Celebrating Vision, Strategy and Results
Downtown Colorado Inc. named the Glenwood Springs Downtown Development Authority, the city of Glenwood Springs and four other public entities as winners of the governor’s “Best Group Effort” Award for Downtown Excellence in 2014. Click here to read the article in the Post Independent.
In the spring of 2010, the Glenwood Springs Downtown Development Authority (DDA), a consortium of downtown business and property owners invited the Garfield County Public Library District, the City of Glenwood Springs and Colorado Mountain College to come together to brainstorm downtown possibilities and to find a site for a new library within the core of the downtown. The goal: a location that would invite residents and visitors to walk to the library, with opportunities along the way to enjoy shopping and eating downtown. That’s where it all began.
As discussions continued the DDA, the City, and CMC agreed to provide additional parking so there were more choices on where to park downtown and more opportunities for employees to find 8 hour parking.
From there all the new projects needed to be knit into the downtown fabric, hence streetscape, plazas, renovated alleys, extended sidewalks for outdoor dining were developed. The result: an incredible vibrant downtown beaming with opportunity and close to $20 million in investment.
Four years later Glenwood Springs is celebrating the culmination of planning and execution of an integrated downtown strategy resulting in:
- The first downtown parking structure (149 cars) in the city, a project funded in a partnership between the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the City of Glenwood Springs,
- A new and expanded downtown 14,000 square foot Garfield County Library;
- A new main administrative building for Colorado Mountain College (CMC), with an
- Additional 10,000 square feet of CMC expansion space above the new library;
- Underground structured parking (65 cars) for CMC employees, which doubles as public parking at night and on weekends; and
- A new CMC/ Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center and
- Four new streetscape projects around the downtown core to enhance the people-friendly culture in the town, and to unite all improvements for a cohesive and stimulating environment.
Partners in this multi-year initiative include:
- The Glenwood Springs Downtown Development Authority
- The City of Glenwood Springs
- Garfield County
- Garfield County Library District
- Colorado Mountain College
- Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce
