Meat processor Cargill builds workforce housing in Fort Morgan in 10 months ...Middle East

They were driving or being driven an hour to work in Fort Morgan and an hour home. Sometimes the drive took longer, because of traffic or foul weather. But in April, some of the first workers to move into Cargill’s employee housing opened the doors of their townhomes and breathed a little easier knowing the next day’s commute would take just minutes. 

For years, Fort Morgan (pop. 11,000) has been dealing with ever-shrinking housing options, due to low stock, rising costs and changing demographics. A 2021 study commissioned by the United Way of Morgan County showed housing was the most urgent need for area workers, including a chunk of the 2,000 or so people who work for Cargill, one of the largest meat processors in the United States. 

Now some employees can stop making the long haul to work, and many more will this autumn. Because in 2024 Cargill broke ground on an answer to its transportation problem, and over a 10-month span, it got the job well on the way to being done. Ten townhouses opened for tenants in April, with another 17 to open this month and 81 apartments coming by late September, according to a Cargill spokesperson. 

It’s been “heart-touching” to see the impact those units are having, because almost 60% of Cargill’s employees commute from Greeley, Johanna Hernandez, Cargill’s Fort Morgan facility manager, told The Colorado Sun in April. “When this (the housing plan) was shared with our team members, there was a lot of really positive feedback and energy around, and I can even comment that we are seeing a huge increase in our retention.”  

Hernandez said Fort Morgan schools are expecting more families. Most won’t send their kids there until August, because students were in the middle of the school year elsewhere when the first units opened and they wanted to finish before relocating. 

A Cargill spokesperson said the business’ total investment in the project to date is $34 million. Cargill also gave a $200,000 grant to fund a housing action committee composed of the United Way and other local stakeholders working on additional solutions to solve the region’s housing shortage. And it gave a $300,000 grant to local organizations to support child care, homebuyer navigation and “fifth day” operations in schools, as the Morgan County RE-3 School District operates on a four-day school week. 

Longtime housing shortage for ag workers 

Cargill’s project helps fill a gap in Fort Morgan’s workforce housing puzzle that has dogged agricultural workers and the city. 

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and other partners stepped in to help with Sol Naciente, a housing complex with 50 two-, three- and four-bedroom units for employees of area feed lots, dairy farms and meat processors.

Sol Naciente opened in 2016, with then-Fort Morgan city manager Jeff Wells telling the community it “needed to be successful, and that’s what this community is about. Fort Morgan has long been known for integrating people from different cultures. That’s the fabric of this community, and this is another piece of that fabric.”

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But trouble set in when ag workers started earning too much to live there, based on rules set by the USDA. At Sol Naciente, the cap is about $37,000 a year for one person. The income limit creates challenges for Morgan County’s agricultural workforce. But Sandy Engle, Fort Morgan’s economic development specialist, said the Cargill project comes with no income restrictions.   

Cargill bought land off of Interstate 76 with a shuttered Super 8 Motel on it. They considered converting the hotel to apartments but ended up bulldozing it to make space for new apartments, Engle said.  

A housing answer implemented at top speed  

Portmanteau Partners, the Denver-based developer working with Cargill, said the project has come together with incredible enthusiasm from the city. 

“Fort Morgan had a seat at the table and was very interested in getting this built,” said Eric Stevens, Portmanteau’s director of building. “I think in some municipalities we see a much more adversarial relationship, whereas this was collaborative.”

Fort Morgan provided some “very generous benefits,” like a 75% discount on permit fees, Stevens added. “And because it’s workforce housing, it certainly made our pitch a lot easier.” 

Once the designs were approved, Simple Homes, out of Denver, moved in. Simple Homes is one of a small but growing number of prefabricated housing manufacturers in Colorado that can build houses quickly. Off-site construction helps keep building costs low and reduces waste.  

Simple Homes built the wall panels and other parts of the townhomes in Denver and then shipped them to Fort Morgan. “That greatly accelerated the on-site time,” Stevens said, “and they’ve got a very deep background in multifamily work, so they’re well versed in the types of things that have to be considered with this kind of building.” 

Buildings by Design, out of Brush, was the local contractor. And the new townhomes “look like any townhome that you’d find here in Denver,” Stevens said, with “nicely finished units with full kitchens, three bedrooms and two bathrooms.” 

The apartments will be a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units, “so trying to accommodate families,” he added.

And Cargill’s only occupancy stipulation is that the primary renter or owner must work at the facility. “Then they could take on a roommate, and that roommate doesn’t necessarily have to work at Cargill,” Engle said. 

What benefits Cargill benefits Fort Morgan

Engle said one big benefit to Fort Morgan is that the project employed local workers to do things like electricity and plumbing. 

She believes Cargill built the new housing because the labor market is changing. 

“When at full capacity, the plant is at 2,000 people and runs 24/7,” she said, “so some people are commuting at inconvenient hours. And then you have a labor market that’s shrinking as our baby boomer population is retiring. The labor market coming up behind them doesn’t necessarily want to work for the same corporation all their lives.” 

So instead of paying for their employees “to have this commuter-type lifestyle,” Cargill may have felt “we would get a better workforce if they could live in this community, and wouldn’t be spending several hours on the road every day, if we could find them housing to live in,” Engle added. 

With the project still in its infancy, Engle said the city hasn’t seen a huge influx of new residents yet. “But I think in general, what we see from a positive standpoint, and how I feel it could potentially impact the city, is it’s just a more healthy lifestyle for families,” she said. “Families want to live where they work.”

And with any population growth “there’s a spin-off effect, where people will spend their dollars in the community,” she added. “If you’re living here, hopefully you’ll buy your groceries here, you might buy your car here, you’ll buy incidentals here. Because you’re here during your off time when you’re not working, as opposed to on the bus or spending your day off shopping in another community.” 

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