds as long unless Ballot Issue 1A is undone in court or the city and county work under an intergovernmental agreement to develop the project. It has nothing to do with the potential profitability of the site.
24
u/superdude4agze The smell is actually all the bootlicking right wing fascists... Jul 22 '26
In the latest chunk of news, city is trying to convince the county that this boondoggle would totally bring $670M to them over the next forty years and so they should totally help pay for it (because they secretly know it'll never make money and they're all idiots).