This Memorial Day weekend, the Town of Eagle celebrates a significant milestone in a robust public land use process that began in 2014. With the grand opening of Eagle River Park, the in-stream “water park” improvements join an “upland” park carved from an unsightly gravel truck parking area and a segment of the river hastily re-routed with riprap when Interstate 70 was built.
Recreationists travelling between the East and West slopes will drop by for the surf and the turf. Both are lovely. Boaters, surfers & floaters may be forgiven in thinking, “mission accomplished.” Some towns have done the same.
More than a few recreational in-stream diversion (RICD in Colorado water law) “waves” are constructed without much context to the rest of a nearby town. These are hailed successes—Avon, Frisco and Glenwood Springs come to mind. Others may value another stand-alone park to compliment the Town of Eagle’s wealth of parks and open spaces and be content with this milestone. As just another park, it is not compelling enough to justify a voter approved tax.
For skeptics who think the project is a frivolous public overinvestment in “play,” this unseasonably cold weekend may provide a confirming “meh” moment. Right now, in terms of connectivity to surroundings, the park is an island, or to borrow from Lyle Lovett, kind of “pony on a boat.” So, if Eagle were to settle with what they have at this point, skeptics would have a point. For a while, most people will drive to it, play, and drive off whether those are visitors in self-contained camper vehicles or Eagle residents.
It is important to remember that the Eagle River Corridor Plan (Adopted 2015) envisions this park as an anchor project whose success will be better judged ten to twenty years hence when other land use elements of the corridor plan connect to it. From a community development and economic development perspective, that broader vision is at best 25% complete.
To set the record straight, the idea of the river park began more than a decade ago when Eagle County paid for a study of where along the fairgrounds property a water park might best go. That plan requested by Commissioner Menconi fell on deaf ears during a larger county fairgrounds master planning effort at the time (that plan was very equine-centric), but it did identify one re-routed segment of the river with a lot of “drop” as ideal for a water park. That study circulated among a few river faithful at the county, and as the Vail Daily noted, famously, re-emerged as a topic of conversation among some river rats and town leaders making a lot of napkin sketches at Bonfire Brewing.
The brewery comes as close to overlooking the park as any business in the Central Business District in town. It is a 9-iron away, but separated by Highway 6, the railroad and two private properties. In a way, the excitement for this park can be attributed like many good ideas in Colorado to people gathering over local craft beer and seeing beyond the obsticles.
My enthusiasm for this larger corridor vision remains as to how it will be a driver for urban renewal and economic development. It isn’t exactly news that places are leveraging the rivers that run through them as transformative elements. This does not happen with one land deal or one project. For years, towns and cities focused development around burgeoning road systems and often zoned riverside property for industrial uses, effectively turning their backs on rivers. Changing the inertia of this land use perspective takes perseverance. As late as the 1970s, big cities such as Seattle and New York saw waterfronts as ideal places for pavement to move cars, not places for people to gather. In Portland, Oregon, where I was raised, the city tore out an arterial that separated downtown from the Willamette River and created waterfront park out of it. Even as a child, this was a revelation to me that they could just do that.
Eagle was not unusual a few years ago in sporting a sprawling auto junkyard at the West entry to town at the confluence of Brush Creek with the Eagle River, a property purchased and reclaimed by Eagle County while I was Commissioner. In the future that county property will be the other entrance to the fairgrounds and to the river park. This park was the primary view of town arrived at from westbound on the interstate—a truck parking lot beside a large gravel pit.
At the other end of town across from the business district, separating it from the Eagle River were three tall gas tanks, a tin shack and a dirty filling area for Swallow Oil. When town purchased Swallow Oil and reclaimed that property around that same time, it left one mature pine and revegetated the rest. Both properties required significant environmental cleanup. The difference of having a neutral space with a message board at one entry to town and a grassy area instead of 300 junk cars provided subtle, but significant improvements to the self-image of Eagle. The Swallow Oil property will eventually play a role in a pedestrian crossing at Broadway which anchors the Central Business District when it eventually connects to Chambers Park and the new river park. That future direct connection from town to the river will expose the genius of the Eagle River Plan, frankly.
