Page 8 of 8

How two college towns made economic vitality their business

Fort Collins and Ann Arbor, university towns much like Boulder, built tools to grow their downtowns and their job base. Boulder’s council wouldn’t let voters consider one of them.

BOULDER, Colo. In the late 1970s, downtown Fort Collins was in rough shape. Storefronts were boarded up, upper floors had been condemned, and a state plan would have pushed a highway extension through the historic core. “It was not like it is today at all,” the executive director of the city’s Downtown Development Authority, Matt Robenalt, told KUNC.

In 1981, downtown property owners voted to create a Downtown Development Authority, a tool Colorado law makes available to any city. It works through tax increment financing: when new investment raises property values and sales in the district, part of that growth is reinvested there.

The first big test was Old Town Square. A local developer renovated historic buildings, and the tax growth from those renovations paid for a pedestrian plaza and a 400-space parking garage. Since then, the authority has funded more than 100 projects, from lit and cleaned alleys to storefront restorations. Downtown now holds more than 600 businesses, and more than 1,000 homes have been built there since the early 2000s, according to the Fort Collins Chamber.

ANN ARBOR’S BET

Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan and a Google office, has had its own development authority since 1982. In 2025, the city went further, creating its first Office of Economic Development with a stated goal of attainable housing, high-quality jobs and strong public services. Its first director, Joe Giant, came from Fort Wayne, Ind., where he helped lead a $300 million redevelopment. The city is rewriting its zoning code and reworking its development review process, and in March 2026 its council unanimously approved a land-use plan allowing more housing citywide. “We’re not going to lose projects because they aren’t perfect,” Giant told the local publication Concentrate.

The region backs it up. Ann Arbor SPARK, the area’s economic development nonprofit, led 14 business expansion projects in 2025 that brought $20.5 million in private investment and more than 600 new jobs.

BOULDER’S TURN

Boulder’s council made economic vitality a top priority at its 2024 retreat, as sales tax revenue stayed flat for years and the city headed toward a projected $6.5 million budget gap in 2027. City staff developed a downtown development authority covering downtown and University Hill that could have paid for a refresh of the Pearl Street Mall, permanent public restrooms and more downtown ambassadors.

Under state law, the council’s role was to send the question to voters in the district, an estimated 2,500 property owners, residents and business tenants. On Aug. 6, the council split 4-4, and a tie means the measure fails. Those voters never got to decide.

“We don’t get any benefits by doing nothing,” Councilmember Matt Benjamin said before the vote, according to Boulder Reporting Lab. Mayor Aaron Brockett, Mayor Pro Tem Tara Winer and Councilmember Rob Kaplan joined him in supporting it. Councilmembers Taishya Adams, Tina Marquis, Ryan Schuchard and Nicole Speer voted no.

THE OBJECTIONS

Opponents raised two main concerns. The first was that too few people would get a vote. But the electorate was set by state law, the same way it is for every development authority in Colorado: the people who own property, live or run businesses in the district decide whether to create it. The rest of the city would not have lost its say. The council had to approve the authority’s plan, the mayor would appoint its board, and the council would confirm every member.

The second was that the authority would take money from open space, parks, schools and other services. Supporters answered that the money at stake is growth that isn’t happening. Downtown property values have fallen nearly 20 percent since before the pandemic, even as the city’s overall property tax revenue grew about 10 percent, according to the city’s DDA planning group, which included the Boulder Chamber. Under the group’s projections, if current trends continue, the city, county, schools and library district all collect less over time. With even 1 percent annual growth from new investment, all of them collect more.

“The question is whether Boulder creates that future growth in the first place,” the group wrote.

THE TOOLS ARE ALREADY HERE

Fort Collins started in 1981 with a downtown in worse shape than Boulder’s is today. Ann Arbor decided in 2025 that it still needed a city office whose job was to bring in employers and get projects built.

Both cities used tools available to Boulder, and both made growth someone’s job. Boulder can do the same whenever its council decides to.

Boulder doubled its debt in five years. 2K would nearly double it again.

Guest article by David Martus

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

That’s Mike Campbell in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926). The line endures because it captures a pattern in many collapses: a long, often overlooked deterioration, followed by a sudden break.

Boulder’s current debt (principal and interest) is $742.0 million. From 2012 through 2021, Boulder added $364.8 million in debt, averaging $36.5 million per year. Over the past five years, Boulder has added $377.2 million in long-term debt, averaging over $75 million per year, more than doubling Boulder’s total debt in five years.

If 2K passes, it would add another $650 million to that total, and Boulder would be under a $1.39 billion mountain of debt: slowly at first, then all at once. This amounts to over $13,000 of debt per person, mostly new, for each Boulder resident, inclusive of CU students.

Over the last 20 years, Boulder voters have only rejected one tax increase/extension at the ballot box out of 41 measures. This near-perfect track record of engagement between city councils and citizens reflects the consistent employment of a thoughtful process underpinned by accumulated community goodwill for a variety of programs and services.

Sadly, that trust and goodwill no longer exist. A survey conducted in June by Probolsky Research, paid for by the city, revealed that only 45% of respondents surveyed would vote in support of the proposed $400 million bond issue, yet here it is on the ballot. Research shows that poll results usually decline by 5% to 10% from polling to the ballot box, so unless an issue polls at 60% or higher, its chances are mixed at best. Looks like the over/under for 2K is around 38% yes votes. This would be a clear vote of no confidence in how the community’s tax dollars are managed.

Before asking residents to assume this level of long-term debt, Council and staff should provide a transparent list of projects that distinguishes critical community-safety needs from simple improvements, identifies the full cost of each project, and specifies what, if any, lower-cost alternatives were considered, such as using existing commercial buildings in a city with a 25% vacancy rate.

The ballot measure states that a new public safety building is estimated to cost $170 million. Broomfield has a new police headquarters under construction for a police force almost identical in size to Boulder’s, estimated to cost $81 to $85 million. Our community deserves better.

You will likely soon hear about a positive development regarding the new public safety building. An existing vacant building may be repurposed for the new public safety building. Why wasn’t this question asked before a $170 million price tag was put on the ballot, further undermining the community’s trust that city government is a good steward of our capital?

As simple as it sounds, asking the right and sometimes difficult questions of the City Manager and staff is a key role that City Council plays. Only through robust dialogue can we achieve the best outcomes.