Since the arrival of Euro-American settlers, nearly half of Colorado wetlands have been lost due to a variety of human activities (USGS, USFWS)…
— from the Audubon Rockies website, March 2021.
Back in the mid-1990s, the Lynn Family Trust deeded about 40 acres of vacant land south of the Spring Inn to Bill Dawson and Matt Mees, the new owners of the Spring Inn. The parcel, tucked into a wide curve in the San Juan River, included a warm water wetlands adjacent to the river’s eastern bank. The warmth resulted from seepage from an artesian geothermal aquifer — the same aquifer that also fed the Great Pagosa Hot Spring and that had deposited a layer of travertine minerals over much of the Lynn Family parcel.
The adjacent Spring Inn had gone out of business in the late 1980s, during a difficult economic downturn in Pagosa Springs resulting largely from the Texas Oil Bust. When Mr. Dawson and Mr. Mees bought the Spring Inn, it was merely a motel, but the new owners began constructing a series of geothermal bathing pools, which were subsequently marketed as “naturally therapeutic” based on traditional claims that Pagosa’s sulfur-smelling water had healing powers.
Mr. Dawson and Mr. Mees — as the Springs Partners — began working with the Town government to facilitate the future development of the vacant 40 acres, and part of the development plan included the establishment of a conservation easement covering the warm-water wetlands — about 10 acres of land, according to my estimate, that could never be developed in any practical way, due to federal wetlands regulations. The wetlands were also deeded over to the Town government.
Back when ‘conservation easements’ were a happening thing, a landowner typically received a significant tax credit benefit when they created a conservation easement covering a portion of their property, and the tax credit could then be sold to investors.
I’m not clear who reaped the financial benefit from the Pagosa wetlands conservation easement: the Springs Partners or the Town of Pagosa Springs?
But the Springs Partners, as potential developers, did reap a different benefit from the transaction. Pagosa Springs had recently put in place subdivision requirements specifying that a certain percentage of any new subdivision must remain “open space”. When the Springs Partners deeded the (unbuildable?) warm-water wetlands over to the Town government, the Town agreed to accept the gift as fulfilling the future ‘open space’ requirements for a potential subdivision, meaning that the Springs Partners could completely develop the remaining 30 vacant acres into saleable real estate.
A plan for developing the remaining 30 acres was approved by the Town government. As far as I know, that approval process did not include any discussions about how future development might, or might not, affect the 10-acre wetlands now owned by the Town.
The Spring Inn later changed its name to the Springs Resort, and was sold to the Albuquerque-based Whittington family. The Whittingtons also purchased the 30 vacant acres next door, and built a new luxury hotel — the EcoLuxe — on the three acres adjacent to the existing Springs Resort. The Whittingtons also created a development plan for the remaining 27 acres, that won approval from the Town Council. Once again, I don’t recall the approval process discussions making significant mention of the wetlands.
A couple of years later, in the midst of the Great Recession, the Whittington family defaulted on the agreement to purchase the vacant 27 acres, and handed it back to the Springs Partners. Mr. Dawson and Mr. Mees subsequently invited another partner into their company — developer Jack Searle — and in 2018 when the Springs Resort was sold to Kansas-City-based EPR Springs Holdings, Mr. Searle entered into discussions with EPR’s managing principal, David Dronet, who is also a managing partner for Texas-based Olympus Real Estate Group.
Mr. Searle and Mr. Dronet came up with some ideas for developing the vacant 27 acres, and approached the Town government with a rather impressive proposal to provide them with $79.6 million in tax rebates through the creation of a new municipal ‘Urban Renewal Authority’.
As many of our Daily Post readers already know, the vacant 27 acres had absolutely no “urban” to ‘renew’, because it had been vacant land (populated by birds and other wildlife) for probably the past 10,000 years. But four of the seven Town Council members were persuaded by their attorney, Bob Cole, and by the Town staff, that the vacant 27 acres constituted “dangerous urban blight” and that $79.6 million in tax rebates might be beneficial to the community’s overall economy.
A few months later, a citizens initiative amended the Town Home Rule Charter to require voter approval for any Urban Renewal Authority project, if the tax rebates were expected to exceed $1 million.
The passage of this initiative sent Mr. Searle and Mr. Dronet back to the drawing board, to create a more modest development plan for the vacant travertine meadow. The current plan includes a 84,000 square foot hotel, restaurant and spa, and numerous new ‘naturally therapeutic’ geothermal bathing pools for hotel guests. (The orange building in the drawing below.)
But something unusual has taken place since Mr. Dronet and Mr. Searle began holding public presentations of their development plans. To begin with, the public presentations themselves have been somewhat unusual. Typically, developers in Archuleta County work with the government planners behind closed doors, to create their plans, and the public is never invited to participate in discussions about the proposals. But Mr. Dronet and Mr. Searle began unveiling their ideas three years ago, in ‘community meetings’ where the public was invited to provide input and suggestions.
Among the interested members of the public were the associates of the local Audubon Society, who had been — for many years — enjoying the abundant wildlife making use of the warm-water wetlands… made special, in part, by the flow of geothermal water into its various ponds and meadows.
Perhaps as a balancing act to the Springs Partners and the forces of development, these fans of birding — and wildlife watching in general — formed an advocacy group called the Pagosa Wetland Partners.
Several members of that group testified at the January 27 Town Planning Commission hearing, concerning David Dronet’s planned development project.
Read Part Six…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.