Johnstown, Windsor, Wellington? (Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland: sales, real estate, leasing)

[enikkor]

How dod these place compare with Loveland/Fo Collins?

I passed by Windsor. It looks arid!

Does he stench from Greeley hit this places often?

[Get Bit]

I am bias, but Windsor > Wellington and Johnstown..

I have never smelled Greeley from Windsor, although outside of Windsor, depending on the direction you go, there can be some dairys, etc.. The wind never stops blowing in Wellington, might as well be in Wyoming. Johnstown is a small community, I would only live on the far west end of it.. Some of the crime sprees spread over there from Milliken.

Ft Collins is typical college town, Loveland has more of a "retirement" feeling to it.. Or for me it does..

Windsor is more of a bedroom community which boomed in the 70's with Kodak.. Now that Kodak / Carestream is not to far off of closing it's doors, most are employed outside of the town.. Great place to live, in the middle of everything, great school district, low crime, etc.

[jwiley]

If you are worried about the supposed stench of Greeley, you may want to be very careful about moving to either Loveland or Johnstown. Both have large feedlots in the area. In fact there are areas around Fort collins where you can smell the cows as well, but then you are moving to an area that was very agricultural for most of it's history. Windsor you may be okay, as they seem to have less large cattle operations in their immediate vicinity, but then they have a pretty large sheep farm a few miles north and when the wind is right you can tell. Sheep smell much worse then Cattle to me.

Wellington you may be okay, but then the wind blows constantly there but I do not really know of any large cattle or sheep operations in the area.

[Get Bit]

Originally Posted by jwiley

Windsor you may be okay, as they seem to have less large cattle operations in their immediate vicinity, but then they have a pretty large sheep farm a few miles north and when the wind is right you can tell. Sheep smell much worse then Cattle to me.

Cactus hill is 6.5 miles N of Windsor.. Never once in 35 years have we ever had a wiff of it.. Once you get within a mile or so of it I agree, it is worse than cattle.. Now, if you moved into Soaring Eagle subdivision which is in "Windsor" you can get a glimpse of it every once and a while. It is about a mile from it. We have several friends out there and you can notice the smell depending on wind, temp, etc..

[UltrazGSD]

My parents live up by Wellington (out in the country) and they love it out there, other than all the wind. I don't care for the actual town of Wellington at all. It seems very old and rundown to me, and there is next to no stores in it.

Windsor is a lovely little town with lots of charm! We were just there last night for the free all town BBQ and concert in the park. They have a really nice park with a swim beach right near the heart of town. It seems like a friendly, safe, pretty town.

Johnstown is smaller. We're buying a house with a Johnstown address, but it's actually 8 miles from there in a subdivision just outside Loveland. I don't know if I'd like living in actual Johnstown, as it seems pretty tiny. It also shares schools with Milliken and IMO Milliken is horrid. NEVER would live there!

Fort Collins is where we live right now, and we LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Lots to do, beautiful town, friendly, but unfortunately a bit expensive for us to buy in. But my husband works here, we go to church here, all our doctors/etc are here, and my son's playgroups are mainly here, so even after we move I will probably be in Fort Collins almost daily. We moved from central California last summer, and cannot believe the night and day difference from there to here. We love it here!

[WyattE]

is there really a big difference in wind between Wellington, Ft. Collins, and Cheyenne and any place in between? Some say it is comparable to Cheyenne, but others say the opposite.

[jwiley]

Originally Posted by WyattE

is there really a big difference in wind between Wellington, Ft. Collins, and Cheyenne and any place in between? Some say it is comparable to Cheyenne, but others say the opposite.

The closer you get to Cheyenne the worst the wind gets, although it is not as noticeable in most parts of Fort collins, it is noticeable houses on the edges of town and really can drive someone crazy in Wellington or Cheyenne.

[ColoradoRicardo]

We moved here to the Front Range in 2000 to get our 5 kids away from the So. Cal. "you are what you drive" mentality. We love the whole area. Our first home was in Windsor but we found that Fort Collins has better schools so we moved here in '05.
Here is my opinion of the various areas around here...

Loveland - Nice but does not have as many trendy restaurants like Fort Collins. Probably because of the CSU campus and students in Fort Collins. 2 big outdoor malls with good shopping.

