Downtown’s Next Step pedestrian improvement project is proving significantly more expensive than the city of Durango had originally planned. In response, City Council voted to move forward with the project in a phased approach.

In 2021, the city penciled in $400,000 for the engineering design of the Next Step project. After requests for proposals were sent out in August, returns were valued at $1.2 million – three times more than the city’s estimate, said Devon King, the city transit multimodal administrator.

The city made calls to the Colorado Department of Transportation and some municipalities that have tackled similar projects to see if the high proposals are in line with what other government bodies are seeing in the way of bids, and it turns out they are, he said.

King said the high costs can partly be attributed to the general cost of design and construction projects rising, but the “intricacies” of downtown, such as old coal shafts beneath city streets and the maze of various utility lines downtown, also play a role.

“There’s a lot of different nuances to our downtown that also increase the design costs,” he said.

In discussions with two firms that returned proposals, the city identified a phased approach to construction as a necessity to the Downtown’s Next Step project, he said. The city provided a notice of intent to award the project to MIG, a development firm.

The city brought four options to Durango’s Multimodal Advisory Board, he said. The city could either move forward with the project in a phased process, request more funding to continue the project as planned, adjust the scope of the project and the scope of funding, or simply not move forward at all.

The board opted to take a phased approach to Downtown’s Next Step, he said.

Durango City Council concurred with the Multimodal Advisory Board’s recommendation of a phased approach and voted 3-1, with Councilor Olivier Bosmans rejecting the proposal. Councilor Jessika Buell was absent for a portion of the meeting and did not vote on the Downtown’s Next Step project.

Bosmans said he wants a better understanding of how downtown construction would unfold, including costs and impacts to businesses and parking, and to gauge the public’s receptiveness to the project before the city financed it.

“We’re speaking of consultant fees, design, engineering (and a) traffic study of $1.2 million,” he said. “Total cost, I have no idea what the total cost range would be expected. Are we speaking about $50 million? I have no idea what order of magnitude this kind of project will be.”

He said he assumes the full project cost would need to be posed to voters on an election ballot.

Mayor Barbara Noseworthy and Councilor Kim Baxter said the traffic study and engineering designs are necessary steps to getting to construction.

With the new phased approach, the city will continue its traffic study from Fifth Street to 14th Street, including side streets, in addition to an inventory and survey of utilities across that same area, King said. Engineering design would also begin for “a few” blocks during that initial phase.

“Part of the reason for the inventorying was so we had an idea of the full corridor, so we kind of understand how everything is going to work together,” he said. “Any impacts of this design for these two blocks would impact this, etc. Same with the traffic study.”

With the utilities inventory and traffic study out of the way, the city would have a better idea of potential impacts to businesses, parking and other elements across the total project area, he said. In addition, the phased approach will give staff time to seek additional funding resources outside of city taxes, such as grants.

cburney@durangoherald.com