A Fabulous Fort Collins Future:
UniverCity Connections By Laura Lee Carter
It all started with a leisurely bike ride through downtown. CSU President Dr. Larry Penley and Fort Collins City Manager Darin Atteberry met to discuss the best way to create personal connections between the City and the University.
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ithin months, this conversation had sparked the creation of UniverCity Connections, a collaboration convened by the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, and driven by the City of Fort Collins, Colorado State University (CSU), the Downtown Development Authority, and over 100 Fort Collins citizens. These four key Fort Collins institutions, and a broad cross-section of citizens with diverse private, public, profit, and non-profit interests, have been hard at work over the past few years identifying and implementing a vision for their shared future. The purpose of UniverCity Connections is to bring CSU and the Fort Collins downtown area together in harmony with its natural environment. It is a unique public-private initiative designed to improve the community, and to create lasting, sustainable and meaningful connections between CSU, downtown Fort Collins, and the Poudre River. Dave Edwards, one of the four co-chairs of this initiative and a driving force from its inception, remembers a call to action from Darin Atteberry during the 2007 budget planning process. “It was a call to strengthen connections between the city and CSU, to get stakeholders in the community involved on multiple levels in an inclusive effort to vision a brighter future for Old Town, CSU, and the river nearby. This facilitated, collaborative effort grew quickly, to involve 120 work sessions and a number of task groups, all working closely together to resolve turf and ownership issues while visioning the best possible future for the community.” Meeting since 2006, the City of Fort Collins, CSU, the Community Foundation, and the Downtown Development Authority have created a collaborative community-building process with local citizens, to develop and implement a vision
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for the geographical study area bordered by Colorado State University campus on the south, the Poudre River on the north, and encompassing most of Old Town Fort Collins. Convened by the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, UniverCity Connections received initial input from nearly 200 community stakeholders at its kick-off event in November 2006. Phase I resulted in the creation of nine volunteer task groups: Arts and Culture, CSU/City Joint Projects, Economic Development, Mixed Use Development, River Protection, Development and Enhancement, Housing, Sustainable Energy Technology, Transit and Mobility, with one additional task group, the Homelessness Initiative, added later. Phase I of the project lasted from November 2006 to May 2007, with task force members working in a visionary process to strengthen community connections. At the May stakeholder meeting, task groups identified their goals, objectives and recommendations. Then, task force members spent over four months researching ways to bring the community closer together. Sometimes the research efforts included some very up close and personal experiences. For example, the river task force rode bikes along the Poudre River, exploring her banks to assist in creating maps for protection, development, and enhancements like areas to provide disabled accessibility. The Sustainable Energy Technology Task Group took their job very seriously. They developed the Fort ZED concept, a complex and challenging plan to turn the Fort Collins region into one of the largest net zero energy districts in the world through a grant from the Department of Energy. Net zero energy is achieved when all energy consumed is generated locally from renewable resources. Fort Collins would then become a living example of residences, businesses, and educational institutions all living off wind energy, solar, bio-
mass, and other renewable sources. The Colorado State University Research Foundation became involved by signing up to develop a minimum of twenty-five wind turbines with the potential of 200 megawatts on the University’s 11,000-acre Maxwell Ranch near the Wyoming border. Ryan Keiffer, a co-convener of the Sustainable Energy Technology Task Group says, “Fort ZED collected the required $500,000 of local matching funds from local entities and individuals over the past summer so that we could compete for $9 million in Department of Energy funding to achieve Net Zero Energy. The group will find out in April or May 2008 whether they will be granted these funds, but regardless of that outcome, Fort Collins will continue to forge ahead and create a prototype and demonstration zone for communities wishing to learn more about net zero energy consumption practices. “. Phase II, or the implementation phase of UniverCity Connections, kicked off officially with the October 2007 meeting, but many volunteers had been meeting informally throughout the summer to complete preliminary implementation tasks. In January of this year, Doug Johnson, Vice President of First Western Trust Bank, accepted the position as the new Director of Implementation for UniverCity Connections. Born and raised in Fort Collins, Johnson is a graduate of CSU and lives in the UniverCity Connections area of focus. Johnson is a strong advocate of collaboration, and sees his new role as the Director as the ideal opportunity to give back to his community. He has been involved with UniverCity Connections as a stakeholder since its inception. The task groups have been active in implementing their separate goals since October 2007. For example, the River Protection, Development and Enhancement Task Group have acquired a $2,000 grant to hire a graphic artist and designer
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