Urban Renewal

The Cañon City Area for Reinvestment Expansion (C-CARE)’s mission is to encourage investment and reinvestment within targeted areas of the community while strengthening the tax base of the whole city and growing the area’s job base. The Authority was organized in 2020. Information on URA members, meetings, and agendas can be found here.

C-CARE provides gap financing incentives to developers interested in projects that address blight remediation, improve aging infrastructure and redevelop key historic structures, utilizing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) on a reimbursement basis. TIF is a mechanism that captures net-new and incremental tax revenues (sales or property tax) that are created when blighted, vacant, or underutilized properties are redeveloped, and channels them into cost reimbursement for developers. It helps relieve the financial “gap” of development costs that results from the added costs of construction caused by the need to replace aging, blighted infrastructure, and modernize historic structures.

Since its inception in 2020, C-CARE has assisted four development projects, two of which are historic, two of which address blight in key areas of the community, and one that addresses CDOT infrastructure requirements on the high-traffic east US50 corridor:

Renovation of the historic Hotel St. Cloud; Main Street 
• Currently in demolition, phase 1 of the project, Fremont Public House, is scheduled to open December 2022 with additional phases to open in 2023 and 2024.

Renovation of the historic Fremont County National Bank building; Main Street 
• Project is substantially complete, significantly beautifying Main Street
• Project was awarded the Governor’s Award for Downtown Excellence in the “Place” category, presented by Downtown Colorado, Inc.

Faricy Boys Ford redevelopment project; US 50 East Access Corridor 
• Project is making good progress. Faricy moved into their new building in October 2022, with demolition of the old structure immediately following, thereby removing blight and helping beautify the east access corridor of US50.

Holiday Inn Express development project; US 50/Mackenzie Ave. median project 
• This project was completed in 2021, including new US50 median and turn lane onto Mackenzie Avenue.

In 2021, C-CARE absorbed two Canon City business grants including the Downtown Life Safety Grant, which helps commercial developers and property owners tackle the expensive task of bringing historic downtown buildings up to current fire and life safety codes; and the Façade Improvement Grant, which helps businesses in the urban renewal area beautify their storefronts, making for a better shopping experience. Each of these grants was updated and modified in 2022 to expand their ability to benefit the community and economy.