For years, Johnstown’s rise has been obvious from Interstate 25.
First came annexation of land at the southeast corner of I-25 and U.S. Highway 34 in 2000, opening the door to major commercial development at 2534 and Johnstown Plaza, including the massive Scheels store that debuted in 2017. Then came Colorado’s first Buc-ee’s at the Colorado Highway 60 interchange in 2024, followed by continued expansion of the 200-acre Ledge Rock Center, home to Woods Supermarket, Murdoch’s and other retailers.
But the retail boom tells only part of the story.
Driving retail growth is a surging population that has turned Johnstown into one of the nation’s fastest-growing communities. From July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, Johnstown ranked as the 10th fastest-growing community nationwide among cities and towns with populations of 20,000 or more residents.
That’s according to the latest population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, released at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday.
Johnstown’s population increased by 8.4% during that time period, jumping from 20,697 residents to 22,433, an increase of 1,736.
Among the other Top 10 cities and towns ranked by population growth, six hailed from Texas, with the rest coming from Florida, Iowa and Utah. (Celina, Texas, ranked No. 1, with 24.6% growth.)
Only two other Colorado communities placed in the Top 100 ranked by percentage growth.
• Erie, which ranked 15th nationwide last year for one-year population growth, fell to No. 37 in the latest estimate, with 5.8% growth from 2024 to 2025. Erie’s population now stands at 40,904, up from 38,674.
• Windsor ranked No. 60 nationwide, recording 4.7% growth, reaching 43,840, up from 41,877 the prior year.
Johnstown ‘open for business’
Matt LeCerf, Johnstown’s town manager, said the town’s population growth shows that “our community is open for business, not only residential but commercial. We’re seeing a good blend and balance of residential growth and commercial growth. As the residential comes, that commercial is helping to offset those needs for the community.
“I think what it also says is our planning, our engineering departments are doing a fantastic job of taking a look at the applications and making sure that they’re meeting the expectations of our land-use code,” he added. “Those are the rules and regulations that they follow, and they’re meeting those criteria, which are heavily scrutinized. But once you make that level of development expectation, we do permit you to move forward. And I think that’s a great thing that we have a balance with, meeting those regulations while also accepting the growth that comes with it.”
Unlike some communities in the region, Johnstown does not allow cash-in-lieu when it comes to dedication of water for new developments, instead requiring developers to dedicate water at the time of development.
“I think that sets us up well for the long term in terms of making sure that we’re able to meet the growth that is actually coming to the community,” LeCerf said.
He also noted that the town has been “very heavily single-family residential,” but is seeing an uptick in development of duplexes, townhomes and multifamily projects.
“We’re cognizant of having a community that is diverse and is welcoming of everybody,” he said.
Sarah Crosthwaite, Johnstown’s economic development director, said one factor that makes Johnstown stand out compared with other communities is its available land, with 16.17 square miles within the city boundaries.
Driving retail growth is a surging population that has turned Johnstown into one of the nation’s fastest-growing communities. From July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, Johnstown ranked as the 10th fastest-growing community nationwide among cities and towns with populations of 20,000 or more residents.
That’s according to the latest population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, released at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday.
Johnstown’s population increased by 8.4% during that time period, jumping from 20,697 residents to 22,433, an increase of 1,736.
Among the other Top 10 cities and towns ranked by population growth, six hailed from Texas, with the rest coming from Florida, Iowa and Utah. (Celina, Texas, ranked No. 1, with 24.6% growth.)
Only two other Colorado communities placed in the Top 100 ranked by percentage growth.
• Erie, which ranked 15th nationwide last year for one-year population growth, fell to No. 37 in the latest estimate, with 5.8% growth from 2024 to 2025. Erie’s population now stands at 40,904, up from 38,674.
• Windsor ranked No. 60 nationwide, recording 4.7% growth, reaching 43,840, up from 41,877 the prior year.
Johnstown ‘open for business’
Matt LeCerf, Johnstown’s town manager, said the town’s population growth shows that “our community is open for business, not only residential but commercial. We’re seeing a good blend and balance of residential growth and commercial growth. As the residential comes, that commercial is helping to offset those needs for the community.
“I think what it also says is our planning, our engineering departments are doing a fantastic job of taking a look at the applications and making sure that they’re meeting the expectations of our land-use code,” he added. “Those are the rules and regulations that they follow, and they’re meeting those criteria, which are heavily scrutinized. But once you make that level of development expectation, we do permit you to move forward. And I think that’s a great thing that we have a balance with, meeting those regulations while also accepting the growth that comes with it.”
Unlike some communities in the region, Johnstown does not allow cash-in-lieu when it comes to dedication of water for new developments, instead requiring developers to dedicate water at the time of development.
“I think that sets us up well for the long term in terms of making sure that we’re able to meet the growth that is actually coming to the community,” LeCerf said.
He also noted that the town has been “very heavily single-family residential,” but is seeing an uptick in development of duplexes, townhomes and multifamily projects.
“We’re cognizant of having a community that is diverse and is welcoming of everybody,” he said.
Sarah Crosthwaite, Johnstown’s economic development director, said one factor that makes Johnstown stand out compared with other communities is its available land, with 16.17 square miles within the city boundaries.
“That’s probably why our growth is at a higher trajectory than other communities,” Crosthwaite said. “We still have a lot of availability to bring in growth and development that serves our community and is purposeful.”
Johnstown enjoyed a record-breaking year in 2025 for residential permits, with 528 single-family permits. Multifamily permits took that number to more than 900, she said.
“The growth is happening from a residential perspective, but what’s really cool is, while that growth is happening, so is the retail also following these rooftops.”
Johnstown issued 18 commercial permits in 2025 and 21 in 2024, she noted.
Around the state
In Colorado, for communities of 20,000 or more, five of the Top 10 communities — and 10 of the Top 20 — hail from Northern Colorado and the Boulder Valley. (See interactive chart.)
That’s in keeping with county-level population estimates, released in March, which found Weld County topping the state among counties of 50,000 or more residents in terms of one-year population growth.
In terms of overall population, Denver sits at the top, with 740,613 residents, but the city lost residents in the one-year period, dropping by 0.1%. Colorado Springs gained 0.5% in population, to 494,743, and Aurora increased 0.4%, to 410,053.
Fort Collins ranks as the fourth-largest city in the state, at 171,500 residents, up 0.5%.
Among other communities in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado, Evans, Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette and Westminster all lost population, according to the estimates.
Although Johnstown claimed the top spot for one-year growth among Colorado cities and towns of 20,000 or more people, Erie ranks as No. 1 in residents added since the April 2020 census, with Windsor No. 2 and Johnstown No. 3.
A national slowdown
Population growth has slowed through much of the country, especially among large cities, the Census Bureau reported, while mid-sized cities tended to see gains.
“Big-city growth slowed significantly between 2024 and 2025, with some major hubs even seeing small declines,” Matt Erickson, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division, said in a written statement. “In contrast, midsized cities found a ‘Goldilocks zone’ where domestic and international migration, paired with new housing, helped prevent the sluggish growth seen in small towns and larger metropolitan centers.”
