Now YOU can live in a Chipotle, thanks to Old Town North!

Having grown up in Fort Collins I often recall the old waterfront district north of Old Town, and how in the 50s and 60s it used to be the industrial center that helped put this city on the map. But as the economy changed and people started shipping goods on trucks, planes and trains, our beloved waterfront district, and the old warehouses that defined it, began to fall into ruin. By the mid-90s the buildings had begun to rust and the area was rampant with vice. Then, about five years ago it was purchased and turned into a modern, mixed-use business/residential community, and proudly did urban renewal raise its head, having once again brought new life to a decaying hell-hole. And what became of the old warehouses that were once so iconic? Well, they were worked into the very buildings that replaced them, ingeniously incorporated to remind those who dwelt there of the area's historic past.

Wait, none of that ever happened.

And since it never happened, why is there a half-built neighborhood just north of Old Town that's decorated with faux-rusted corrugated steel? Might it be a cheap attempt to look "edgy"? And so it was that I stumbled across Old Town North, the hippest place to befriend a prairie dog in all of Fort Collins. (Admittedly I don't get out much, as their website says they broke ground in 2007, but since it still looks half finished, I think it's fine to be making fun of it now.)



No, that sign isn't hundreds of feet wide. Yes, there really is a Spanish style mini-hacienda going up next to the gritty, urban condos that give OTN its safe-danger charms. Clearly they want to have it both ways: if the "wrong side of the tracks" gentrification angle is too much for you, you're just a quick walk from the comforts of a regular suburban neighborhood. It's like a yoga studio that also sells crack.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love big burritos. Aside from the countless breweries, tattoo parlors and medical marijuana dispensaries that make this town great, it's seemingly limitless demand for big burritos is another thing that makes FoCo "The Choice City." That said, the decor at Chitpotle has always struck me as forced. Diamond plate and corrugated steel, along with the metal Aztec warrior statue at the Laurel & College locale, never really said to me, "Eat a burrito!" Instead I always got a sort of upscale fight club vibe from it. Like you go in, take off your designer sweater-vest and then kick the crap out of someone, but never talk about it.

As Old Town North also seems to be decorating from the "corrugated metal = urban cool" school of style, I've taken the liberty of adding the statue from the Chipotle entrance (whom I've dubbed Xochipotle, a delightful portmanteau of Xochipilli - the young Aztec god of feasting, painting, dancing, games, and writing - and the burrito parlor from whence he came) to my cellphone pictures of this bastion of edgy desperation. See if you can spot Xoch' in each one!

Here we see just how close OTN places their seemingly irreconcilable want for both The Urban and The Suburban. I'm no professional estimator, but that looks like about 40 feet, ja? Also, Xochipotle is flying on a burrito.



Similarly baffling are the street names. Intellectual religious luminaries, the lot of 'em, or so Wikipedia has led me to believe. Jerome, for St. Jerome, the man who gave us the Bible in Latin. Osiander, for Andreas Osiander, a prominent early Lutheran theologian. And Pascal, for Blaise Pascal, an all around smart guy and staunch Catholic. Amazingly, we again see OTN's ability to unify opposites - it was not enough to, as Jay Z put it, bring the suburbs to the 'hood, they're also setting aside that whole Protestant/Catholic schism thing. God, what a place to live.



At this point you may be feeling a little overwhelmed by all these urbane, big city ideals that Old Town North represents. "Wait a minute," you say in a protestation-y tone of voice, thus revealing what side of the aforementioned schism you fall on (pro pudor!). "I'm just a regular person from Northern Colorado, not some big city hipster impressed by all this book learnin'." Well, here we again see OTN's remarkable penchant for diverse inclusion. Why, it's a veritable Noah's Ark of ideals.

For all the effort that was taken to pre-rust the metal siding that graces the sides of the "cool" condos, it would seem real distress has come to this delightful little faux-urban enclave. As their website was last updated during the 2007 groundbreaking, and the ass-end fell out of the stock-market a short-ish while later, Old Town North has lots of unused lots, at least by humans. Never ones to pass up a new home regardless of the affected pretense associated with it, a large colony of prairie dogs has dug in at OTN, and judging from my rough estimates, they may outnumber the humans. Is that Northern Colorado enough for ya?



Big City, Suburban, and Rural! OTN truly has it all. The only thing they're missing is the "at" that so many other neighborhoods have incorporated as of late. (The Preserve at The Meadows, The Ponds at Overland Trail, Invesco Field at Mile High, etc.) To this end, and as new building seems to be on hiatus, I've decided to help OTN out with this final dash of ridiculous pretense.


Also if they want to use any of my photos for their website, they're more than welcome to. (Arrows added for emphasis.)



Now, who wants a burrito?