Sterling Ranch, Colorado
Encyclopedia
Sterling Ranch, Colorado is a proposed planned community
Planned community
A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in planned communities since...

 to be built in Douglas County, Colorado
Douglas County, Colorado
Douglas County is the eighth most populous of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado, in the United States. The county is located midway between Colorado's two largest cities: Denver and Colorado Springs...

.

Sterling Ranch, LLC, obtained approval for the project in May 2011, after several years of public hearings and wrangling over the project. As proposed, Sterling Ranch will comprise multiple small residential villages surrounding a single town center within walking distance of the residences. The town center will house all of the development's retail and office space. The total project will require 20 years to complete, and will eventually cover 3400 acres (1,375.9 ha) and will be home to 31,000 people in 12,050 housing units. Controversy over the project mostly involved the availability of water, but Sterling has promised to meet the residents' water needs through efficiencies such as rain water harvesting.

The Sterling Ranch proposal also includes a youth athletes' village, including facilities for baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, soccer, and futsal
Futsal
Futsal is a variant of association football that is played on a smaller pitch and mainly played indoors. Its name is a portmanteau of the Portuguese futebol de salão and the Spanish fútbol de salón , which can be translated as "hall football" or "indoor football"...

. The developers hope to promote this venue nationally, becoming "a national destination for youth sports."

Economic impact

As part of the development, Sterling Ranch claims that it is working with Douglas County to include five elementary schools, a middle school and a high school as part of the development, and that 100 acres are being set aside for the development of a higher education complex.

Sterling Ranch officials said the community is anticipated to break ground in 2012 with the first homes in first village to start in 2013. Project developers expect that the project will create more than 9,000 permanent jobs.
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