November 1, 1999 News Bulletin

The Castle Pines North Metropolitan District has completed the refinancing of the District's bonds lowering the interest rate from 8.55% to 5.6%.

As long-time residents of CPN are very aware, the Metro District's Bonds have had a major impact on the CPN community. It's a story of how a community can pull together to work through a difficult time that began 10 years ago, and come out with a positive result! We would like to thank all of the CPN residents who have worked hard over the past several years to achieve this goal.

The old 8.55% bonds were issued when the District (and many other communities) were dealing with financial troubles due to the decline in the Denver-area real estate market in the late 1980's.

When the Castle Pines North community was started in the mid-80's, the Metro District was formed to provide "infrastruture" for the community (such as water and sewer facilities). Bonds were sold to finance this infrastructure, with the expectation that the new homes and commercial properties that were planned in the CPN area would provide the revenues to pay off the bonds.

However, in the late 80's the Denver metro real estate market declined. New development stopped, with only a small fraction of the CPN community being completed. This meant that the District was not receiving its projected revenues in property taxes and tap fees. The District was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1993. In 1994, the District was able to emerge from bankruptcy and obtain new bonds, however, the interest rate on the bonds was high, reflecting the risk that there were still not firm plans to build out the rest of the community.

Then the community went to work to improve the District's financial "base" by attracting the right developers to finish build-out of the homes and commercial property within the District. The CPN Master Association and the Metro District have been working closely with developers and with Douglas County to assure that the new developments bring quality growth to our community. After five years of very hard work and dedication by the community, the District Board, the developers and builders, the District achieved a level of assessed valuation which allowed the refinancing of the bonds.

The new bonds are an interim step. As noted in the District announcement, the new bonds are "variable rate". The District's goal is to eventually lock in a fixed interest rate. This goal and any reduction in the mill levy over the next few years will be dependent upon the continued building of homes and commercial property in the District as quickly as possible.

The phenomenal rise from a bankrupt development to a successful, credit-worthy District means that we can file away those old new stories about Castle Pines North's financial troubles and focus on the more recent good news about Castle Pines North — it's a great community to live in!

As a community we will need to continue to support the full build out of the property within the District so that we can quickly build our assessed valuation and further reduce taxes.

But now, we can also take advantage of the vast amount of community energy — which over the past 10 years has had a single-minded focus on resolving this situation — and now tackle additional areas that will benefit our community, such as our Parks Authority and this community's participation in the County's planning for surrounding areas.