Fort Collins - Generally the best restaurants around this area. Great schools. Pricier homes (especially in "old town"). Lots of micro-breweries. Excellent outdoor recreational activities.

Windsor - Very "small townish". City made big mistake turning down the Wal-Mart. They built across the city line into Timnath. Windsor lost out on the big Wal-Mart tax revenue checks. Duh. Nice bedroom community.

Greeley - Inexpensive real estate. Has cow smell a lot but the business folks call it "the smell of money".

Johnstown - Very rural with some newer developments popping up.

Wellington - Small older town north of Fort Collins. Basically very rural.

If you disagree with me tell me YOUR opinions.

Ricardo

[AMidnightSoul]

Wal-mart owns land in Windsor, Wal-Mart buys land in Windsor; developers plan to break ground next month | GreeleyTribune.com, but they haven't done anything with it. They have stated that due to poor sales performance of the Timnath store, they are considering their options & looking at the possiblity of selling or leasing the land to another box store. Last I heard, Costco is considering purchasing the land & building a store, but I've found nothing to confirm that. I think they're just discussing the possibility.

I love Windsor. There are enough stores in town that if you don't want to go into Ft. Collins or Loveland, you don't have to. But if you want to, they are really close & easy to get to. I live in North Windsor, so it only takes me 10 minutes to get to South Ft. Collins & 20 minutes to get to Old Town. If you lived in South Windsor, it would be about the same to get to Loveland. Centerra is close and easy to get to (10 minutes from N. Windsor), but not as close as it is to Johnstown or E. Loveland. There are great bike/walking trails also, & before too long Ft. Collins, Timnath & Windsor will be connected via the bike trails. Windsor is currently connected to Greely via the trails, so when completed, you'll be able to go straight from Ft. Collins to Greeley. The people are nice. There are great community events at the lake (Boardwalk Park) most weeks throughout the summer and there's virtually no violent crime. It's definitely not what I would consider a sleepy, little town, but offers a nice reprieve if you don't want to deal with Ft. Collins traffic, etc. on a regular basis. However, if you like to feel more like you live in a city, in the thick of things, Ft. Collins would be better. Windsor is full of families, like much of Fort Collins, but not college kids, like old town Ft. Collins. So depending on where you are in Ft. Collins, the vibe in Windsor can be similar or completely different, just on a much smaller scale.

Since I live on the North end of Windsor, I've smelled ag & livestock before. I'd say about 5 or 6 days a year on average. I've also smelled the same smell in south & north Ft. Collins, about the same # days-very little. I've smelled it at Centerra more often, which means you can smell it in parts of Loveland & Johnstown also, but again, I doubt its very often (I'm not at Centerra every day so can't say). I've smelled it in every town around here. Some people will tell you they never smell it & other people will tell you they smell it all the time. Go figure. Unless you don't want to smell it at all, I'd say it's not something you need to worry about since it's not the normal, everyday smell.

I'm really not familiar with Johnstown, so can't offer much of an opinion to it. I drove through a few times & it looked like a cute little town, but it's definitely smaller than Windsor, but seems to have more than Wellington. I like what I've seen of the town. They get lots of tax revenue from Centerra, moreso than other towns that are larger get with their local tax revenue, so they are probably in a good position financially.

Wellington doesn't really have much except houses that I've seen. They have a very small Main Street, but it's not really populated with much in the way of stores. I believe Wellington lost their grocery store because there wasn't enough business (unless I missed news of a last minute save). I assume most people that live in Wellington did their grocery shopping in Ft. Collins since their population is big enough to support a grocery store.

I've been here under 2 years, so I'm just learning about this all myself. Just wanted to give a perspective from someone who had to make the decision between Ft. Collins/Loveland/Windsor/Wellington/Johnstown myself. I will say that if I had decided not to move to Windsor, I would've picked Ft. Collins. In another 20 years, I would probably pick Johnstown. It all depends on where you are in your life & what you are looking for.

[AMidnightSoul]

Oh yeah, Berthoud is another small town in the area. Just another possibility to research if you're considering small towns in the area. It's probably the smallest out of those listed. It's truely a small, country town. Very nice people.