Developer facing perhaps her biggest challenge

Jannie Richardson has been a successful Colorado Springs real estate developer in an occupation dominated by men. Members of the construction industry say she’s thrived because she’s smart, tough and quick to seize opportunities.

“If you ever met her, you’d have to say she’s got (guts) ... a woman in a man’s world,” said Doug Schanel, owner of Front Range Redi-Rock, a subcontractor who’s owed about $91,000 for work on Richardson’s troubled Colorado Crossing project. “I talked to a lot of the subs that have also worked with her in the past. She’s got a track record of getting things done.”

Now, she’s facing what’s likely her toughest challenge. Richardson owes about 40 companies roughly $19 million for work they’ve done on Colorado Crossing. Some of those companies and their attorneys say they doubt

Richardson will be able to hold onto the project.

She declined comment.

In a 2005 story in The Gazette, Richardson said she immigrated to Colorado Springs from South Korea in 1976 as the wife of a Fort Carson soldier, worked a few years as a hairdresser, started an excavation business that later failed and, in 1986, began buying foreclosed properties. She built a real estate portfolio that included several commercial and residential properties in Colorado, California and Kansas.

In 2005, Richardson bought 153 acres in northern Colorado Springs. She announced plans for Colorado Crossing, a massive mixed-used project. Its first phase, to include a Cinemark movie theater complex, a parking garage, offices and stores, is partially complete.

Also, five small Springs shopping centers and a north-side office and retail complex, all owned by limited liability companies that Richardson appears to control, have gone into foreclosure, according to El Paso County Public Trustee’s records.
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