With $1.8 million price tag

By Greg Masse

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Post Independent Staff

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GLENWOOD SPRINGS – Glenwood Meadows developers have agreed to pay $1.8 million for a signalized intersection at 8th Street and Midland Avenue.

The agreement paves the way for construction to start on the commercial portion of the project in early August.

“It’s just all a part of our deal,” Meadows developer Robert Macgregor said. “We’re putting all the money on the front end of this thing, but hey, we’re just trying to get the deal done. We simply conceded that’s what has to be done.”

Glenwood Meadows is a large commercial and residential development that will be located between the Community Center and the Municipal Operations Center along the western part of Midland Avenue.

The development will be the largest in the history of Glenwood Springs. The Glenwood Springs City Council approved 490,000 square feet of total commercial and office space, as well as 475 apartments, townhouses and single-family homes.

The latest plans call for a November, 2005, opening of Target, Lowe’s and other yet-to-be-named stores.

intersection: see page 3

intersection: from page 1

Expensive intersection

When City Council decided to go with a signalized intersection at 8th and Midland in December 2003, Macgregor and Glenwood Meadows commercial development company Miller Weingarten – who are on the hook to pay for the intersection – balked at the steep pricetag. They said the intersection was more expensive than the work they originally agreed to pay for in the annexation and development agreement.

“It was really just a matter of interpreting what was already in the annexation agreement with Glenwood Meadows,” Glenwood Springs city engineer Larry Thompson said. “Their engineers are working on a design as we speak.”

The increased cost of the intersection stems from leveling the site and installing traffic lights.

Meadows developers favored a $573,000 scheme that would have left a fairly steep grade between Midland Avenue and the 8th Street Bridge, but Thompson recommended against that option.

Thompson said work on the signalized intersection is scheduled to last from June through September 2005, beginning immediately after the scheduled finish date for the Grand Avenue Paving Project, which is one year from now.

Now that the two sides have come to an agreement on the intersection, Miller Weingarten will move forward on creating subdivisions and detailing plans for the shopping center’s infrastructure, the last part of the city’s approval process.

Miller Weingarten representatives are scheduled to appear before the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission in June to get its subdivision approval, then in front of City Council in July.

If all goes well, Macgregor said construction will begin at the beginning of August.

“So we’re making progress,” he said.

The other project related to Glenwood Meadows is the rebuilding of Interstate 70 exit 114. Thompson said that project, which will incorporate two roundabouts into the exit at an estimated cost of $2.2 million, will take about three months longer than the 8th/Midland project.

“(The Colorado Department of Transportation) is actually going to handle the administration on that project,” Thompson said. “Then Glenwood Meadows is going to reimburse CDOT for the cost on that.”

Thompson said the exit 116 project will start in March and last through September.

“All these things are being timed so everything will get done in a timely fashion,” Thompson said.

Contact Greg Masse: 945-8515, ext. 511

gmasse@postindependent.com