Fort Collins Old Town Square Renovations Will Last Much of 2015 [VIDEO]

Fort Collins has a great downtown area.

So great, in fact, that Walt Disney and some of his colleagues decided to use it, among some other towns with which they had experience, to create Disneyland's Main St. USA. Though they were probably focused more on College Ave. than Old Town Square in their re-creation, Fort Collins History Connection confirms the story.

 This legend is true! In 1994 Richard Francaviglia, author of Main Street Revisited (University of Iowa Press, 1996) called Rheba Massey at the Local History Archive to perform research on his book. Mr. Francaviglia had been to the Disneyland Archives to perform research and much to his surprise he found out that Harper Goff, a former resident of Fort Collins, had used Fort Collins and Walt Disney's hometown, Marceline, Missouri as an inspiration and models for Disneyland's Main Street USA.

I've also hear that Burlington, Vermont took inspiration from the way that Old Town Square was structured. I've been there, and, like Old Town, it has a great feel to it.

Well, things just might get better for Old Town, because a renovation is schedule to run from February until mid-summer 2015 that will change the familiar fountain, the structure of the stage, and more.

$3 million in improvement funds have been allocated. $2 million comes from the Downtown Development Authority, and $1 million from the City of Fort Collins General Improvement District for downtown.

The reasons why they are doing it and the reactions people have had to the idea of fixing something that some consider to be just fine are in the interview that I did with Todd Dangerfield of the Downtown Development Authority. He laid out all the reasons the change is being made, what the changes will be, what the public will experience during the construction and how long it will take.