Given all of the orange cones and construction equipment visible around Johnstown, it doesn’t take much driving to see that there’s a lot of development underway.
Millions of square feet of projects are currently under construction – or will soon be constructed – in Johnstown, a town about 30 minutes south of Fort Collins. These changes had the support of local leaders well before any concrete was poured, and the new development will certainly bring economic and population growth to the area for decades to come.
KUNC's Emma VandenEinde spoke with BizWest editor and publisher Chris Wood to learn more about the new construction projects in Johnstown.
“Development in Johnstown right now really encompasses every type of project that you can imagine,” Wood said.
One of the most significant developments is the Texas-based Buc-ee’s development, which is set to open in early March. The nearly 75,000-square-foot convenience store in Johnstown will be one of the company's largest buildings so far. It is set to have 120 gas pumps and up to 300 employees—most of whom will be full-time.
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“Buc-ee’s really has a cult following,” Wood said. “If you go to Facebook, they actually have a fan page devoted to the new Johnstown location, with more than 21,000 members on this fan page.”
That isn’t the only retail project along I-25. The Ledge Rock development will include Woods Supermarket – a Missouri-based chain that is 85,000 square feet and will open in 2024. The development will also have a Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply store and more.
There’s also some distribution growth in the area, such as the Kroger Co. Fulfillment Center near Highway 34, used by King Soopers for home delivery services.
The developers for many of these projects come from Colorado, but others are based in states including California, Arizona and Texas.
Residential communities are also laying the foundation in Johnstown. One of these is Encore on 34, a 453-acre plot that will provide about 900 single family homes and 560 apartments. This could bring as many as 10,000 new residents to town.
This kind of growth is not new—the sporting goods store Scheels came to Johnstown Plaza a few years ago on the southeast corner of I-25 and Highway 34. But even before big businesses came into town, Johnstown was putting in the work to get them there.
“Johnstown was very aggressive with annexations in the early 2000s,” Wood said. “So there's a lot of land within the city. You (also) have a very pro-growth town council and planning department in Johnstown, so you see a lot of this activity.”
Wood added that Northern Colorado is home to nine of the 20 fastest growing communities in the state. Weld and Larimer counties accounted for nearly half of the growth the state experienced from 2021 to 2022. Timnath, Windsor, Loveland and Mead in particular have all seen industrial development changes over the past few years due to this rise in population.
“(Johnstown) is not unique in the growth that we're seeing there now. But I think it is kind of a good poster child for what we're seeing in Northern Colorado right now, with the growth in all of these areas: residential and retail and distribution,” Wood said. “You don't see all of that combination in every city in the region.”
While some residents of neighboring communities have voiced their opinions about development changes - such as regarding Timnath’s mixed-use development Ladera – Wood said the Johnstown community has remained relatively quiet so far.
“I haven’t heard a lot of anti-growth sentiment,” Wood said. “As communities grow, people do get more concerned about some of the other aspects of growth, the results of growth, with traffic and other sorts of things. So I would expect we'll probably hear some of that in Johnstown at some point, but so far, it's been pretty quiet.”
While the area probably won’t grow to be as big as Fort Collins, Wood said a lot of growth is on the way and Johnstown will likely start to become a bigger hub than ever before.
