The Pagosa Springs Town Council will consider a project to add parking at the Town Park athletic field at its Thursday, July 18, meeting.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at Town Hall.
Town staff have been searching for additional parking spaces in anticipation of Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT’s) highway reconstruction project through downtown Pagosa Springs, where it’s estimated that over 180 spaces may be temporarily lost during the construction phases of the two-year project.
Community Development Director James Dickhoff has noted that there are currently about 288 parking spaces downtown between 1st and 8th streets and that “we don’t know how many are gonna be impacted” by CDOT’s construction project.
An agenda document for the meeting states that town staff “has identified the Athletic Field as potential parking to help subsidize the loss of parking during the project.”
The council is anticipated to consider two options prepared by Davis Engineering. Option 1 would provide 65 additional parking spaces at the athletic field, while option 2 would provide 35 additional spaces.
Town staff is recommending the option to add 35 spaces, the agenda document states.
“This particular location will provide close proximity parking to the downtown businesses during the CDOT project. Once the CDOT project is over, the downtown corridor will now have much needed additional parking,” the document states.
The document also states that the additional parking will accommodate events being held at Town Park throughout the year.
Town staff do not anticipate any significant impact to any organizations that currently use the athletic field by adding additional parking in the proposed area.
Should the council decide to move forward with the idea, the council will also need to consider if it will be a gravel or an asphalt parking area with curb and gutter.
The document states that the 35-space option in the form of a gravel lot would cost an estimated $139,781 including a 20 percent contingency; an asphalt lot would cost an estimated $250,160 including a 20 percent contingency.
The funding to build the lot would come from the town’s capital reserves fund.
The Pagosa Springs Planning Commission voiced opposition to the idea of installing a new parking lot at Town Park on May 14.
At that meeting, Pagosa Springs Middle School Principal Chris Hinger voiced his opposition to the idea, saying, “Once you pave it and make it parking, you don’t get that back.”
Planning commissioner Chad Hodges said that putting “a parking lot in a green space is never a good idea.”
Planning commissioner Chris Pitcher stated, “I’m gonna push back against the Town Park idea … we need to stay away from that as an option.”
Ultimately, the planning commission made a unanimous formal recommendation to the town council against the idea to install a parking lot at Town Park.
However, the Parks and Recreation Board was in favor of parking at the athletic field and favored the smaller version of the proposed lot, according to the agenda document.
In addition to the Town Park location, a parking agreement between the town and the library board was approved to use the vacant property west of the library to accommodate approximately 50 to 60 public parking spaces.
This lot is estimated to cost the town $12,000 for additional gravel and signage, and it “has an existing vehicular access from Hwy 160 and is easily accessible for pedestrians with the adjacent trail and sidewalk connectivity,” an agenda document on the matter states.
Dickhoff previously stated that he thinks that the library lot would best be utilized by downtown businesses for “remote” employee parking during the CDOT construction project.
The library and Town Park lots are the largest and most convenient of the parking areas being considered by town staff, and would make up for almost half of the total spaces that would be lost in the worst-case-scenario situation during CDOT’s construction, Dickhoff previously stated.
Another large lot being considered would be the newly acquired town-owned property near Tractor Supply, the Goodman property, but this site is not ideal because of its inconvenient location, Dickhoff previously noted.
At Thursday’s meeting, the council is anticipated to consider if it will move forward with the parking lot or if it will reject the idea of a lot at the Town Park location and direct staff otherwise.
derek@pagosasun.com
