Interview with Fred Veitch

              Oral History Interview

with

Fred Veitch





Interview by

Judy Finley

18 November 2005

CSHP 0013, 
Part 1






Colorado Springs History Project
CSHP










Pikes Peak Library District, Special Collections
Copyright 2015




Colorado Springs History Project
     
     The Colorado Springs History Project was conducted between the years 2005-2010 in a joint effort to document and update the history of Colorado Springs from mid-20th century to 2010. This volunteer team included members from the region’s major academic libraries and faculties, as well as the Pikes Peak Library District and the Pioneers Museum. Administered and supervised by the Colorado Springs History Project Committee, the project interviewers consisted of a number of local volunteers. 

      The oral history portion of The Colorado Springs History Project identified and interviewed individuals who had helped to shape the city of Colorado Springs in various and diverse ways. Subjects were also sought as representative of inhabitants of the Pikes Peak region and could provide insight into the city’s story in the second half of the twentieth century. Interviews reflect the rapid growth of Colorado Springs from the post-World War II era to the early part of the twenty first century. Interviews touch on business and government relations, religious organizations, various non-profits, the Air Force Academy, Colorado College, key local businesses, and the growth of many important charitable services within the community. Several interviews touch on education in Colorado Springs, highlighting both secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. 


     The collection is comprised of 50 tapes, 19 CDs, an2 DVDs with 32 individual interviews. These interviews are housed in the archives of Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections. A complete listing of the interviews is available at the Special Collections reference desk. Transcripts for many of the interviews are available for use. 


Digitization
     Audio from the Colorado Springs History Project was digitized between 2009 - 2011 and is available for study and use in the Special Collections department.

















The Colorado Springs Oral History Project
			
		Fred Veitch 
		Oral History Interview
		CSHP 0013, part 1

		Judy Finley  
		18 November 2005

[AUDIO BEGINS] 

Finley      This is Judy Finley interviewing Fred Veitch for the Colorado Springs History Project.  The date is November 18th, 2005 and we are in the offices of the Nor’wood Development Corporation at 111 South Tejon.  Fred Veitch is the Vice President for Commercial Development of the Nor’wood Corporation.  His biggest project has been the First and Main Shopping Center at Powers Boulevard and Constitution Avenue.  Veitch was born in Riverside, California on November 3rd, 1947 and has lived in Colorado Springs since 1969.  He has been very active in community affairs; various committees of the Chamber of Commerce, a member--a former (audio disconnects)  This is Judy Finley talking to Fred Veitch and I’m very glad to welcome you to our Colorado Springs History Project.  You have been in Colorado Springs since when Fred?

Veitch      1969.

Finley      1969.  And what brought you to Colorado Springs?

Veitch      Judy, I graduated from the University of Denver…And I went to work upon graduation for a company called Huskin and Company... H-U-S-K-I-N and Company.  And they were real estate syndicators.  They would put investment groups together and buy real estate projects and they had purchased a number of apartment properties in Colorado Springs and I went to work for them in their property management department and there was an opening down in Colorado Springs to manage all of their properties and to open a branch office.

Finley      Oh boy...

Veitch      And I jumped at it a year out of college because I thought it was going to be a great career opportunity--to take over that office in Colorado Springs.

Finley      That’s great.

Veitch     So, I moved down here and at this time I think they had about 1,100 or 1,200 apartment units, which was quite a few.  We were probably the largest land--apartment renter in Colorado Springs.  And we officed down at the corner of Tejon and Pikes Peak, up above Rutledges.

Finley      Oh, yeah.  

Veitch      In that building and that--so that was in 1969.

Finley      And what was the city like or what did you think of the city when you first arrived?

Veitch      Well, I had gone to school in Denver… and so compared to Denver, I thought Colorado Springs was a tiny little town.

Finley      [laughing] 

Veitch     You know, at that time my wife didn’t want to move--move to Colorado Springs, she was concerned that we just wouldn’t have the kind of lifestyle that we wanted to have in Denver with arts and music and things of that nature and we thought, you know, at that time, it was just almost like, well, we could live in Colorado Spring but if we needed a suburban fix or an urban fix we could go to Denver again.

Finley      Fly to Denver.

Veitch     Fly to Denver. And so when we first came to Colorado Springs, we really didn’t look upon it as our home as much as an extension of Denver.
                Over the next couple of years that opinion changed.  I was very impressed by the natural beauty of the community.  I was very impressed by the proximity to the foothills, the fact that it nestled right up against the foothills, which was a very different perspective than living in most of Denver.  It was very clean. It was pretty consolidated downtown and there was this street way off in the boonies called Academy Boulevard that was just starting to get developed.

Finley      Way out on the edge of town.

Veitch      On the edge of town.

Finley       Right.

Veitch      And Circle Drive was a--was a real commerce road at that time.

Finley      Uh-hmm.  That’s true.  My goodness.  Did you--immediately... of course you were in the real estate business to start with... did you get to know a lot of people and branch out into--into broader committees and things?

Veitch      I did.  I was--I had been a History of Political Science major in college and so I was sort of interested in that, in government and politics and that sort of thing.  And The Huskin gave me a pretty free rein down here and so I joined the Chamber of Commerce and I immediately got involved in a lot of Chamber activities, served on a lot of committees, everything from grading committees to the Legislative Committee and I can remember that we used to have breakfast meetings once a week with the Legislators, and I always found that fascinating.  So I got involved with the Chamber with a few activities. 

Finley      Right.  Well now in the 1970’s Colorado Springs was in the throes of  a--sort of a debate it seems to me. There was that Citizens Lobby for Sensible Growth and then there was... I forget what other groups. So what did you see as the conflict between those who wanted to have the city grow rapidly and the environmental movement, it was pretty strong then.

Veitch      It was pretty strong.  I, you know, my perspective of course is a bit different because it was as a young man and not as I might see the conflict today.

Finley      Uh-hmm. Right.

