Old Town Fort Collins is a listed historic district, not just a name

The wedge of brick storefronts where College and Mountain Avenues meet is called Old Town, and the name is more than marketing. Old Town Fort Collins is a recognized historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with a collection of late-1800s commercial buildings in styles like Late Victorian and Romanesque Revival.

A few of the buildings have their own stories — the Avery Block and the Linden Hotel among them — but the district matters as a whole. It helps to keep two layers straight. National Register listing is mostly an honor and can open the door to certain preservation grants. The rules that actually shape how the buildings look day to day are local: the City of Fort Collins runs a historic preservation program and applies design standards to historic properties downtown.

Why a newcomer or a property owner downtown should care: if you buy, lease, or renovate in this area, the look of the exterior is not entirely up to you. Changes to a historic storefront can run through a city review process meant to keep the district’s character. That is the trade-off of owning a piece of a protected streetscape.

To learn what the district covers and what review applies, start with the City of Fort Collins Historic Preservation office; the National Park Service’s National Register pages explain what federal listing does and does not do.