Hello Friends,
This week we filed our first phase (G) of Montava into the city of Fort Collins platting approval process. Over the coming months this will be the next chapter that brings to life the promises we have made. Montava is a community designed to support values conceived over decades by the people of Fort Collins. We are excited to be one step closer to those values, and this special community, becoming a reality.
What we have filed is the first phase of housing and related infrastructure improvements (phase G). We also want to communicate what is coming in the near future, and how they tie together. This filing will soon be followed by the farm phase, the town center commercial phase and a very unique European style housing phase connected to the town center which will be built as phase G wraps up. We are designing Phase E to be a 100% electric for the single family housing, innovating and supporting Fort Collins carbon reduction goals.
Our team is committed to bringing commercial services and the farm to life in the beginning of development. The farm will run a separate platting process which is simpler than the housing phases. This will begin shortly and be finished so it coincides with Phase G. In the mean time we continue to work on the farm, as we have been for 3 years, preparing the soil both for organic certification as well as soil improvement. It has been cover cropped for three years now, and we are going to plant something very exciting this spring for the next phase of the process. Kernza is a special perennial grain that will have a wonderful impact on the soil, help reduce our carbon footprint, and eventually provide a raw material for our community brewery partner and bakery to enable craft beer and milled baked goods made from produce grown on the farm. This is just one example how the community will be connected with the farm. The shape and diversity of the farm operation will be rolled out over the course of 2022. More on this soon.....
We are also very excited about the direction of our Town Center planning. From incredible partnerships we are forming, to the overall design and feeling the town center will grow into. To gain a sense of the vision check out a place called The Funk Zone in Santa Barbara, and Fort Collins own Jessup Farm which has become a beautiful artisan village and community hub.
NEFC is being built to honor and intentionally connect to the incomparable
downtown Fort Collins. We will work to create a unique vibe distinct to NEFC while supporting, connect to and enhancing the already world-class Fort Collins experience. This should feel very organic with smaller buildings and natural materials, built at a human scale, keeping costs down so businesses can afford them while keeping the design of the public realm high so the experience feels wonderful.
We are working to include meaningful experiences from the best local partners that include brewery, coffee, healthcare, food, grocery, farm stand (love to Native Hill Farm) and more. We are working on these relationships today and intend for as many as possible to begin the journey with us from the beginning.
We also have a very special intersection being designed inside the community connecting Phase E with the future Fort Collins NE Community Park and the regional bike trail. Designed with time tested Dutch principles, this will be a bike/pedestrian prioritized roundabout that provides wonderful and safe connectivity to all the places central to the community and beyond. It is fitting that NEFC should lead the way with innovative infrastructure that helps make this priority central to the whole community. A special thank you to our consulting partners at Mobycon for helping shape this plan.
We have an incredible Builders Guild established to build the homes for sale in Montava which includes Thrive Homebuilders, Wonderland Homes and McStain Communities. We are very excited to share details of the homes that will be delivered by these high performance builders. Our town architect Lew Oliver is helping lead the design process as we envision what the overall community will look and feel like. Simplicity, timeless beauty, tasteful materiality, wide variety and attainability are words we would use to describe the homes for future residents. Drawing from the historic home architecture of Fort Collins, and other special places around the country, this is a very high priority for our development team. More details will be shared between now and summer 2022.
We also continue to work very intentionally with the City of Fort Collins and other partners on our affordable housing commitments and strategy. This will also be integral to the overall community fabric, and a high priority for our team.
Montava is designed as a diverse walkable community that will help bring the promise of living in Fort Collins to it's Northeastern corridor. We are so thankful to all our community partners that have helped shape such an ambitions community vision and who will be part of the long term success. From the beginning we've worked with the community to hand craft Montava, and that will continue.