So quietly, the town and county had already spent a decade setting the stage for the Eagle River Corridor Plan, and connecting this Eagle River Park with these properties including one other key land acquisition. That third acquisition was a remnant CDOT parcel crossing the river at the truck parking. It was necessary to construct the in-stream features. The county acquired it even though the only use it had was for the town to possibly, eventually construct what is now Eagle River Park.
Is a park just a park? Talent and business are attracted to places that take the effort to be great places. I still run into people who don’t believe quality of life, amenities and placemaking qualify as economic development. Towns around Colorado embracing placemaking, natural amenities, and the work-life balanced lifestyle residents enjoy have proven otherwise. In recent years, cities are “rebooting” around rivers that pioneers once travelled across the country to settle beside.
In 2014 when I was Town Manager of Eagle, town staff curated a couple trips for the town leaders to experience some of these nearby Western Slope towns that were in the process of redeveloping by connecting to nearby rivers through civic projects that induced private investment.
On the trip we saw how Salida completely flipped the front door of some businesses from main street to a newly amenitized pedestrian river corridor. Salida summers are now like “Saturday in the Park” every day. The town is booming. In Golden, improvements changed an overgrown stormwater chute into a vital pedestrian corridor that enhanced and activated adjacent properties and connected disparate parts of the city. In Buena Vista improvements made old town and a new development into a coherent whole, replacing a dump that once separated old town from the river. Other examples of river projects re-focusing business districts abound across Colorado and the West including Steamboat Springs, Vail and Confluence park in Denver. Steamboat Springs is an example of how a river trail system and in-stream improvements took a backstreet and made it a second main street.
A river through town is a placemaking and economic development opportunity. Eagle may or may not host festivals as large as FibArk, or GoPro Games, which is OK with me, but it is getting enough attention between biking, and now the river park to be on in-the-know Colorado adventure traveler’s radar. They have always been driving by.
In fact, Eagle for years has enjoyed one of the most complete and convenient I-70 exit service areas between Fruita and Kansas. It is arguably the towns economic center which is why it has been stunning to talk to so many long-time Coloradoans over the years who know the Eagle exit as a gas, grocery and food stop. Many of them, once they visit the Central Business District or Eagle Ranch, or ride a trail say, “I have driven by for years and I never knew this was here.” Marketers and bloggers like to take credit for Eagle’s popularity as a destination, but Eagle is on the rise because it has been very thoughtfully planned and it has continued to build upon the place making efforts that go back over 110 years with a street grid with a town park at the center overlooking a river confluence. The Eagle River Corridor Plan leverages all of that and in time will bring it all together.
So, yes, there is now a cool park and a few waves. Enjoy the Eagle River Park opening this weekend, but know that the genius of the corridor vision will be fulfilled when these things happen:
- Connecting Chambers Park & Eagle River Park to Broadway and the Central Business District with an iconic pedestrian connection. This was the #1 intent of the project, to provide an amenity to draw visitors off the highway to downtown (and from downtown to the river) to activate the CBD and spur redevelopment. This was a weakness of the Visitors Center/Historic Barn concept which failed to then drive visitors beyond the I-70 service area to the CBD. “Connect the heart of the town with the soul of the river” is the stated corridor mission. This will require coordination with the railroad and a so-far uncooperative private property owner.
- Connecting the Eagle River Park to existing Chambers Park with a safe walkway, continuous in-stream safety improvements from the Chambers ramp downstream. The two parks will be greater than the sum of the parts eventually. Chambers can be seen from downtown, the new park cannot. Right now, these are separated by a strip of privately held rip-rap shore. The riverbed configuration itself and the pedestrians who will be walking on Fairgrounds road to walk around this property will each encounter major safety hazards by land or by water because of this inholding. Tubing season on a busy Fairgrounds weekend will be interesting. Chambers Park is pedestrian connected to the I-70 service area now.
