We continue with the testimony by Springs Partners partner Bill Dawson, speaking to the Town Council in a closed-door meeting. I am transcribing the discussion from the (sometimes inaudible) recording preserved by the Town and ordered to be made public by Judge Greg Lyman. Mr. Dawson has just told the Council that the Springs Partners will be making a huge contribution to the Pagosa Springs roadway system, by donating the land for the South 5th Street bridge and connecting road. He states (somewhat vaguely) that the new bridge would require the Springs Partners to donate maybe three acres of their 27 acres – about one-ninth of their entire acreage? – to the bridge right-of-way.
“This is land we would not have to give up, if the bridge wasn’t going in,” said Mr. Dawson.
I invite our readers to consider the plan approved in 2012 and judge whether the proposed bridge access itself takes up one-ninth of this plan?
Maybe Mr. Dawson is referring to the entire ROW (right-of-way) system, which will take up 3.78 acres, plus 1.13 acres for the bridge access?
Mr. Dawson:
“The second thing we talked about is supplying the Town with some collateral on the 27 acres.”
The next part is inaudible, but I understood Mr. Dawson to mention the name of Town Council member Tracy Bunning, who has been a consistent supporter of the proposed $7 million bridge.
Partner Matt Mees then joined in, apparently referring to a map:
“The is the piece of property where we have the 27 acres. The existing [Great Hot Springs] is here, and Hot Springs Boulevard is here.” The next part is inaudible, but it sounds like the Springs Partners were offering to put up, as collateral, a chunk of vacant land just north of the Ross Aragon Community Center.
“… To use that as additional collateral. Or, actually, however it works best for the Town, just as an incentive for us to do something, to show that we’re going to do something. That we’re here to do something. Well, that’s part of what we want to do.”
(Curiously enough, that portion of the 27 acres is the same general area that’s been the focus of discussions with the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, as the BOCC moves forward with their as-yet-unfunded proposal for new County facilities. A claim has been made at recent BOCC meetings that the Springs Partners are willing to trade several acres just north of the Community Center for 5 sloping acres owned by the County just east of the Community Center. But that’s another article series.)
Mr. Dawson:
“Yeah, and the real important part is, we’re basically willing to put up $6 million — at the time the bridge gets started, or built — to do something. We haven’t decided yet what we’re going to do, because we don’t know if the bridge is going in. And in order to talk to investors… we can’t talk to people… they want to know, is the bridge going it? Is it not going in? We have to know which way we’re going.
“So once we decide it’s going in, or the Council decides it’s not going in, we can proceed to get more than the $6 million. If we build a hotel, I think we’re looking at $20 or $25 million. It’s significant. It would include spa facilities… it would be really neat.”
Mr. Mees:
“And the town is in need of another hotel, a new hotel. We haven’t had a new hotel since the one Whittington did with the 32 rooms, but that’s all ‘upper end’ [room rates.] That’s out of the park for most people. We’re going to build something that is more for the people who would shop in the downtown area. And the [proposed bridge] will create the downtown environment for the shop owners and restaurants. Plan A is totally different from Plan B. In Plan B, there just isn’t any place for the retail that will create all those sales tax dollars. There’s just no access for it, except for Hot Springs Boulevard.”
Some of our readers may wonder why there is no place for retail shops in Plan B?
Here are the two approved plans side-by-side, for your comparison. First, Sketch Plan A, with coloring added by the Daily Post:
And then, the “totally different” Plan B, which unlike Plan A, cannot include any significant retail shops:
I guess Plan B cannot include retail shops (if we are to believe Mr. Mees) because Hot Springs Boulevard — the same street that accesses to our two largest resorts, the Springs Resort and the Healing Waters Resort — would never allow enough vehicle traffic to serve the many retail shops that people might want to walk to… from the Springs Resort and the Healing Waters Resort, and across three pedestrian bridges.
Mr. Mees:
“And part of what Mike Davis [of Davis Engineering] has told me is, our existing [vehicle] bridge we have is 36 feet wide and 150 feet long. And Mike said this new bridge would be 50 feet wide and 200 feet long. And he said the existing bridge is really inadequate as a bridge because the existing sidewalks are too small, and when people get behind the snow you can’t get out of the way because it’s only a 3-foot sidewalks on either side. He says he’s planned for the new bridge to have 6-foot sidewalks on both sides, and bike lanes.”
Interesting. We already have three pedestrian bridges downtown, crossing the San Juan River, but Mr. Mees thinks we need two additional 6-foot sidewalks, at the cost of a mere $7 million?
And I’m not sure what kind of tape measure Mr. Mees uses. When I measured the sidewalks on the existing bridge this morning, they appeared to be 58 inches wide. I think that’s nearly 5 feet?
Mr. Mees continues:
“He said it’s a totally different look of a bridge, from what we have. He said if the Town had had the money [back in the late 1980s] they would have built the Hot Springs Boulevard bridge better. If only we’d had the funds, when it was time to change out the old steel bridge.”
Pagosa has installed a few bridges in its day. At one point in the town’s history, the main bridge across the San Juan took off from where Tequila’s, Jim Smith Realty and the County Courthouse now stand, and landed where the Visitors Center is now located.
When I first visited Pagosa in 1987, a similar-looking steel bridge crossed the river at Hot Springs Boulevard, except that I think it was called Light Plant Road back then.
Mr. Mees:
“The [Hot Springs Boulevard] bridge was an improvement, but it really didn’t recognize the future development of downtown.”
Then we hear, for the first time, from the Council itself… beginning with Mayor Don Volger.