A developer building a 314-home residential neighborhood in Broomfield has sued Xcel Energy, claiming the utility was so slow in hooking up gas and electric service at the 62-acre site that the builder suffered “lost sales” and “substantial monetary damages.”
In Brightland Homes’ lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court on Feb. 21, the Addison, Texas-based homebuilder outlines a long list of hiccups and missteps by Xcel dating back to 2020. That is when developers first requested electric and gas service for Dillon Pointe in the northwest suburb.
From mismatched poles and arms for streetlights to lapsed access agreements with a ditch company — and expired permits from Broomfield — progress on Dillon Pointe slowed to a crawl. The neighborhood of townhomes, rowhomes and single-family houses is being built at the southeast corner of Dillon Road and Aspen Street.
Hookups that typically take Xcel about four months to complete turned into years of frustrating delay, the suit alleges, costing Brightland Homes big bucks.
“These delays by Xcel, which prohibited developers from accessing utilities, also forced developers to lease generators and other equipment in order to conduct its work at Dillon Pointe …” the lawsuit reads. “During the time of the delays, developers were forced to pay taxes on each of the residential lots within the project, despite the inability to fully develop and sell those properties because of the lack of utilities.”
It wasn’t until September that gas and electric service was fully integrated into Dillon Pointe, the suit says.
Tyler Bryant, a spokesman for Xcel, said Colorado’s largest utility aimed “to support all our clients with the services they deserve and expect,” but otherwise it wouldn’t comment on ongoing litigation. Christopher Groen, one of the attorneys representing Brightland Homes, said the developer had nothing to say beyond what was in its complaint.
Work at the property continued in recent days, with earthmovers grading lots and construction crews framing homes. Completed houses with “private residence” signs planted in the front yard sat next to show homes designed to lure prospective buyers to open their wallets.
Other sections of the site are still marked by large piles of dirt or stretches of yet-to-be broken ground.
Brightland Homes, which took possession of the project from Wonderland Homes in 2021, has several other residential projects on the Front Range, including in Castle Rock, Erie and Aurora.
Xcel has received criticism for delays in service before, though typically at the individual customer end. Two years ago, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission put pressure on Xcel to speed up connections from residential and business solar systems to the utility’s grid.
Last year, The Denver Post reported on complaints from metro Denver customers who were forced to wait for Xcel to shut off gas service and remove gas meters from homes that had been retrofitted to go fully electric.
In its lawsuit, Brightland Homes said Xcel’s delays triggered further holdups, as permits expired and had to be re-upped. It says that was never clearer than with Xcel’s initial use of incompatible components for the neighborhood’s streetlights, which first had been ordered by the previous builder in April 2020.
“Remarkably, the permitting process was held up because Xcel had mistakenly proposed placement of the streetlights in conflict with its own high pressure gas line,” the suit reads. “Finally, in November 2024 — 19 months after the original completion date — Xcel informed developers that they had received all of the correct materials for the streetlights and that they hoped to commence construction in December 2024.”
Broomfield city spokeswoman Julie Story declined to comment beyond saying that “the city issues permits to the developer, home builders and to Xcel, but how they coordinate and schedule the work is between them.”
On the natural gas side, Brightland accused Xcel of bumbling through an approval process that should take only three to six months.
The developer said Xcel claimed that trying to gain access from the Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Company, or FRICO, for its pipelines was held up due to FRICO’s lack of cooperation.
“However, when developers contacted FRICO directly, it advised that it had timely returned all submittals to Xcel and received no response,” the lawsuit states. “Because of the delays caused by Xcel, the agreements with FRICO for the project required 14 months — more than double the time needed in the most complex matters.”
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