Veitch      I might see it in a slightly different context but then I saw it almost as an elitist type of movement.  The people it seemed to me at the time, who were arguing against growth were people who lived on the north end of downtown in very comfortable, nice homes and it almost seemed to be that all these newcomers weren’t like them which was clearly the case and therefore we weren’t going to let them in. The conflict at the time is that the people like Bruce Shepard and Steve Schuck were arguing that the community needed to grow in order to provide jobs for our children, and at that time statistically we had a huge outflow of our own kids from graduation and school.  There really weren’t jobs in Colorado Springs.  The community was very, very dependent upon military which didn’t give high paying jobs and it seemed to me that we had no real industry or no real business of business going on in Colorado Springs.  And so, yeah, there was a lot of debate over growth, on whether it was a good idea, bad idea... what the community should be.

Finley     Right.  Can you remember some of the people involved in that debate on both sides?

Veitch     Well, I’ve mentioned, Bruce Shepard and Steve Schuck and David Sunderland who all founded the Economic Development Group at downtown and when they founded that, there was a lot of debate whether that ought to be under the Chamber’s control or not.

Finley      Uh-huh.

Veitch      Betty... I’m trying to think of Betty’s last name.  Betty Krause.  I called her “Bake Sale Betty”  because one day at City Council she suggested that one of the ways to overcome our funding needs was to hold a bake sale and to me that sort of summed up the thought process.

Finley      Uh-huh.

Veitch      They just seemed stuck in time and unwilling to change.

Finley      Did you know… Fred Sondermann.

Veitch     Fred Sondermann was an active component. Fred had a very thoughtful, I think, dialogue that he was trying to have on growth. I just happened to disagree with Fred’s conclusions at that time.

Finley      There was Mike Bird?

Veitch     Mike Bird, yeah.  And oh, gee... Bruce Shepard was on City Council at one time.  Of course, Mayor Bob was there for a long, long time. Pete Susemihl.

Finley     Yeah.

Veitch     Yeah.  I’m trying to think of all the people that were there.

Finley      Did you know Andrew Marshall?

Veitch      I knew Andrew Marshall.

Finley      All right.

Veitch      And Andrew was an interesting guy.  He--actually, we managed some apartments for him at one time on Airport Road and he always seemed to combine the city politics with his own developmental aspects and he seemed to be a very knowledgeable guy. The leaders then seemed to be a lot more charismatic than I attribute our personalities today, with perhaps the exception of Doug Bruce... not in a good way.

Finley      Uh hmm.  It seems to me most of the leaders in those days were what I call the old guard…

Veitch     There was--there was clearly kind of a group of individuals that people always referred to as the people who were going to lead the community and they were largely the old time generational downtown people and they were a few, you know, the banks were very active, the leadership in the banks, those were the policy makers and those were the people that sort of set the direction in town.

Finley      And it--I always heard rumors that most of the big decisions were made at the El Paso Club, does that have any reality?

Veitch      Having never been a member but having gone there that was always felt.  I think that there’s no question that’ll--that Eugene McCleary and Andy Marshall and those guys were all club members, they all hung out together and I’m sure a lot of the town’s decisions were made over cigars and beers at the El Paso Club.

Finley      Right.  You think Bob Isaac was also a member?

Veitch      Bob--yeah, Bob was and several city council people were.

Finley      Just for posterity since--actually, we’re going to be interviewing Bob Isaac.  But how would you describe him?  Because he was such a giant figure for so many years as our mayor. 

Veitch     Well, Bob--Bob was incredibly well-versed on all of the issues.  I mean, Bob could totally disarm people because he had an absolute understanding and grasp of subject matter.  And if you went into Bob’s office to debate him which I did on occasion, you better have your facts and figures ready to go because if you didn’t, he’d just tear you apart. He was a very forceful individual, did not mind taking a controversial decision, often politically, I thought he was brilliant. On a number of city council items, he would--he would set the item up for an approval and then vote against it, and he would--he was the master at.  Literally, one time on an item I had, he voted against it and --I asked him later because I thought, “Well, what’s your philosophic position Bob and why weren’t you supportive?  And he said, “Oh, hell Fred you had the votes.  I just needed to make sure the people knew that I wasn’t on the side of all the developers.”

Finley     [laughing] 

Veitch      And so he was, you know, he was a great tactical mind and he has incredible knowledge and that’s a formidable skill set. 

Finley      Uh-hmm.  Indeed.  Indeed. Of course, through those years, of 70’s and early 80’s, the community grew tremendously and, you, I know were on the city planning commission as I was, and I saw a lot of  projects coming through.  What are some of your major memories of the big, big issues during the years that you were involved?

Veitch      My recollection is we had awful a lot of planning that I think was just site by site...and there was very little comprehensive planning.  So it was very, very difficult I think to have a consistent contextual and qualitative kind of review.  I think--unfortunately or fortunately we’re looking at each project almost on its own merits.  And the rule that seem to govern most was 5.3.1.  Whether it added a community benefit and that--that community benefit language is so very vague.

Finley      You’re talking about the Comprehensive Plan Language, right?

Veitch     Plan.  And the Comprehensive Plan Language by necessity seems so vague that you really could argue both sides of an issue.  The planning commission at that time and I think --to an extent still today is sort of a reflection of the political composition of the city. The positions are appointed by council and so you typically will have growth advocates, neighborhood advocates, industry people, giving their position.
                 I always thought that the planning commission tried to make good broad based community decisions.  I always felt that the members voted their hearts and did so I think for the right reasons.  But I think the biggest problem was that we probably in retrospect didn’t do a very good job of helping the community grow and  plan for its growth,  but rather reactively on a--on an item by item case approve or reject.

Finley      Of course you did have big comprehensive plan committees that voted on all that stuff?

Veitch     We had a lot of studies that didn’t seem to go anywhere.  The city I think would often give a political coverage to saying that it was doing a comprehensive study but without funding or commitment, the follow through was sort of hollow.  I remember we looked at the downtown plan at one time and our group came back and said, unless the city would commit funds to the plan--that we just didn’t feel the plan was ever going to get implemented or have legs. And it got nominal funding for a few years but again it didn’t really take off, that’s a bit of a frustration looking backwards I think.