- Improving Chambers Park. The first discussions that drove town leaders toward the river in 2013 were about the embarrassing bathroom at the Visitors Center, and about the very purpose of the Visitors Center. Town opened-up the park area to the river with weed whackers and chainsaws in 2013-2014, built in an access ramp and just like that, the park behind the barn took on a new life. It became magnetic to those who stopped by. The Chambers Park improvement plan envisions more parking, re-arrangement of the buildings, and the opportunity for a boathouse/activity center/restaurant pad instead of a gift shop. Instead of a place to pee-and-purchase, the park could provide a “sticky” experience to encourage visitors to engage in the park activities, park and walk and decide to stay. A back patio with volleyball for the bowling alley is an amenity that would be a great public, private partnership.
- Connecting and spurring Eagle County to investment in the Fairgrounds. Interesting how so many seeds of this project were sown through county efforts. The new soft path along the river through the rodeo grounds west of the new park is amazing. When it connects all the way through to the far west end of the Fairgrounds property beside relocated ballfields, past camping and whatever else the County envisions in an upcoming master plan, and when that path connects at Brush Creek Confluence park to Eagle Ranch trail system across the river, only then will the fairgrounds be activated as the multi-purpose public amenity that it should be. Loops are more energetic than dead ends. Maybe the fairgrounds facility moves West and the current location becomes a mini-Miller Ranch affordable housing development. This loop connectivity to the neighborhoods of Eagle will also insure these parklands are fully enjoyed by locals who will no longer need a vehicle to access them. Right now the vast Fairgrounds property is also mostly a land bank isolated from the center of town.
- The making of a 4-Mile pedestrian river trail: This is small potatoes compared to the other items. In the other direction from the fairgrounds, soft path systems are envisioned (with some property bypasses) along the Nogal road open space to extend two miles East of town onto the residential community being proposed by Merv Lapin. This will not be a wide rec-path, but will enable fishermen, birders, hikers to walk from one end of town to the other means a nearly 4-mile riverside path!
- Attracting private investment and redevelopment of the South Bank across from the new river park. This eventual highest-best use of private property will be the most transformative of all the above. Without too many neighbors to NIMBY it, this should be a VERY dense, mostly residential neighborhood walkable to Broadway, to the river park and to all I-70 services and not least to the regional bus system. Take a look at the sketches in the Eagle River Corridor Plan. Add co-work, high speed broadband, and a few riverside restaurants, and Eagle becomes the most attractive live-work town in the region, and a much more viable place for a spectrum of next generation services and businesses that will follow the people. One of the two properties is currently for sale. Getting the right kind of project here, the concept of which was effectively approved through the Eagle River Plan will be the real litmus test of this major public investment.
- Central Business District Redevelopment is implied in most of these other goals. Ithas been a Holy Grail for town leaders for a quarter century since I-70 separated the traffic corridor across the tracks & river from this iconic business district. Broadway is still the heart of the town. It just lacks vibrancy, that is new businesses and more people. When I was Mayor, we completed an award-winning streetscape renovation of Broadway, overhauled the Town Park at the other end, and yet, sadly, there has been very little investment since. If the Eagle River Corridor plan, including the river park, and the investments that improved Eby Creek Road don’t kickstart this district anchored by Broadway, I don’t know what will.
So, for now, river lovers, enjoy the new play park. Water park aficionados will know that this is an observation year so that the Rapid Blocks system can be installed at low water to optimize play use by expert kayakers and surfers next spring, as well as to tune it for late season use by tubers and swimmers.
I wish people could walk right from the old truck parking through a time portal into the new park to see what has improved already. I would like to step through that portal 10 years forward to see what becomes of the seven connections listed above, and whether the skeptics of this as an economic turning point for Eagle are right. Is it just cool, or will it be a game changer?
Watching families gather at the magnetic riverside park as children and adults play in the warm August-September waters may further soften the skeptics. I for one, will be envisioning how the opportunities above will someday complete a larger plan that is already a success.
(This Blog was adapted from my Vail Daily Column published the same day, May 25th, 2019 as the Grand Opening of the Park. Vail Daily editors are among the skeptics of the economic development benefits of the investment.)
