Is the Fort a good place to own a business? (Fort Collins: sales, lease)

[GaWayne]

Hello,
I have been impressed by the wealth of information about Fort Collins in this forum. Maybe someone here can assist me. I looking into purchasing an established retail busness in FC then relocate my wife and 2nd grade children. I lived in FC years ago before career and family. All my perspectives have changed since then. I read mixed reviews here about the difficulty or ease of assimlating a family into the local society and activities. It sounds simlar to many other places.

But what about the business climate among local business owners? This would be a lateral move financially both today and with similar long range prospects to what I have now in a major metropolitan area. As best I can determine ahead of time I am wondering if after I go thorugh the disruption that comes from moving a family and life, is Fort Collins a good place to own a business in terms of local government actions and among other business owners? (And of course for the kids to grow up) I would be making a 10 - 15 yr commitment. When People bale out of Fort Collins, is it usually by choice or by economic force?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[krh6609]

What type of business are you going after?

[GaWayne]

It is an established retail brick and mortar business with no seasonal fluctuations and some extra sales around a few key holidays.

[tfox]

Colorado in general is a good location for business. Low taxes, generally low regulation, though there are municipal regulations.

Fort Colllins' one pitfall is that there are very high design standards for commercial and retail construction -- sometimes to a silly degree. One example is that the city does not allow mechanic shops to have their garage doors directly facing the street -- they have to be around back or at an angle. (I learned this from my mechanic who complained bitterly about it). The purpose of the high design standards is to make things look nice but also act as an impediment towards sprawl.

Another thing is that commercial property tax can be fairly high in Colorado in general, long story -- that may not directly affect you since most businesses lease, but it may affect your lease terms.

Fort Collins is actually a place known for underemployed people, even in better times. A lot of people really like living there but it doesn't really have the stablest of employment markets. Many people do have to leave due to economic necessity as there are only a few large employers in town (HP, Intel, CSU etc), and if they're not hiring, a lot of the professionals have to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Of course if they happen to be hiring at the same time then times can be good.

[sunsprit]

If it's any indicator of the economic health of an area to see the vacancy rates of retail storefronts along the major commercial corridors in a town ... Fort Collins is looking pretty good these days.

If you drive the corridors of College Ave or Mulberry, or look at the retail spaces in the Old Town district ... you'll see very few vacancies. For the most part, in all the trips I've recently made to Ft Collins, the traffic density along those routes was high, even in mid-day during the week. Public parking was scarce by the storefronts, and the parking lots of the strip malls were showing a lot of shoppers there. There's a lot of density of certain types of stores along those commercial districts ... FCollins supports two Home Depots, not very far apart. One on Harmony at College, and another not very far away at the North Central side of town just off Mulberry and Riverside. I think that's a pretty impressive sign of retail activity in the area.

My wife and I were in town to purchase livestock feed a week ago, and the two retailers close by off Riverside were both very busy. We went to a restaurant on College by the Old Town area, and it was busy ... and then to a Kitchen wares stores that was almost elbow-to-elbow with customers. I did a quick tour of the place and then sat down in a chair by their cash registers at the store entrance to wait for my wife to complete her shopping. In that 45 minutes ... I watched a steady stream of customers in and out the doors, and very few left without stopping at the registers and making a purchase. They have a warehouse on the side street down the block from their retail storefront, and there was an almost continuous run of store staff to pull merchandise from that inventory for somebody buying a large item after looking at a sales sample on the retail showroom floor. I'd say that business was very good for them that day ... and it was mid-week.

The only places there where retail trade seems to be lacking is on the North end of town past the Old Town district. By the time you reach Jax's store, it's starting to look pretty thin and there's a bunch of properties for lease, including retailers and restaurants. We head up to Ron's equipment for their stuff, so we get to travel the length of College fairly frequently. You'll see more automotive chain parts stores up that way, and the overall impression is that it's run down compared to the more vital areas a few miles South. Even so, there's a high traffic count along that corridor between Jax's main store and their Farm store by Ron's.

RE: automotive shops and garage doors facing the street ... I don't know that this is a requirement, or perhaps many shops are grandfathered in for this as a more recent code requirement. For example, I do business with a Subaru specialist on Riverside, and their bay doors face the street. As do many automotive shops along the College Ave corridor ... ranging from the tire shops (independents as well as franchised outfits), quick lube shops, to the numerous auto repair shops in the strip malls directly facing and close to the street frontage of College Ave. I bought a set of tires from a tire shop earlier this summer and their entire shop fronts to College and all of their bay doors are facing there. If the OP is looking at an existing retail storefront where the zoning issues are now in compliance ... this shouldn't be an issue as a new cost of doing business.

[GaWayne]

Thanks for the observations.