In what’s quickly turning into a disturbing trend, another Caliber property in Johnstown has been hit with foreclosure. This time it’s a 41.4-acre parcel under Blue Spruce Ridge HoldCo LLC. The foreclosure filing shows a $2 million debt still hanging in the wind, and while this might just look like another finance story to most people, there’s a bigger point here: government red tape and bureaucratic bloat are doing what recessions used to do: killing development.
Now, I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of Caliber’s balance sheet. I do know Mr. Bade and find him a good and decent man. I also know how slow, bloated, and business-unfriendly the Colorado regulatory process can be. Caliber said it took more than three years to get CDOT and Larimer County to sign off on basic ingress and egress issues. You try carrying interest, overhead, and investor anxiety for that long. Spoiler: you won’t.
The worst part? The same politicians who endlessly drone on about the housing crisis are the ones gumming up the works when someone actually tries to build something.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Blue Spruce Ridge faces foreclosure: 41.4 acres near I-25 and Colo. 402 are on the chopping block for a $2 million unpaid note.
- CDOT and Larimer County caused major delays: Ingress and egress approval took three years, plenty of time to kill momentum and funding.
- This isn’t Caliber’s only project in trouble: A nearby 135-acre parcel under West Ridge HoldCo LLC is in foreclosure for $12 million.
- Stock pressures add fuel to the fire: Caliber’s stock flirted with delisting and had to perform a reverse split in May just to survive Nasdaq rules.
- But CEO remains upbeat: Caliber’s leadership claims progress is being made on the Johnstown projects. Let’s hope optimism pays the bills.
My Bottom Line
This isn’t just a Caliber problem, it’s a Colorado problem. As of lately, it’s become a Johnstown problem, which is not the town I served for 20 years. We scream about housing supply, and then we regulate it into oblivion. CDOT and Larimer County sat on a driveway plan for three damn years. You can build a stadium, win a Super Bowl, and tear the thing down in less time.
In some governments, including the State of Colorado, this is the trend I have observed: the backroom bureaucrats slow-roll a project until the developer bleeds out, then everyone shrugs and says, “Guess the market’s tough.” No, the process is tough because government refuses to get the hell out of the way.
I know the folks at Caliber. They’re not scammers or grifters, they’re builders. And while the economy has its bumps, this particular wreck was made possible by the people who claim to be solving the very crisis they’re prolonging.
