Through rain, sleet and snow, construction on mega-plex Cascadia rages on. When construction wraps up, Greeley will welcome home an 8,600 seat arena, year-round water park, full-service hotel and 11,000 new housing units. The complex will have restaurants, bars and every form of entertainment all within 300 acres of mixed-use land. It's being built on the west end of Greeley and promises to be a game changer for the fastest growing city in Colorado. According to the Cascadia promotional page, the City of Greeley and partner The Water Valley Company hope to wrap up construction sometime around 2028. Cascadia promises to bring jobs and economic growth to Greeley and become a cornerstone of Greeley entertainment.
“Our vision for Cascadia was you drive into Greeley and you know you're somewhere, and you know you're in an oasis,” CEO of the Water Valley Company Martin Lind said.
Cascadia will also become the new home of the AHL hockey team, the Eagles.
Yet, the $1.1 billion dollar project has been shrouded in controversy.
“Greeley taxpayers are taking on all the risk with no guaranteed reward,” Morgan Nudelman said.
Nudelman is a Greeley resident and petitioner against the Cascadia project. She petitioned for an organization called Greeley Demands Better, a grassroots Greeley organization opposed to the Cascadia project. Nudelman worked as a volunteer petitioner not once, but twice to try to nudge the Cascadia project to slow down. One petition came up short, while the other was filed and verified by Council. Greeley voters will likely be able to vote on whether or not to repeal the planned-unit development zoning for Cascadia on Feb. 24.*
"I want Greeley to grow. I want Greeley to make money. I want our people to have jobs," Nudelman said. "But we should do it smart so that we can stay stable.”
While Greeley Demands Better may be a local organization, they are not without out-of-state ties. A non-profit from New Mexico called With Many Hands has been helping Greeley Demands Better fight against Cascadia. It is a “non-profit that is funding slash trying to create local leaders,” according to Nudelman.
Involvement from out-of-state groups has also found controversy among Greeley locals, those both for and against Cascadia. Especially when out-of-state influences press against what could be a positive for Greeley. With controversy seemingly surrounding every part of this project, it is hard to know where to stand.
The divisive nature of Cascadia makes it seem like there are only two options. One, the ultimate pro-Cascadia group, those who think that Cascadia will be nothing but positives. The other side of the coin? People who think Cascadia is nothing but an ill-advised plot. While these camps make valid arguments, opinions on the mega-complex are allowed to be more nuanced than the current discourse seems to demonstrate.
The first critique often brought up against Cascadia is the notion that Greeley and its locals will be putting on all of the risk that Cascadia will bring and The Water Valley Company will get all of the award. This is both true and false. Greeley is putting on an a substantial amount of risk, and by extension its citizens. Greeley is putting up a slew of public facilities as potential collateral in case Cascadia doesn’t pan out. This is one of the negatives that critics of Cascadia often cite. While this is true, Martin Lind often gets painted as getting a free meal ticket, that he is funding Cascadia without any risk. This is untrue. According to Lind, him and his company were approached by Greeley to bring both his team and the Cascadia development to Greeley. Developing Cascadia will require Lind to both pay the lease for his team as well as buy and develop the land around Cascadia, bringing with it a level of undeniable risk.
Regardless of your personal beliefs on Cascadia, the project will likely come to fruition. I think that Cascadia can shore up any local doubt in the project by making some concessions to local Greeley communities to both clear their name of controversy but also prove that they want what is best for Greeley.
If Cascadia, Greeley and the Water Valley Company make guarantees that the Cascadia complex will hire workers from Greeley, they can both prove their commitment to Greeley growth and enrich the community like they say they plan to. Greeley and its people deserve what is best for their wellbeing and hopefully that is what Cascadia will bring. If the Water Valley Company and Lind prove that what they say is true, and they are doing what is truly best for Greeley, then Cascadia has the potential to be a huge positive for the city. Ultimately what petitioners like Nudelman want.
“And Greeley people... like I love them," Nudelman said. "That's why I love it here. And that's why I'm doing this.”
*This story was originally published with a factual error, stating that both petitions had came up short. This has been corrected as of 2:35 p.m. on Dec. 15.
Andrew Galster is a student at the University of Northern Colorado.
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