                 I really enjoyed my time on planning commission because I think it helped me understand the community even more and I think it helped me understand the need for comprehensive planning and the need for quality with criteria for development, and some of the conflicts inevitably that we’re having.  Then and now transportation planning, I think has been deficient in this community. We’ve done a terrible job as a community planning for our growth.  Certainly planning how we’re going to get people around this community.

Finley      Yes.  And when you were on involved with the planning commission, what people in the department, the staff stood out in your mind as good leaders, who really cared about comprehensive planning and tried hard to work for it.

Veitch     Well, I think there have always been some good staff people in the City Administration, I want to be careful because I think--I think those people come in really believing that they’re going to do a good job on a day to day basis.  We went through several city managers however…

Finley      Yes.

Veitch      …and it’s always--it’s always difficult to get the read on where the city is going to go when you have a lot of job turnover and as I recall, we had four, five maybe city managers over a seven year period.  So that sent a lot of mixed messages to staff and I think in the--in the absence of strong leadership the staff just sort of marked their place.  We also went through several planning directors during that period of time and I don’t think we ever got a philosophic overview of what a planning director might be able to implement as far as a vision. They were all very nice guys but I’m not sure that they led the charge for good planning.

Finley      Well…it’s hard.

Veitch      And again, it’s difficult given the--given those situations.

Finley     Well, since you’ve been here... that’s 35 some years, time flies by.  What do you think are the most significant changes in the community?

Veitch     We’ve clearly grown tremendously as a community, so growth is a huge change in and of itself.  I believe now that we’re starting to appreciate some of our legacy and some of our history more than we have in the past.  And I think we’re giving it some recognition and some preservation which I think is good.  I think we also have recognized that the growth model that occurred in the 70’s, that resulted in the planning or lack thereof  of Academy Boulevard is a gross error, and that as a community we can’t, shouldn’t do that.

                 Unfortunately, we still don’t have it this day in place, I think, the right tools to avoid that.  I think it’s getting avoided because I think the development industry doesn’t want to do that type of work but I think it’s getting done because the private sector wants a better community, not because we’re in lock-step on heavy planning goals.   I still think the new vehicle is as much a hindrance as a help in terms of planning the future of the community.

Finley     How about enlarging a little about transportation in Colorado Springs because it is a big challenge.

Veitch     Well, we have a regional area government, PPACG and they’re tasked really with a cooperative planning effort.  Unfortunately again, I think that charged with it in lip service only, I don’t see any real action.  And every few years they come forward with their new plan but their new plan never seems to trickle down to the people who actually own the property and get commitments for right of way planning and designated arterial routes and a funding mechanism, and source and commitment of dollars to actually implement the plan.  As a result it’s too little too late and by the time we’ve created designs that just functionally don’t work; we have neither the money nor the capability of making change.  And one minor anecdotal example is that--now, let me think of which crossroad is it, Pikes Peak Avenue which is a main crossroad downtown.

Finley     Yes.

Veitch     Headed towards the east.  For years it didn’t connect to Academy Boulevard because there was a farmer with a field running cows in the field.

Finley      I remember that.

Veitch      And we would not use eminent domain powers to run the road through his field. There was still either western sense of; we’re going to leave everyone alone and we’re not going do that or that’s heavy handed on government.  But here you have a major, major street that didn’t go anywhere.  We still have that mentality unfortunately today.  We built an interchange off of I-25 in the last five years to connect Constitution.  It is on our plan that we’re connecting Constitution and politically we’re unwilling to connect Constitution.

Finley      Now, what interchange are you talking about?

Veitch     This is at Fontanero.  In the Fontanero interchange, which is a very expensive interchange only leads to the city’s maintenance yard for vehicles.  Now, no one in their right mind would build a freeway interchange to get off and take care of the city’s maintenance function and so clearly that improvement was done with the understanding that Fontanero and Constitution were going to through.  Now we could have a long debate both sides whether that’s that good or bad that for the community to have that road connect,  but the right of way and the capacity to connect it are there and we’ve chosen not to.

Finley      I remember all the opposition.

Veitch     And we've chosen--and we’ve chosen not to do it

Finley     Uh-hmm

Veitch     To me, roads ought to connect and I think that if they connected, I think the neighborhoods could be better preserved not less preserved.  I think--I think we have a myopic vision sometimes to protecting neighborhoods and that’s by making them inaccessible and I think that that’s one way of doing it but I think there’s a huge public price to be paid and that is congestion and dysfunctionality of the road system.

Finley     On that issue of funding, it seems to me almost everything in this community [laughter] that needs doing doesn’t seem to have the dollars and cents.  What is your opinion of the Tabor Amendment?  The taxpayers bill of rights.

Veitch      I have--I have a mixed feeling.  I think on one sense, it was probably good  to say to the people that your taxes won’t be raised without your participation because I think there’s a general distrust of government how they spend money and frankly, I think some of that mistrust is well placed.  The reverse of that is, is that we are an incredibly inexpensive place to live.  We are under capitalizing our future and our children’s future.  And if we--as a community are not prepared to step forward and pay more, we’re going to deserve what we get.  We just don’t pay anything to speak of in terms of our property taxes or our contributions to government.

                 Our taxes in Colorado Springs are absolutely the lowest of any Front Range city and you can’t run a city on no money.  And so we are underfunded as a community, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on our public officials and it also puts a lot of pressure on the non-profits to get money from other sources and it makes it very, very difficult.  I think that in some ways we’re being very naïve as a community.  And then, you know, when we fast forward today, Mr. Bruce talks about will of the people, and yet he’s very willing to overturn the will of the people and not accept when  they vote on things like TOPS and open space tax.

Finley     Uh-hmm.

Veitch      There was something that was taken to the public, the public supported it because we recognized we wanted more trails and parks and Mr. Bruce sued on behalf of all of us.  Well, I think that’s inappropriate behavior on a public official.

Finley      Did he win that too?

Veitch      Yes, he did.

Finley      He did win that debate.

