Photo: CDOT Region 5 Communications Director Lisa Schwantes sharing the news at Hidden Track Speakeasy, April 16, 2024.
The meeting location, yesterday evening, had a different atmosphere from a previous meeting held at the Pagosa Springs Senior Center on April 4, both concerning the planned reconstruction of the eight-block stretch of Highway 160 through downtown Pagosa.
For a couple of reasons.
One, this April 16 meeting was held in a bar, and a fair number of attendees were drinking alcohol (all drinks $1 off on this special occasion.) The bar, located at 251 Pagosa Street, through a side door entrance, is known as Hidden Track Speakeasy, and its a ‘music themed’ bar — with expensive guitars displayed in glass cases, prints of famous musicians decorating the walls, and a rack of used vinyl records near the entrance. And a small stage, for music performances. Or perhaps, for political announcements.
Secondly, the news last night was interpreted as ‘good news’ and was welcomed with applause… rather than with fear and loathing, like the news on April 4.
The good news was delivered by Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Communications Director Lisa Schwantes, to a standing-room-only crowd of mostly downtown business people.
“As you all know, [CDOT] was taking bids on the concrete reconstruction project that was going to go right smack through the middle of your community. We received one bid, and it was 35% over budget…”
About $26 million, then, compared to a planned budget of $19 million.
“After careful consideration of that bid, we rejected it.”
Applause punctuated with whooping and hollering.
“What this means, is that we are going to re-package this project. Our engineers and designers are going to take a hard look at this. Some things might be changed, and we’re going to put it back out to bid this fall, anticipating a start date in spring, 2025.”
More applause.
Ms. Schwantes noterd that, following the April 4 presentation about the same project, Regional Transportation Director Julie Constan agreed to allow three Pagosa business owners participate, to some degree, in the design of the next RFP and the project’s overall phasing.
We don’t know what that ‘degree’ might be. The three volunteers are Goodman’s Department Store co-owner Jeremy Buckingham; Liberty Theatre co-owner Evelyn Tennyson; and downtown property owner JR Ford.
Later in the meeting, Mayor Shari Pierce advised the audience to contact these three ‘representatives’, if they have ideas about improving the project.
But back to Ms. Schwantes:
“I also wanted to let people know that, regarding the project management team — which some of you may know, we’ve hired Rocksol — to help us with the project management, which includes the public information management for that, they won’t have to go through that RFP process again. As long as they are available and they want to commit to this project, we will keep them on…
“We’re hoping that this gives us the opportunity to look a bit more closely at this project… an opportunity to continue our conversations with this community here… and we certainly understand that this community has been ‘under construction’ for the past few years. And we appreciate your patience, and we understand that you are going through some ‘construction fatigue’.
“Hopefully, this give you a little breather, this coming summer season, for some uninterrupted business to take place in your downtown community, without any construction interruptions. Thank you so much.”
More applause.
Then Rick Holter, chair of the Pagosa Springs Main Street advisory board, took the microphone:
“We are, I think like most of you, pretty excited about this news. We’re excited about this news, because it’s a big opportunity to answer a bunch of the unanswered questions, that we’ve had through this process. It’s a big opportunity for us, as a town, and for each individual business to prepare for what’s coming.
“And it’s an opportunity, like Lisa said, to reshape the project a little bit. You know, hopefully tailor the way this project comes together, and stage it in a way that really works for this town…”
Rosanna Dufour, another member of the Main Street board, summarized the ongoing work by her group to look at where additional parking might be developed, knowing that the eventual project will temporarily eliminate much of the on-street parking along Highway 160. She mentioned a bit of disheartening news: the large parking lot across from the Bell Tower, which the Town government had previously been allowed to designate as public parking, will no longer be made available, due to a new leasing fee asked by the property’s new owner.
Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC) executive director Emily Lashbrooke encouraged the audience to remain active and involved. PSCDC has a contract to administer the Town’s ‘Main Street’ program, which might help explain Ms. Lashbrooke’s passion for the ultimate success of the downtown business district in the face of a threatening two-year project that will greatly hamper movement within the downtown.
“We have the opportunity to be at the table, and to speak to the powers that be. CDOT doesn’t normally do this. I want to clue you in to one thing. This bid came in $6.6 million over what they projected. When you’re talking about a CDOT budget of hundreds of millions of dollars every year, do you think CDOT could have gone and found that $6.6 million? Yes, they could have. But they didn’t. They heard you, and respected what you had to say. They want to change the path of trajectory, to include us in the solution.
“It is our job to show up. They extended the invitation. We’ve got to show up…”
More applause.
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.