State of Colorado ready to help with road improvements

Colorado Department of Transportation officials are ready to work with landowners in eastern El Paso County to facilitate development - - as long as the property's developers will allocate necessary right of way and money for off-highway improvements.

"The county will coordinate with us to require adequate accel and decel lanes," said Mark Andrew, resident engineer the state highway department, adding that "squaring off" the Judge Orr-Highway 24 intersection to facilitate increased traffic flow (10 to 15 percent per year) will be a goal.

Preliminary development plans are already in the works for an area south of Highway 24 that includes Santa Fe Springs, Ranchos de Santa Fe, Shaw Ranch and a proposed Stapleton bypass-Curtis Road retail corridor on the eastern plains, said Bill Guman of landscape and land planning consultant Guman & Associates of Colorado Springs

Rodney Preisser, a partner with Ray O'Sullivan in the proposed 8,000-acre Santa Fe Springs community, believes the county might eventually create its own "E-470," connecting Briargate Parkway (Exit 151) to Stapleton and Curtis roads to the east, and then joining with Powers Boulevard and Mesa Ridge Parkway (Exit 132) to Interstate 25 south of Colorado Springs.

An original investor in Ellicott Springs and the owner of Sunset Metropolitan District which sells water rights to the Cherokee Water District and several private developers, Preisser is betting heavily on eastern El Paso County's economic future.

"Sunset is getting ready to lay a 15-to-18-inch interceptor (water) line to Judge Orr and Curtis Roads bordering Santa Fe Springs," he said. "We should have our first lots ready by first quarter 2009."

Andrea Minnick and Simone Ahern, owners of the 120-acre Meadowlake Commons' property have their toes in the water, testing the economic temperature and hoping to expand retail options along east Highway 24 -- even before surrounding rooftops are in place.

"I've lived out here most of my life, and have watched all the houses built," Minnick said. "It's amazing how fast development has come in the past five years."

She also sees the nearest existing retail center already crowded with shoppers.

"The Safeway is packed every time I go in there -- and we could use a sit-down restaurant instead of just fast food chains," she said.

Building and hoping the the consumers will follow has worked before.

"Look at the Citadel. When it was built in 1978, there were very few houses around it," Guman said. "In 1982 they built Chapel Hills Mall, before most of Briargate was in. Today's frontier is tomorrow's infill."

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