Veitch      Yeah, and so TOPS funding has been held up.

Finley      Well, we won’t talk any more about Mr. Bruce … 

Veitch       So it’s a complicated issue.

Finley       Right.

Veitch      Tabor’s complicated.  Gallagher has another impact where the tax burdens are being shifted to commercial instead of residential, that’s great for residential homeowners because it sure ensures a low tax base. It puts more and more burden on businesses and they impact a negative stimulant to economic growth and business.

Finley      Well, besides no dollars and bad roads, what do you think are other major challenges that Colorado Springs has faced in the past and faces for the future.

Veitch      I think one of the things that we voiced--have a problem is we don’t seem to have, for whatever reason, a good community vision of ourselves and what we want to be when we grow up.  And major projects just never seemed to get--get community wide support. We seemed to be very fractionalized and very contentious as a community.  Mayor Bob did a great job at getting public support for the new airport years ago and there’s an example, that the public rallied and  said, “Yes, let’s tax ourselves and build a brand new facility”.  And we needed that airport and the new airport I think generally was very well accepted by the community.

                 But on other issues, recently--the convention center issue.   By tying the hands of council, even to the--to the point of spending money on studies, I think it’s pretty clear we won’t have a convention facility in Colorado Springs. We’re the only city in the United States our size that doesn’t have this type of facility.  And putting aside for a moment how that should be funded and whether that--should have public or private participation or guarantees... to remove it from the table, I think it’s to remove an opportunity.

Finley      Uh-hmm.

Veitch     We just seem to do that over and over again.  We can’t get together as a community and come up with a vision through our parks, or come up with a vision for our arts, or come up with a vision for our urban renewal commitments.  And in the absence of that we don’t seem to have unified leadership that works together well.  We have recently had very dysfunctional relationships between city and county officials.  And so much of what we do impacts one another.  You can’t have policy for city that doesn’t impact county and vice versa and yet there’s been an unwillingness to recognize that fact and to work collaboratively.

Finley      Just for the sake of clarity for somebody who will be listening to this down the road.  Can you describe what happened on that Convention Center Project and the vote that prevented it... just briefly.

Veitch     Well, briefly, the Broadmoor Hotel funded the opposition to the Convention Center and basically put a referendum up that nothing can be done with the Convention Center until its first put to a vote to the population.  In reality, taking major votes to the population is something, I think it’s a good idea, but to tie it up so that you can’t even start the process ineffectively kills it.

Finley       I think that was 2004 that happened  …

Veitch      That is--that is correct.

Finley      That’s correct.

Veitch     And so whether, you know, I just see it, it just throws hurdles in front of future groups that might wish to move this type of facility forward for the community.

Finley     And what do you think that does to downtown planning?

Veitch     Well, I think it takes one tool away out of the tool belt.  I think downtowns developed for lots of reasons.  First off, you have to have a market... economy that’s going to accept the change.  But it seems to me that it’s like tools in the belt, you want to add--you want to improve your residential opportunity, you want to improve your retail opportunity, you want to improve your transportation, you want to improve your dining and entertainment, certainly, you want to improve your business and from a business aspect to remove that tool.
                And I think unfortunately remove the tool that could have brought the needed revenue income and bodies to downtown Colorado Springs.

Finley     Okay.  Well, that’s--again now, to this question of this fractionalized public and lack of vision.  Why do you think that is so... I mean, what characteristics of our community seem to make that so or is it true in every community?

Veitch     I don’t…

Finley     What is it?

Veitch     Judy, I don’t know.  I have often wondered if every other community is exactly like ours, if we just are feeling sorry for ourselves and this is just the way life is. But several years ago, I served on a committee that was going to do future planning for Garden of the Gods Park and I got on this because I love the outdoors and I like lots of different types of outdoor sports, and I thought this was going to be a fun process because here’s an asset in the community that everyone loves.

                 My very first meeting... the horseback people didn’t want to talk to the hikers, who   didn’t want to talk to the rock climbers, who didn’t want to talk to the mountain bikers and here are all people that ought to be brought in together for the love of outdoors, the love of the community and be willing to say, “How do we make the best overall plan so that everyone can enjoy and love this park?”  And I saw the most contentious, back-biting, narrow minded people all in the spirit of outdoor recreation.  And gee... I see it at budget time at city council.  The people whose children are playing ice hockey, only want funding for ice hockey. And the people whose children swim only want swimming funding and the people who want--and everybody seems to define success as getting their project funded, but very few people seem to be able to take a broader, longer view and say, “These are the tough decisions that need to be made for the good of the entire community.”

Finley      I sometimes think it has something to do with the fact that we have such a mobile community with so many military in the community, that there isn’t this sort of long term commitment to a better community.  I don’t know…

Veitch      I think that’s part of it.  I don’t think we’ve had the kind of stewardship that you’d like to see.  I think that’s changing and I see some positive signs. For example with the funding for the Fine Arts Center, from the changes they’ve made, some of the other things that are going on the community. But yeah, I’ve wondered is it because our executives who have come to Colorado Springs know that they’re--that they’re only here for two or three years and therefore there’s never really been a buy-in to the community on their part for leadership or is it because people are transient and it’s just sort of like, as long as it works and I’m here now, I don’t care. Again, I’m not sure what drives it but it sure seems to be to be true and you see it at every level.  You see it at council meetings, you see it at planning commission meetings... you know it seems to be prevalent, and that is... even on difficult issues people can’t seem to sit down and have rational thoughtful debate.  It always boils down to quick sound bites and people angry and stomping away. 

Finley     Sounds like the Congress 

Veitch     Yeah.

Finley      It seems to be a national problem these days. Fred I’m going to turn this tape over in just a minute because we’re just about at the end of side one. I’m going to ask you here when I turn it over so we’ll just start right in. What are your favorite places in the city personally? I mean you have been here for a long time you have a commitment to this city and you obviously enjoy things besides just your job. So when I turn this tape over maybe you could tell me what things you really like personally about this city. 

