Falcon takes wing

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jan 4, 2006 | by JANE REUTER THE GAZETTE

Attorney P.J. Anderson was skeptical when developers constructed four spec homes on a parcel east of Colorado Springs in 1988.

They envisioned a community of more than 2,000 residences, the first subdivision in Falcon. Anderson saw a windswept, treeless tract of land far removed from city amenities.

"I thought they were crazy," said Anderson, who represented Highland Properties, the original developers of Falcon Hills.

Real estate agents did not even have a name for the area, describing Falcon Hills as southeast Black Forest.

When Colorado Springs' economy took a nosedive in the late 1980s, Anderson felt even more certain their gamble had been a poor one.

"Those four homes sat there until 1992," Anderson said. "When the market turned around in the entire region, the market at Falcon Hills turned around with it. It was ultimately a success story."

Falcon, about 10 miles northeast of the Colorado Springs city limits, is the fastest-growing section of unincorporated El Paso County. In each of the past five years, builders in Falcon's 80831 zip code have pulled 400 to 500 singlefamily home permits.

Growth at Fort Carson is beginning to bring more development attention to southern sections of the Pikes Peak region, but the plans for Falcon are already ambitious. More than 13,000 homes are planned there, according to figures from developers and the El Paso County Planning Department. That translates into a population of about 34,000 people -- about the size of today's Castle Rock.

Only about 2,700 of those houses are built, but Falcon has gained a suburban feel. The unincorporated community has the amenities of a small town: a grocery store, drug store, golf course, several restaurants, an auto shop, liquor store and soon, a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Rusty Green, who developed Woodmen Hills, said his peers thought he also was foolhardy when he launched his project.

In 1997, "I took a friend out there and said, 'This is what we're going to do. We're going to build a development here,'" Green said. He described to the other man an affordably priced neighborhood with recreation centers, schools, trails and parks. "We were standing on Meridian Road, looking at a cow pasture."

Green ignored the eyebrows some people raised when he talked about Falcon's future.

"Developers are risk takers," he said. "I saw an alternative to the urban density lifestyle and felt if that alternative was offered at an affordable price, it would be a very high standard of living for people that couldn't otherwise afford it."

Commercial developer Greg Timm, who 15 years ago bought some eastern El Paso County property that includes the future Falcon Wal- Mart site, didn't initially share Green's enthusiasm. If the area developed, he thought, it would do so slowly.

"I thought this was really far out there," Timm said.

"My partner told me I was wrong, and said that he thought this would quickly become one of our most valuable pieces of land."

State and county transportation planners are struggling to keep up with the growth, widening U.S. Highway 24 and installing traffic lights at several intersections. When public transportation budgets fell short, developers threw their money into the construction pot, forming a special district to help widen Woodmen Road.

Boosting Falcon further, commercial growth along Powers Boulevard exploded during the past several years. Movie theaters, shops and several restaurants have sprouted in Falcon's backyard, but they still are over the horizon and out of sight. The space between is his most persuasive selling point, Green said.

"The thing that people thought was our worst negative, and probably our biggest challenge, was the distance out there," Green said. "It turned out to be our greatest asset."