New Luxury Community Underway in Northern Colorado

Timnath Trail at Riverbend – construction progress. Image courtesy of Rooney Properties

Rooney Properties is building Timnath Trail at Riverbend Apartment Homes, the first multifamily development in Timnath, Colo., with the first of 176 planned units due to deliver in June.

The luxury apartment home community is being built in response to the rapid growth in Timnath, located between the cities of Fort Collins, Colo., and Denver, and is also near other Colorado economic markets including Loveland, Centerra and Johnstown. The 8.6-acre site is adjacent to the Poudre River and the Poudre River Trail, a popular 21-mile paved recreation trail. It is also near the city’s new City Hall, a project completing this year along with an adjacent retail center with new restaurants, offices and service providers moving in.

“Colorado’s population is incredibly active, and we wanted to prioritize this as we determined the right site for us in our expansion into the state,” developer Jim Rooney said in a prepared statement. “With direct access from the community’s residents, we felt that being adjacent to the Poudre River Trail would not only open up biking and running to our residents, but also help reduce vehicular traffic and increase access to more outdoors activities around the area. We couldn’t be happier to have discovered the hidden gem of Timnath and to be joining the town in this important phase of their growth.”

Jim Rooney. Image courtesy of Rooney Properties

The Rooney team worked closely with the City Council and city staff members to identify the property and work through community zoning solutions to erect the city’s first new multifamily housing development.

The community will comprise mostly garden-style apartments with some select townhouse residences. Floor plans will range from one- to three-bedrooms. High-end finishes such as solid-wood doors, granite countertops and high ceilings are included in the units. Many of the community amenities will be housed in the 5,700-square-foot clubhouse including a fitness center, pet grooming room, and bike and ski maintenance facility. The site will also feature a heated swimming pool and whirlpool, outdoor kitchen and car charging stations.

The clubhouse will open in June along with some of the residential buildings, and further individual buildings will open on a rolling basis through the rest of the year.

Denver-based Mission Rock Residential will manage the property. Established in 2012, the company manages 109 multifamily communities and more than 25,000 residential units across the United States.

Rooney Properties, a Wisconsin-based residential development and management firm specializing in multifamily properties, has been responsible for the development of more than 800 residential units over the past 15 years.

Growing Multifamily Presence

Fort Collins is Colorado’s fourth-largest city and home to Colorado State University, with more than 30,000 students, and numerous major tech firms like Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Broadcom. In April, Phoenix Realty Group acquired a 280-unit rental community, Argyle at Willow Springs, through an affiliated entity. Phoenix said it planned to renovate and upgrade the Class B apartment property and rebrand it as Alvista Harmony under the company’s Alvista Communities brand. It has 16 three-story buildings on an 18.7-acre site. The company owns Alvista Falls, a 444-unity community in Westminster, Colo., and Alvista Trailside, a 312-unit property in Englewood, Colo.

In October, Steadfast Apartment REIT acquired PeakView by Horseshoe Lake, a 222-unit apartment community in Loveland, Colo., located within the Fort Collins MSA. The Irvine, Calif.,-based REIT paid $44.2 million for the multifamily property located on 14 acres.

Both new owners cited the growing Northern Colorado multifamily market fundamentals for buying in the region. The rapidly expanding economy and steady demographic in the Denver metro and suburban area has boosted the multifamily market. The metro added 45,300 jobs in the 12 months ending in November for a 2.8 percent expansion, 70 basis points above the U.S. figure, with most of the jobs coming in the trade, transportation and utilities sectors, according to Yardi Matrix. Demand remains strong across the metro and rents are increasing, despite the addition of 14,457 new units in 2018, noted Yardi Matrix’ Denver Multifamily Report – Winter 2019. Average rent is expected to rise 3.4 percent this year.