Representatives from Pine Valley Church met with Bayfield town staff earlier this month to discuss the construction of a $40 million event venue called the Pine Valley Heritage Arena, an expansive complex off County Road 501 near Bayfield.
According to Stephen Proud, community development director for the town of Bayfield, town officials and representatives from Pine Valley Church met to better understand the project and discuss the steps required to begin the construction application process.
The Rev. Scott Kujath of Pine Valley Church has dreamed of building the 90,000-square-foot event complex since the early 2000s. Complete with an indoor rodeo arena, offices, outdoor warm-up pens, an event barn for smaller gatherings, an outdoor plaza and vendor space, the complex would provide Southwest Colorado with a unique event space the region currently lacks, Kujath said.
“We've communicated with the town,” Kujath said. “We'll be refiling all of this with the town of Bayfield the first part of August.”
However, according to Proud, this kind of project is not currently possible based on the existing land designation. The area under consideration is zoned for residential use, which means building the arena violates current zoning code.
Proud said Bayfield’s Planning Commission and Board of Trustees would need to approve rezoning the property. If approved, Pine Valley Church could then submit an application for the arena project, which would also be subject to a comprehensive review by town officials.
Kujath said he has factored this into his timeline and hopes the arena will be finished by late 2026 or early 2027.
“If everything keeps going without any major hiccups, from the fundraising side to the construction side, 2027 would probably be the goal,” Kujath said. “We’re going to start holding some of our first committee meetings in August and give people a chance to express some of their concerns and how we’re doing our best to try to alleviate some of that.”
But the largest hurdle for Pine Valley Church is fundraising. According to the church’s website, it has raised only $1.5 million – a fraction of the roughly $40 million estimated to complete the project.
Kujath hopes the money will come from private donations rather than loans, allowing the church to operate the complex debt-free. That presents a unique challenge, as finding private donors with the needed resources has proven difficult. Still, Kujath said he is hopeful and committed to overcoming that challenge so the church can focus on its work instead of repaying a large loan.
“We aren’t going into debt to build this thing, and so it’s paused,” Kujath said. “If you have high debt in building this, then you have to do the big events just to pay the bills. So that's why it’s such a big deal to us to make sure that we do this debt-free – to make sure that we maintain our purpose and our mission.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.org
