Wellington embarks on second century

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Wellington is closing out its first century with 4,700 people, the promise of a second, larger medical facility and hundreds of lots available for new homes.

Questions still unanswered are whether the growing town will get a second elementary school and a new grocery store in the near future. Poudre School District will decide the former early next year, while developers continue negotiations with potential grocers.

Incorporated in 1905, the town has seen boom and bust and some decades of slow growth. There's nothing slow about the present, however. As of mid-November, the town had issued 280 new housing permits for the year. There have been no new commercial buildings since last year, however, and the newest has just found a buyer.

The United Medical Center in Cheyenne announced on Nov. 15 that it will buy the vacant building at 7859 Sixth St. with plans to open the Wellington Medical Center by April.

UMC chief executive officer Charles Harms said the operating entity will be investing about $1.8 million on the property, remodeling and equipment for the medical center. Services will initially include family practice and will expand to include pediatrics, obstetrics, internal medicine, mammography, physical therapy and other specialties.

"Our staff is pretty excited," Harms said about UMC's first venture into Colorado. "We see tremendous growth."

UMC, which is owned by Laramie County, has home care facilities in Wheatland and Torrington, Wyo., and its physicians are used to traveling outside Cheyenne, he added. With physicians and support staff, the clinic will open with six to eight personnel.

Wellington went for a number of years without medical services. Soucie Chiropractic opened in 2001, followed by North Country Family Practice (now Red Feather Medical Clinic) and Wellington Eye Care in 2003.

The town also had no local banks for several decades, and now it has two.

Growing and growing

Although commercial development has lagged in comparison to homes, town administrator Larry Lorentzen is sure that will change. "We'll have a little commercial boom, just like a residential boom," he said in a recent interview.

The annexation requests keep coming in for both residential and commercial, and the town board will hold hearings on three properties on Dec. 13.

The Beet Dump Annexation south of Jefferson Avenue would add 7.23 acres of light industrial to the town. The Harris Annexation at the southeast corner of County Road 9 and Washington (CR 64) would add 3.8 acres of commercial property. The Daubert Farm Annexation, 157 acres east of CR 9 and south of CR 66, would add 330 single-family home sites and significant open space along Boxelder Creek.

Already annexed and in the process of building infrastructure is Columbine Estates south of The Knolls. It has 12 acres for commercial development along West Frontage Road, in addition to plans for 429 housing units.

To keep up with all the people moving to Wellington, the town is carefully monitoring demands on its water and wastewater treatment systems. It is also setting aside cash to purchase more water rights.

Wellington will also need a new town hall in the near future. Next year, town leaders will also look into size and location of a new building, but no land has been purchased yet. The town has 19 full-time employees now and may add a couple in 2006.

At the top of the capital improvement list is a softball and baseball complex. There are two options for locations - one at the north end of town and one at the south.

Lorentzen noted that the town board remains conservative when budgeting. Building permits and impact fees bring in one-time revenue, he said, and the town needs more retail stores collecting sales taxes before it can consider other amenities.

"We are well aware of what the pitfalls are," the town administrator said. "We are very conservative in our planning and will not put future residents in a bind."