Rifle is moving forward with plans to explore the development of a community field house, beginning with a feasibility study.

City council first directed staff in January to work on starting a feasibility study for a field house, which studied the best location, building options, and accessibility.

During the regular meeting on June 4, the feasibility study had already been put out to bid for five weeks. Procurement and Grant Reporting Manager Iris Trevisano presented alongside Parks and Recreation Director Austin Rickstrew.

“We received 11 qualified proposals…we narrowed it down to the top two,” Trevisano said. “The top two were Collab Architecture and Victus Advisors. After interviewing both parties, we decided we’d like to recommend Collab Architecture as the firm we’d like to go with.”

Rickstrew said that the reason they were putting the study out to bid was because they don’t have the capacity to do it internally. 

“This is an important step to determine what size facility we need and if it’s even possible for cost and operations,” Rickstrew said. “We’d also like a council representative on the project team to help guide this, since it’s a council directive, we think it’s important.”

The study will assess factors such as utilities, maintenance, staffing needs, nearby trail systems and other surrounding community features.

“Collab Architecture has some cool ideas of ‘Build-A-Center’ interactive, where you kind of get to pick and draw what you want,” Rickstrew said. “They also have a model where they send a ‘Meeting in a Box’, where if you can’t attend a meeting, they send you all the information and allow you to provide feedback that way, so there are lots of ways to engage the public.”

He added that staff can also go and look at other field house facilities to gain insight into effective space design and potential features to include.

Councilor Alicia Gresley asked whether the study would be limited to the area near Metro Park and the city pool, which was part of the original concept. Rickstrew assured Gresley that while Collab Architecture would look at the Metro Park area, they would also take into consideration other places. 

Because the directive came after the 2024 budget was approved, the $93,640 study was not included in city appropriations. Council had the option to fund it through either the Parks and Recreation fund or the general fund. 

Mayor Sean Strode and Councilor Karen Roberts were absent during this meeting. Pro Tem Chris Bornholdt presided and Councilors Joe Carpenter, Clint Hostettler and Michael Clancy were present with Gresley. Hostettler motioned to use the Parks and Recreation fund for the study. Gresley didn’t immediately vote, hesitating on the motion due to using the fund instead of the general fund, but did eventually vote yes. Bornholt voted no on the motion, but didn’t elaborate as to why. The motion passed 5-1, and the feasibility study will be getting underway.