FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

What is Beet Street?

What’s with the Beet? Don’t you mean Beat?

Where is Beet Street?

Are you the group building an amphitheater on the Poudre River?

Are you going to do the programming in the Bohemian Foundation’s Oxbow development?

The amphitheater you refer to is the one the Bohemian Foundation is building – right?

Are you building an amphitheater?

How is Beet Street funded?

Where is Fort Collins?

Where should I stay?

What else is there to do in Fort Collins?

Is there something on your mind about Beet Street? Submit your question to: info@beetstreet.org

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

What is Beet Street?

Beet Street is a non-profit organization that presents thematic arts, cultural and scientific programs in collaboration with established local organizations to raise cultural awareness and to distinguish Fort Collins, Colorado as a community where everyone is welcome to share in discussion, reflection and creative expression. Return to top

What’s with the Beet? Don’t you mean Beat?

Any attempt to label a scene is futile, and yet events and moments too often need an adjective – a way to describe their qualities. Our reference to a beet is obscure, but we love using the root system of a beet as a metaphor – firmly rooted in the history of Fort Collins. A beet pushes through fertile soil. It represents unity between past and future, a notion of growth and the simple beauty of potential energy.

Our name is a tribute to the agricultural legacy of our community – and a time of a significant turning point in Fort Collins’ economic history. Just as the cultivation of sugar beets substantially leveraged the economy of Fort Collins at the turn of the last century, Beet Street is poised to do the same early in the 21st century by mobilizing the cultural arts as an economic engine.

The relationship between the sugar beet and Beet Street goes even deeper than that. The sugar beet is a hardy plant characterized by an extensive root system. It develops a strong, deep taproot, and surface root system of profuse, multi-branched, widely spreading laterals and a more vertically penetrating, extensive system of branches. Not unlike our collaboration and intersection with the established cultural arts of this community. (Okay, now we’ll stop with the beet-talk…!) Return to top

Where is Beet Street?

You may have noticed that there really isn’t a street bearing our name.

Beet Street is a collective of events, ideas and experiences all taking place in the Old Town District of Downtown Fort Collins. And, while our goal is to establish a home (a dedicated amphitheater) for Beet Street programs in the next few years, wherever you will find activity, excitement, and movement is where you’ll find Beet Street. Return to top

Are you the group building an amphitheater on the Poudre River?

Are you going to do the programming in the Bohemian Foundation’s Oxbow development?

The amphitheater you refer to is the one the Bohemian Foundation is building – right?

No. No. And, no. The Bohemian Foundation’s project, a unique and exciting venue, is a private development dedicated to the vision of that organization. While Beet Street will not occupy this venue, we are committed to working with the Bohemian organization to bring added excitement to the Fort Collins’ cultural experience. Return to top

Are you building an amphitheater?

Yes. Our goal is to build a dedicated home for Beet Street programs. At the moment, we have been narrowing a field of consultants and architects to proceed with a feasibility analysis and preliminary design to help the project move forward.Return to top

How is Beet Street funded?

The Fort Collins Downtown Development Authority, an economic development and public finance organization, uses tax increment funds, derived from property tax within the Old Town district – not sales tax – to help finance projects that benefit the downtown.

Tax increment financing (TIF) is a mechanism authorized by the Colorado statutes that enables a downtown development authority (DDA) to use the net new property tax revenues generated when private investment occurs and raises the assessed value of property in the district. The Fort Collins DDA follows a Plan of Development that guides its investment in projects. This plan was developed and adopted in 1981 by property and business owners, and residents from within the district.

The DDA’s Plan of Development authorizes and encourages investment in traditional public works (sidewalks, parking structures, news-stands) and private development projects (storefront improvements, signage), and additionally authorizes investment in activities and services that attract the entire community and tourism by broadening the entertainment, cultural and social activities and events that take place in the downtown. That’s where Beet Street comes into the picture. Beet Street is intended to transform the image of downtown Fort Collins into a recognized place for diverse offerings of original programming located in an attractive and stimulating urban setting.

Beet Street is part of an economic strategy that capitalizes on an expansive offering of existing arts and culture activities in Fort Collins, and its objectives are to provide an umbrella structure to assist local organizations to coordinate, package and deliver their offerings to a regional, and perhaps in the future, to a national audience, and to grow the number of visitors that will patronize our downtown businesses.

The DDA is incubating Beet Street with tax increment funds for three years while the Beet Street staff strives to achieve their mandated goal to become self-sufficient.

Why aren’t these public dollars used for something more important – like balancing the City’s budget?

This financing mechanism was created to help communities to improve their downtown districts by encouraging a “domino-effect” (one improvement will help lead to another improvement and so on). The DDA and its finance mechanism were created to help the community improve the downtown through strategic investments or enhancements that go beyond the basic services provided by the City. The DDA often works closely with the City to enhance basic services such as fire and police protection and in return eases pressure on the City’s budget. Recent examples include the DDA’s contribution of land to the Poudre Fire Authority so it could affordably expand it administrative headquarters. The DDA also partnered with the City to provide seven day per week private security services at many of the downtown facilities to curb basic nuisance and behavioral problems that are important when creating a healthy and attractive downtown, but not important enough to warrant the time and services of highly trained sworn police officers.

Overall, the TIF investment projects are designed to attract people to Old Town to eat, shop, stay and be entertained. These expenditures help to increase the sales tax receipts which, in turn, fund the City’s budget. Return to top

Where is Fort Collins?

Nestled into the Front Range foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Fort Collins is located 60 miles north of Denver (one hour from Denver International Airport) and 40 miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Return to top

Where should I stay?

Finding a place to stay won’t be a problem in Fort Collins. We have more that 8,000 hotel beds within a 50-mile radius of Old Town. We are home to international chains, boutique hotels and charming bed & breakfasts – and everything in between. We recommend visiting the Fort Collins Convention and Visitors Bureau website at www.ftcollins.com/lodging/ to find the accommodations that best suit your personal tastes. Return to top

What else is there to do in Fort Collins?

Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University, one of the leading technological research institutions in the Western States and boasts a symphony, opera, 15 dance companies, 11 theater companies, six museums, and numerous other cultural activities.

Fort Collins is also home to fabulous recreational opportunities, a vibrant nightlife, and family fun galore. Experience world class white water rafting and kayaking on the Cache La Poudre River, mountain biking, fishing, cross-country skiing, golf and much more. Savor award winning beers at one of six breweries at the close of your adventures.

Fort Collins has amazing amenities for children, too! The Discovery Science Center; The Raptor Center; Fort Collins Museum in Library Park; The Farm at Lee Martinez Park; Children’s Garden at Spring Creek Park; the Municipal Railway (ride a turn of the century trolley car); Edora Ice Center (year-round ice skating); over 800 acres of dedicated parkland at over 44 sites – including the brand new Inspiration Park; disc golf courses (frisbee); and, free maps are available for the almost 70 miles of paved bike paths in the City (you can borrow bikes/equipment from our growing bike library!)

Free music/entertainment is presented in Old Town Square throughout the summer, one-of-a-kind shopping and dining in more restaurants per capita than any other town in Colorado!

Visit our local events calendar to find out what’s going on in Fort Collins at www.ftcollins.com/events
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