[Side 2 of tape 1]


Finley      Side two of tape one of the Colorado Springs History Project interview with Fred Veitch on November 18, 2005.  I am Judy Finley continuing our interview.

Veitch      Let’s see... personal places.  I like our downtown a lot and particularly in the last few years. I think our downtown has a real vibrancy.  I think the feeling on the street is great. We have great dining downtown now. We have marginal shopping.  We have a few very, very good locally owned establishments that really do a great job at customer service and presentation.

Finley      Can you describe a couple of them?

Veitch      Yeah.  Regina’s and CJ Card.  Terra Verde is a home improvement or, you know it’s like a local version of a Pottery Barn but with clothing. We have unfortunately lost Chinook Bookstore which was a wonderful, wonderful bookstore, and in fact don’t have a downtown bookstore right now.  Kirk and Hill for ladies, put together for ladies. There’s a new furniture place called the Fancy Pheasant that’s really nice.  Sparrow Hawk for kitchen wares.  A number of great dining restaurants,  Dave Lux has a number of the concepts... MacKenzie’s,  
                The Ritz, Jose Muldoon’s, and some fun, fun, places.

Finley     These are all mostly locally owned…

Veitch      Just locally owned and they have great local flavor. We have some new good architecture coming in downtown and unfortunately we have a really brand new, terribly, ugly judicial building that just got built.

Finley      Amen.

Veitch     That should have never had been built the way it’s built. We were remarking this morning, they took away all the street parking, pushed the building to the edge of the street and there’s nothing from a pedestrian visual to tie it together to the Fine Arts Center or to the Performing Arts Center across the street. And in fact it’s an impediment to that design and is a terrible urban implementation and it’s frustrating today that the public entity does such a poor job in its planning.  Those are supposed to be the planners and they are terrible at it.  

Finley     Well, people fought against it but it got done anyway.

Veitch      It got done anyway. Now, on to the things that I like. Obviously, love the view of the mountains,  love the foothills, the Red Rocks Park that we just added in the park system, it is absolutely an enchanting place to go and to hike and be outdoors. I love the Garden of the Gods. I love a lot of our parks in Colorado Springs. Our lineal park systems and trails that run along the river bottom are wonderful.  I think Confluence Park isn’t well connected yet, and as urban renewal continues I think it’s a wonderful, wonderful new addition into downtown. There are just literally lots and lots of places in Colorado Springs that are very special, unique places.

Finley     And do you think urban renewal will make that park more accessible?

Veitch      I think so.  I’m very excited because our company is involved in the urban renewal effort.  I think one of the greatest things we’ve been able to do is involve John Foster who is the head of architecture at the University of Colorado.  John has a tremendously deep respect for history and John’s approach to urban planning is the first look at what was originally planned and why. In his case, he has gone back to the original Palmer plan that General Palmer laid out for Colorado Springs and it’s a fabulous, fabulous urban plan.

                And in many cases, it’s been defeated through the years. What we’ve done as we’ve grown the community is to undo that plan. His goal is to put that plan back into place and have the link of parks that surround downtown, the pedestrian areas, the walking areas and to re-implement General Palmer’s plan. And if that can be done over a period of years, and it will take years, it will be fabulous for downtown. It will be fabulous for the community.

Finley      That sounds fabulous to me because I live close to downtown. I love the center part of the city. But I always see some sort of a conflict about downtown versus the growth of our shopping malls and so forth. You mentioned that downtown doesn’t have a lot of shopping.  How do you see that by economy?  If we want a strong downtown...what about the rest?

Veitch      I don’t think it’s--I don’t think it’s either/or and I think people tend to put it into either/or discussions.  I think that we need to do both.  And one of the things that’s lacking in the suburban areas is community sense of place. And that lack of sense of place and that lack of attachment to our downtown couples with Judy, what we’ve talked about, short term stays, works against commitment. Works against their involvement.

                 Having said that, that’s a whole different subject I’d be glad to talk about... how do you change that.  But in terms of downtown, I think we can have both, I think we can encourage local ownership because it’s very special and it creates an experience that you’re not ever going to get replicated with  national chains. And I think we should be sensitive to that and absolutely protect that wherever we can. But I think you can do mid- sized box and other national chains where services are needed and that can bring more people in downtown and help support more housing and it all inter-relates. One of the problems is you need to bring people in downtown if you’re going to have a downtown shopping district that’s successful and we need to make downtown a practice so that people will come downtown to shop.

Finley     And how about residential downtown?

Veitch     Residential downtown I think is essential.  And I think we need to integrate that residential so that downtown is a walking, pedestrian-oriented place to be because people really relate to that. And I think that we need to integrate that residential so that there isn’t a hard line distinction between “downtown” and “residential” areas.  They need to be softened up a bit.  The ridges need to be softened up.

Finley     And what do you think is being done to accomplish this residential pull?

Veitch      Well, and again, I think the first step is to get a plan in place that the community buys into and that’s in the process of being done.  There have been a number of forums, the community planning forums that are being planned and sponsor ed. Colorado College is sponsoring some forums right now.  I think there’s hope at some time that maybe the Urban Land Institute will come to Colorado Springs and participate in an Urban Land Institute plan of downtown Colorado Springs, it can help identify and help create catalysts for change in some of the things that will need to be done.  I know that people are looking and you’ve had some minor developments going on recently for housing, they’ve been very small scale.  But…

Finley     Name two or three of them.

Veitch     There’s a loft program, that’s a rehabilitated loft program, the Citywalk that’s been done.

Finley      Yes.

Veitch     You have some lofts that are built over what it now the grocery up on North Tejon that Scotty Long is doing.  You’ve had some other smaller lofts in the Giddings buildings and other places done.

Finley      Right.

Veitch     So I think there’s--there’s been baby steps.

Finley     And you think those are successful?

