Council postpones Foothills Metro District service-plan amendment and public-benefits vote to July 1

Lede: Fort Collins City Council on Tuesday opened a public hearing on a proposed amendment to the Foothills Metropolitan District’s service plan that would authorize additional debt and extend the district’s financing powers, then voted to postpone a decision until July 1, 2025.

Nut graf: City staff and the site’s developer told council the amendment would allow refunding of existing bonds and issuance of new debt to support redevelopment of the Foothills Mall site; council members raised repeated questions about affordable housing commitments, limits on the public-improvement fee and financial risks before asking staff and the applicant to return with tighter terms.

Body: Josh Birx, deputy director of sustainability for the city, summarized the request as an amendment to allow the metropolitan district to issue additional debt and extend debt maturities to finance further public improvements at the former Foothills Mall site. Birx said the district originally authorized $53 million in net bond proceeds in 2013 and now faces revenue weakness tied to changing retail market conditions and the pandemic-era effects on enclosed malls.

Will Little and Dan Daugherty, representing the property owner/developer, described a redevelopment plan that would reduce enclosed mall space, add open-air retail and public amenities, and include roughly 300 residential units in a rightsized project. The developer said one parcel of about 30,000 square feet is identified for affordable housing and that they expect to partner with an affordable-housing developer to build units there.

Birx and the applicant described a financial package in which refunding existing debt and issuing additional debt could produce up to $166.1 million of authorized debt capacity and provide about $75 million in new public-improvement funds. Staff also described a worst-case assumption that sales-tax increment could contribute about $30.5 million to the district, while an alternative projection of overall new revenues tied to the project could be about $78 million (staff presentation, service-plan analysis).

Council members pressed the developer and staff on several recurring points: how many affordable units the 30,000-square-foot parcel would actually accommodate; whether the…