2007: Water was the big issue for Colorado Springs

During 2007, the Business Journal often focused on water -- or rather, on its absence.

In February, we looked at Aaron Million's audacious scheme to bring water to the Front Range via a 400-mile pipeline from Wyoming's Flaming Gorge reservoir. During the fall, we ran a six- part series titled "Cities of the River," which explored in depth the importance of the Colorado River not only to Colorado Springs, but to Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

And throughout the year, we updated our readers about the city's progress -- or lack thereof -- in making the long-planned Southern Delivery System a reality.

But if water was the big story, it was far from the only one.

Some of the other highlights: we published a two-part series about the history of growth in Colorado Springs, considered the possibility of turning NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain facility into a tourist attraction, wondered why Colorado Springs has only one professional sports team, admired the new Wal-Mart in Woodland Park (and wondered why we only have generic supercenters in the Springs), placed our bets on regional artists and found out that Cripple Creek's then-mayor didn't want new casinos.

And in perhaps our biggest story of the year, we revealed that our municipal government had been mounting a desperate, last- minute, and wholly secret effort to keep the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs.

USOC

In a rapid, coordinated effort to prevent the U.S. Olympic Committee, and possibly the Olympic Training Center, from leaving Colorado Springs, the city sought to partner with one of four developer groups to provide new facilities for the organizations.

The city issued a confidential request for information to which it received four responses. The RFI asked developers to partner with the city to provide the USOC with additional athlete housing and a new headquarters building.

History of growth

Colorado Springs was different. Located on a barren, treeless swath of land east of Monument Creek, there was no reason to build a city -- unless you were William Jackson Palmer.

Palmer's plan to extend his railroad south from Denver was based upon a land play. By so doing, he'd dramatically increase the value of millions of acres owned by English land speculators -- who would, in turn, raise the money to buy the bonds to finance the railroad.

Palmer had decided to create a city to which he could bring his fussy young bride, and Colorado Springs seemed to be the ideal location.

It would be a genteel, pleasant place -- a city of broad boulevards and a cultivated citizenry, from which everything that displeased Palmer would be banned. No drinking, no gambling, no dance halls, no prostitutes, no smoky factories -- it would be a quiet, beautiful place, a western refuge for the aristocratic few.

Growth in Palmer's de facto gated community was measured, controlled and restricted.

Cheyenne Mountain

Having concluded that the mountain is not presently relevant as a military installation, the Air Force is slowly mothballing the facility by putting it on "warm shutdown" -- the military equivalent of boxing up stuff that you no longer need, but aren't ready to throw away.

So here it sits, this fascinating place which so few have visited, and about which so many are curious. If ever it becomes military surplus, what should it be used for?

We asked Terry Sullivan, the CEO of Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak, formerly the Convention and Visitors Bureau, a simple question: would it work as a tourist attraction?

"Oh sure!" he said. "You and I could sit down and come up with 25 creative ideas in a few hours on how to market it, how to present it. There's nothing like it in the world. There's just an endless array of people who'd be interested -- Star Trek fans, science fiction fans, former military, history buffs. You could accommodate people overnight, do computer war games -- the interest level would be very, very high."

How high?

"It'd be one of our top five attractions, properly marketed and presented -- you could expect 300,000 to 400,000 visitors annually."

And what would be the economic impact?

"Let's see, 6 million visitors creates a $1 billion impact, so 400,000 would mean about $65 million," Sullivan said. "And if the military just relocates all of its personnel from the mountain to Peterson, there wouldn't be any economic loss to the community from the closure, so it'd be a great project. But you'd have to do it fairly soon, while people still remember the Cold War -- in 20 years it might not attract so much interest."

Flaming Gorge

Could Flaming Gorge water replace the water that Colorado Springs hopes to bring north from the Arkansas River via the Southern Delivery System?

While intrigued by Aaron Million's project, Gary Bostrom and Bruce McCormick of Colorado Springs Utilities are unconvinced.

They're not sure how much water is actually available in the Colorado, and they think that Million underestimates the political and regulatory obstacles that he confronts.