Veitch      Generally they are.  They’ve sold through--they’re pretty high in per square foot.  Citywalk has been a mixed bag. I don’t think it has been as successful but it’s a bit on the fringe.  I know our company is planning a very ambitious mixed-use project at what the old Greyhound Bus terminal block is that backed onto the old city auditorium. And if that project’s successful, it’s going to be the first of its kind that integrates office and housing residential and some small retail, and the retail’s more generally be the sort of retailing business, it would be retail at public per say, I mean, the public as it relates to business, things like Kinkos and things of that nature.  But it will be the first integrated mixed use, all green development that’s ever been done in Colorado Springs. A lot of this is being done in Vancouver and other progressive cities and I think it’s, you know, our architects have convinced us that the building ought to be iconic enough that it is a leader for the future rather than just meet market.  So I’m impressed the company’s willing to take that challenge.  I think it’s very risky.

Finley      Right.  You’re talking about THE company.

Veitch      Nor’wood.

Finley      Nor’wood Development Corporation.

Veitch      Nor’wood, yeah.

Finley      Of which you are now the vice president?

Veitch      I do the commercial.

Finley      You do the commercial development?

Veitch     Yes.

Finley      How did you get involved with Nor’wood?

Veitch     A very circuitous long road.  Career wise when I came to Colorado Springs, I worked for Huskin, I immediately started working for Steve Schuck within a year, year and a half  of coming to town.  I used to put my signs out on  Steve’s property on Academy Boulevard illegally and under the idea that it was easier to seek you know, apologies later than ask permission, and about the third time Steve took my signs down and he said I’d like to meet you and have lunch.

                 And we had lunch and he said, I can’t get my guys to do what you’re doing and why are you doing it to me?  I said, “I’m fiercely competitive and I’m going to get my apartments leased up no matter what.”  And he said, “Well, I never hear that from my guys so why don’t you come to work for me?” And so I went to work for Steve and worked with Steve for about a year and a half and then I joined in with Bruce and Bud Shepard who had developed Village Seven. And Village Seven was really one of the first communities in Colorado Springs that wasn’t laid out on a grid.  And they connected all of those different housing styles and price points with inner connected trails. Very, very innovative at that time, it was out by nothing and ended up being a very, very desirable place to live.

                They did a wonderful job and so I worked with Bruce and Bud for a few years. And then I went out on my own as a single family builder and built homes, residential projects and some light commercial.  And at some point in the middle of all this mess, I got back with Steve for a while and entitled projects for Steve all along the Front Range and did a lot of different types of things for Steve.  And then during that course David Jenkins and I had been personal friends for 25 years and unbeknownst to me David was getting ready to put into play a lot of ground that he had held for a long period of time and there was an unsolicited job offer that David made to me one night in an envelope.  So, all of a sudden I found myself switching kind of careers and positions because I had thought I was going to probably retire working with Steve Schuck.  So I’ve been with David now I think going on eight years.

Finley     And David is still the president of Nor’wood?

Veitch      David is president of Nor’wood.  Nor’wood is basically a family owned business.  David’s partner, Kent Petre who oversees our residential--mixed residential components. And the company basically builds residential communities.  I would say that what we’re known for is residential communities.  Nor’wood itself was a 3,500 acre community.  It took 20 some years to build starting in the 70’s. We’re now building Wolf Ranch which is 1,100 acres off of Powers Boulevard.  We also have a 1,100 acre residential community going in the Fountain area which is where starter homes are.  And then of course we have our urban renewal effort, we have suburban office development that we do and then we build retail.  And we’ll be doing both retail downtown and suburban.

Finley      And you were quite involved in the big new shopping area called First and Main.

Veitch      First and Main Town Center on Powers.

Finley      East of Powers and just north of Constitution.

Veitch     Yes.

Finley     Can you describe a little bit of the process with that?

Veitch     Well, we had been going to Urban Land Institute meetings.

Finley      Uh-hmm.

Veitch      And we had seen a national trend to try to combine the traditional big box strip centers with dining, entertainment and retail.  And in an effort, sort of create mixed use retail as opposed to the model that you typically saw on Academy Boulevard which was disjointed big box retail with everybody having their stores, but none of the stores relating to each other. And we had seen some plans that did a much better job relating with the idea that the residential communities on the fringes of cities didn’t have places that created downtowns or sense of place.  All they had was strip shopping which kind of worked against any sort of attachment or community involvement.

                 So we undertook a fairly ambitious design at the time.  We hired some consultants from the West Coast, EDAW out of Orange County and they had done some nationally award winning successful projects of this type and they in turn brought a demographer in , Greg Stoffel who had worked with the Irvine Company in California. Greg’s nationally known for working with Disney and Warner Brothers and others and is really a bright, bright guy.  Asked us why people shop, and what shopping pattern, what demographics change and what people are looking for... and together those guys helped us come up with a vision that was a longer term vision of trying to place things together in a higher quality that had been built in Colorado Springs before.  I think for the first really true four-sided architecture and they had very strong design covenants that govern the project to the point that if the national user was unwilling to confirm, then we wouldn’t put them in our project. So that meant that Lowe’s didn’t have a blue roof even though nationally that’s what they’re known for and it means that Walmart wouldn’t be on our site because Walmart was not willing to meet the qualities of presentations that we wanted.  So the long and short is that we’re doing a very ambitious mixed use community [inaudible] [0:42:45].

Finley     And do you have a lot more planned  [inaudible] [0:42:50]

Veitch     Absolutely.  It’s about a 120 some acre site.  When built out, it will be built out, probably another four or five years, we’ll have 1,300,000 square feet of retail which is much larger than either of our regional malls.  It has sales that are much larger today than our regional malls have and I think people don’t really realize that. It will have a hotel, full service hotel as part of the property. We will have office on the property.  We have a church on the property.  We hope to have a public library on the property if we can.  We have gone to transit several times and had tried to integrate transit into our planning.  Transit starting last year finally got aware of who we were and now is working with us for public transportation planning out there.

Finley      Is there any bus route that goes out there?

Veitch     There is as of today.

Finley      Really?

