COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – In their first regular meeting, the new Colorado Springs City Council unanimously approved a land swap that members see as a kick-start to revitalize southwest downtown.
Council members and downtown boosters were jubilant after the 8-0 vote. Councilman Bill Murray had an excused absence.
“I think we came up with a great plan here that’s going to make a big difference for our community,” said Council President Richard Skorman.
Skorman, jokingly calling himself “an instigator,” served on the council in 2001 when downtown’s southwest quadrant was designated an urban renewal area. But, he noted, America the Beautiful Park had been the only result since.
Now, the U.S. Olympic Museum and Hall of Fame is set to break ground in the area this spring, and the city has planned a $9.7 million pedestrian bridge from the museum to America the Beautiful as well as a modern streetscape at South Sierra Madre Street and West Vermijo Avenue.
The land trade gives the city 1.12 acres it wanted for an improved trail linking downtown and the west side and for a detention pond to control stormwater runoff from the massive interchange that the Colorado Department of Transportation is building at Interstate 25 and Cimarron Street.
CDOT is providing the trail and detention pond as part of its intergovernmental agreement with the city.
The city also sheds about 5.5 acres in the area, including the site of a former coal gasification plant that operated from 1890 to 1931, leaving potentially carcinogenic residual coal tar.
The cost to eradicate those toxins would be about $4 million, Chief of Staff Jeff Greene has said.
The previous council insisted any contract for the trade had to indemnify the city of responsibility for that cleanup, and a new contract has been drafted to do so.
The would-be recipients of the property are CSJ No. 7 LLC and Urban Enterprises LLC, subsidiaries of Nor’wood Development Group, the master developer for the urban renewal area.
Under the approved deal, those companies also would take ownership of any contamination on the 1.12 acres being traded to the city.
The land exchange won support from several downtown boosters.
“For me, this is a no-brainer,” said downtown landowner Chuck Murphy, of Murphy Constructors. “We looked at this (city) property in detail. It looked like the Love Canal. Scared me to death.
“I think it’s a tremendous opportunity for the city. I don’t know anybody else who would take it on.”
Susan Edmondson, president and CEO of the Downtown Partnership, called the deal “an absolutely important next step.”
Dirk Draper, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC, agreed.
“Few cities in the country thrive without a vibrant downtown,” Draper said. “We believe the Hall of Fame is the next step in revitalizing downtown. By approving the land swap, we can encourage the project to go forward and not delay.”
The only naysayer Tuesday was Deborah Stout-Meininger, a Fountain resident who often testifies at public meetings, introducing herself as a citizen scientist.
Stout-Meininger insisted that land in the area was riddled with hydro-carbons and that $11 million of clean dirt had to be poured before America the Beautiful Park was built. “You’re going to kill people here,” she said.
“You’re all mixed up,” Skorman responded, “because the mitigation’s going to happen .. . I don’t want you misleading the public here. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Appraisals for the properties, finally made public Tuesday, showed the city’s contaminated 3.35 acres at 25 Cimino Drive would require $4.455 million worth of remediation, leaving the land worth less than nothing.
The city’s other parcel, 2.23 acres at 125 Cimino Drive, would be worth $1.9 million if it were free of contamination, wrote appraiser James M. Bittel.
The Nor’wood subsidiaries’ 1.12 acre was valued at $904,000.
