Colorado Real Estate Journal -
Gino Campana’s vision for a healthy lifestyle community where a kid can grow up tending a garden and eating farmfresh eggs has caught the attention of homebuilders. Builders last year bought all 205 single-family lots at Bucking Horse – a Fort Collins community the bucks the suburban development trend. With infrastructure under way, Campana is betting the lifestyle he strives to create will sustain well into the future. “Older developers have argued that this is a trend. I don’t think it is a short-lived trend. I think it is a movement,” said Campana, founder and president of Fort Collinsbased Bellisimo Inc. Bucking Horse is being developed on 160 acres at the northeast corner of South Timberline and East Drake roads. The property includes two old farms whose structures will become an integral part of the new development. The Jessup Farm will form the basis of the Artisan Village, where food and beverage producers will peddle their products in a loafing shedturned small retail shops. The 129-year-old farmhouse will become a farm-to-fork restaurant with adjacent herb and vegetable gardens, and Vintages, a Fort Collins custom wine blender, will have a wine cave that also will be available for special events. There will be farm animals, including a flock of hens that already is producing eggs, and a plaza for farmers markets. “The Artisan Village is really our neighborhood center, but we’re saying it’s probably going to be more of a community center. I can see people coming from all over Fort Collins to see what we’re doing there,” Campana said. “The success of the Artisan Village is critical enough that we pro-formaed that at half of the rents that we get on Harmony,” said Campana, referring to Bellisimo’s high-end Villagio retail development on Harmony Road. Bellisimo has a list of 80 “artisans” – coffee roasters, bakers, craft brewers, artists, cheese producers and people who make soups, granola, honey and yogurt – who want to be part of the village.“That’s more interest than I’ve ever had in a project,” said Campana. Two new 19,000-square-foot production facilities, to be built as they’re leased, will provide commissary kitchen space for small food and beverage producers. “In a project like this, we have to scrutinize the tenant mix and the business plans much more heavily,” said Campana. He hopes to have tenants in by August. “It’s aggressive, but if you look at what we’ve accomplished so far in 12-14 months, we’re moving.” Campana’s vision for Bucking Horse comes from his own experiences growing up in Fort Collins, and a lousy real estate market. “If there’s one silver lining in a horrible market, it’s that it draws out ingenuity,” said Campana, who asked, “Why can’t we give our children the same lifestyle we had?” and began to dwell on a neighborhood that both promoted healthy living and engaged people, young and old. Soon after buying the property from a bank in December 2011, he formed an advisory group of experts on everything from community gardens to trails, including representatives of Poudre Valley Health System, now University of Colorado Health, as well as Colorado State University and the Colorado Farm to School project. CSU’s veterinary school has offered to care for farm animals at cost, and its recreation program will have an experimental playground in one of Bucking Horse’s parks. Produce from Bucking Horse’s community gardens is expected to find its way into lunches at local public schools, Campana said. “This thing just keeps growing like an octopus,” he commented. In addition to single-family lots and Jessup Farm Artisan Village, Bucking Horse encompasses 220 residential condominiums (the last 60 of which Bellisimo completed after acquiring the property), along with a 330-unit apartment development site, a neighborhood park with a sixlane swimming pool, a six-acre future city park, wetlands area, trails, plans for 78 townhomes, a working farm, horse stables and the Johnson Farm Innovation Campus, which will create office space in three existing farm buildings. Landscaping throughout the development will consist of fruit trees, bushes with edible berries and other edible plants. Townhome and park construction are slated to begin in the next several weeks. Buildout of the community is projected to take four years. The true tests of whether the project is successful lie not in whether the community attracts healthy people, but whether it changes the way people live, and whether the vision is carried forth for years to come, Campana said. From an investment perspective, it will depend on whether homes sell, and resell, for more than comparable homes in Fort Collins, he said, citing Stapleton in Denver as a place where people pay a premium to live in a community that fits their lifestyle. “I think people are seeing the value proposition. Is it just unique to Fort Collins? I don’t think so. That would be like saying a golf course community could only take place in one spot. “I think it’s a model, more than a trend that’s going to be here today and gone tomorrow. I hope I’m right.”