Veitch     There’s a bus route.  One of the ironies is when we started our planning effort, we went to the transportation people and said, really we’d like to integrate you into our planning process and find places for you and were told that they really weren’t interested.  We suggested they should become interested since Powers Boulevard will suddenly become the center of Colorado Springs.  And about eight years later they got it and they did approach us last year and said, “Could we do bus stops and work with you?”  And the answer is absolutely... because in order to be successful I think we need to allow for everyone to get in and out of your center, not just people with autos.

                But we’ve got a private ring road system within the center that allows people to move easily from one area to another which is not the case in the rest of shopping of Colorado Springs.  And we tried to combine the stores in a way so that when you shop you can do several things at once.  You can go to a movie, you can have lots of dining opportunities, we’ve got over 15 restaurants now out there. We have a lot of unique- to-market retail people. Like we had the first Super Target in Colorado Springs.

                We had the first Lowe’s in Colorado Springs.  We had the first Costco Market.   We have a theatre that is the highest per screened theatre, grossing theatre that Cinemark offers in the United States. That’s 240 theatres, wildly successful.  We have the first IMAX theatre. We built an acre and a half private park in the middle of our retail so that we can have public concerts--public free fairs.  Today United Way is undergoing they’re capital campaign and then we have placards throughout the project encouraging people to communicate and contribute to United Way. So we’re really trying to work with non-profits and truly make this a community owned center.

Finley      And you said Powers Boulevard is the center of Colorado Springs, do you really think it’s going to be the geographic center of the population?

Veitch     Yeah it’s almost--it is almost it is now and when you start looking at where we are over the next five or six years. It has shifted--get this, when I came to Colorado Springs, Circle Boulevard was the hot boulevard. Today Circle is about abandoned.  And then it was Academy.  Powers Boulevard today is carrying more traffic than the freeway is in daily transportation.  So, if you look at demographics for example, there’s probably five or six times the economic purchasing power in the north eastern part of Colorado Springs than there is in 80906. And yet all the non-profits today continue to try to market to the same patrons in 80906.

                 And the retailers will tell you that’s a relatively insignificant market in terms of income or impact.  So, you know, it’s changing demographics, it’s changing how the city’s looks at itself and how others look at it.  I will tell you that people outside of the community look at it very, very differently than we look at it now.  They really see opportunity where I think locals look at that and say “aw, that’s Kansas and I’m never going there.”

                The reality is we track our shopping patronage and I can tell you that people from throughout the community go out to (inaudible) or go out to the theatre.  We draw as far away as Pueblo and Woodland Park.

Finley     And if this....what I still call the Banning Lewis property gets developed, that’s a big market.

Veitch     It  actually is in for development now, John Cassiani had an item before council--the last council meeting.

Finley     How do you spell Cassiani? 

Veitch      C-A-S-S-I-A-N-I. John used to work for EDC and worked for Steve Schuck years ago.  John actually was before council, last time about a week ago for the very first units.  And they’re going to start putting houses up next year.  So Banning Lewis which we, Judy, approved when we’re on planning commission is a reality. Going back to that time, I thought it was amazing that we annexed the largest annexation that has ever been done and there was only one person who came to public hearing to talk about it.  And I don’t know if you recall, there was a lady who was concerned that if they put the schools next to the park, they’d be selling drugs in the park.  And that was the only comment from anyone regarding this absolute, huge, huge policy decision. 

Finley      It was.  It was.

Veitch     And it’s just amazing to me that you could have something so significant that impacted the future of the community and no one had anything to say about it, good or bad.

Finley      Well, I remember there was some discussion about parks because of the historical significance of that Jimmy Camp area.  And I guess that’s integrated somehow into the plan.

Veitch     My understanding is that Jimmy Camp will be preserved and protected so hopefully that’s the case.

Finley      Well, it’s quite amazing really what you’ve told me about the First and Main project.  Now you obviously have been centrally integral to the development of this project, can you describe just for the benefit of people who don’t know... what’s involved in your job when you’re trying to develop something like this, something about the process?

Veitch     Oh boy.  Judy, it’s…

Finley     It’s complicated... but just step by step.

Veitch       Yeah.  People say it’s like herding cats.  I think that, you know, in our case, we typically will buy what we consider to be very strategic parcels of ground in gross patterns long before there’s demand for product.  And in early acquisition of the land, is more of a land banking process because you really don’t have a market yet whether it’s residential or commercial.  As you get closer to people actually being active in your area, you start getting a sense of what it should be when it grows up.  Should it be apartment lands, should it be housing lands, should it be commercial land and you have certain ratios and relationships that need to be established.

                    So you start a master plan process but that master plan process at the end could be five to ten years in front of actually developing the property.  So when a building goes up, people assume it’s just kind of an overnight situation.  In many cases, it may be the final culmination of what has been 15 or 20 years of strategic planning.  So you have a master plan, then you go through what we call the entitlement process...to get voting in Colorado Springs, it is a public process.  All land that gets developed goes through a public hearing process through two hearings at the planning commission and then on to city council for ratification.

                   Before you do that you submit your plans to the city planning department in accordance with their criteria.  They have very specific checklist criteria of what you have to do to show land suitability, soils compatibility, all of those kinds of issues.  If your land abuts or is near existing ownership that’s active, then there’s usually an informal process with neighbors. They have meetings and talk about it, get input. Those people certainly can participate in the process and often do.  Any individual citizen in Colorado Springs can call any single item off of what we call staff review and put it into the public arena for public debate.  So if you have a contentious project and hopefully we don’t, but I’ve certainly been involved in them...a contentious project can take a couple years of hearing, rehearing, modification and back to rehearing again before they are either passed or ultimately defeated.

                   Then once you have your zoning and you theoretically have a concept planned then you go to the market and you start getting market interest for your product whether it’s for a single family builder or commercial people.  Then you get in to what their vision of the market is... what are their existing stores, what is their store coverage, how many people per thousand do they need, what sort of radius do they draw, what are the cannibalization rates to their own existing stores and to the competitive stores.  How are they shifting demographically in the market themselves, what kind of offerings do they have, is the store upgraded--are they relocating old stores, are there radius restrictions, are there trade areas in existing leases, all of those sort of factors.
                   And you have the negotiations... co-tenancy, quite often retail tenants will come in won’t tell their co-tenants that someone might come in to add to their business.

                   Then you start your lease negotiations and those lease negotiations can take a year just in themselves.

Finley        Are you involved with all of that...

Veitch      I am involved in that.  In the meantime, we’ve hired civil engineers to do our planning both our on and off site planning for everything from utilities to drainage. There are all kinds of rules and regulations that govern all of that.  Seeing that we have the capability of having service, that we have the capability fire flow, you know, all those technical items.

                 In the meantime, I’ve hired architects to chromatically decide what it is we are going to build, what are the standards. You create design guidelines, in our case books of design guidelines that are governing documents for the site.  You have all the legal documents to cc in our partnership agreements, all of those agreements.  You have inter-governmental agreements between the city, county and special districts, like in the case of Powers Boulevard, that was special district.  Inter-ownership agreements, all of those kind of items to execute, I’m involved in all of that.  And then you start the lease negotiation and then you start designing your buildings and then you bring in contractors to work with you and cost those out and then you have very specific performance dates and we have what are called opening dates, start dates. For example, Target opens all of their stores in the United States on only three days of the year.
                So you have to hit those dates, and if you miss that date, you don’t open your store until the following date. 

                So if you’re building a Target store and they’re paying you x amount of dollars a month, hitting that date becomes critically important and there are huge penalties for missing those dates.  It’s not uncommon.  I had one recently where the missing the date was $75,000 for the first date we missed.  So that becomes very serious business about controlling those dates.  And finally you open it and hopefully people will come and love it and shop and they say, “Gee, that must have been kind of neat and fun to do and it is--it is--but they just don’t know.

                When we opened Target, we had been talking to Target for over five years. From the time we first initiated discussion to the time they opened the store.

Finley      Good grief.

Veitch      So it’s not for those who are looking for fast gratification.

Finley      Do you ever lose sleep at night over all this?

Veitch      I lose sleep a lot.  I have a very patient wife and we have a little saying in our house, she says, “You’re going to be just fine and you’re going to win.”  That’s what she tells me when I go a little crazy on her.

Finley      Well, you seem to have won for the most part in your big projects in Colorado Springs.  You certainly have a good reputation for a “do it” man that gets things accomplished.

Veitch     You’re very kind.

Finley      Well, I don’t know how much more time you want to spend here, are you willing to hang on until almost 11:00 am today?

Veitch     Sure.

Finley      Okay.  Well, let’s see how this goes.  I guess this sort of brings up a couple of questions to me, having been very interested in planning over the years.  How do you think the planning process, not you’re private process... but the public process has changed, improved, gone downhill, better, worse?

Veitch      I don’t think it’s better or worse.  It’s gotten much more involved.  I think a lot of it becomes sort of what are the roles of the respective parties and why are they there.  And that’s a subject that probably could be debated and discussed for hours on end.  But it seems to me that the governmental role as of late--has been more to protect the public interest than it has been to be proactive in terms of community vision.

                And so if you’re in a regulatory environment where you’re regulating industry which is really kind of what planning does.  Planning in my opinion and I don’t mean this in a bad sense because there are really good employees over at city planning. For example... they are very conscientious about their jobs and who care about the community.  I want to--I want to paint those guys as nice guys.

Finley      Right.

Veitch     But their role today is more or less to regulate us rather than to set the standards of the business of the community.  So as regulators, every time there’s a problem, you’re response as a regulator is to write another regulation.  An example being there was a very ugly huge car structure that got built on Academy Boulevard a few years ago.  City council’s response was to say to staff, “Well, don’t let this happen again.” So today, now, if you want anything other than a three car garage, you have to have a variance.

                 So the frustration I have philosophically is we might have built hundreds of great looking garage structures a year without governmental intervention.  Now, a hundred people a year or more have to go in and get variances because one guy built an ugly garage.  Now, is that good or bad?  I mean, what are the consequences?  You go in with huge checklists, huge amounts of dollars and criteria and you spend a lot of money getting your plans approved. Not necessarily money in my opinion that could or should go towards enhancement of  your product or additional landscaping or community benefit but just dollars in entitlement. It is very, very expensive now to get a project through.

Finley      I can understand.

Veitch      Because of all the people that you have to hire and the time.  It’s not uncommon on a non-controversial development plan where you have  zoning in place, where you meet all criteria, are not asking for any variances... it’s not uncommon at all to take well in excess of half a year. And to me, it takes our design staff from the day we implement our plan to the day we turn it in... four weeks because we pre-thought everything through.  It seems counter-intuitive to have all of our experts to take four weeks to design it and have people who are checking off boxes...take 30 weeks to check off boxes... and charge me huge amounts of money for the privilege of doing it.

Finley     [laughter]

                 Now, having said that, there are a lot of planners who really would like to participate more and like to work with us more closely and I think unfortunately the system is set up so that’s not always possible or not always able to be done.  We like to encourage that and we try to get the planning staff really involved with us very, very, very early so that if they do have ideas or suggestions or input to make it better, they can help us. And where we’ve done that, they have come up with very good ideas. I think it’s unfortunate there’s not more collaboration…

Finley      Do they have the time or are they over worked in terms of the number of projects they have to do.

Veitch      I don’t know.

Finley      Yeah.

Veitch      One thing the industry has asked the city to do is to try to account for the time spent and we have enterprised some of our review functions.  Zoning has been enterprised now, and zoning now actually charges for the services received [inaudible] pair user system. Fred Deitman is in charge of that. For example, if you have a hillside overlay item that gets enterprised. What they found out was, there wasn’t a [inaudible] for the charges they were levering on people for the services provided.  But today, they really do know exactly how many hours it takes to do this, that, and the other, and it’s accountable and now they can staff up and provide a level of service that makes sense.

Finley     That sounds like a good change.

Veitch      I think we need to try to do that with the planning department because the department would say we’re grossly overworked and the industry tendency is we don’t think so, and the truth is we don’t know.
Finley      Yeah, yeah.  Okay.  I’m going to stop…


[00:59:33]