A recent rendering of the plan for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife building to be located on the Durango Fish Hatchery Campus (Image courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
A recent rendering of the plan for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife building to be located on the Durango Fish Hatchery Campus (Image courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

After more than a year of delays, construction on Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s long-planned Southwest Regional Office in Durango is expected to begin in August.

The two-story, 9,600-square-foot building will be located along the Animas River at the site of the Durango Fish Hatchery and Durango Wildlife Museum and will provide a permanent home for regional staff members.

The original hatchery building that now houses the wildlife museum will remain intact, while the building next door that was designed as the hatchery manager’s home is slated for demolition.

The new building had been initially scheduled to open in summer 2026.

The yearlong delay was a combination of multiple factors largely attributed to the location’s historical status and environmental sensitivity, said CPW spokesman John Livingston in an email to The Durango Herald.

The project required National Environmental Policy Act, Environmental Assessment and Historical Impact Assessments to be green-lit, and those are completed under the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service.

Goings on at the federal level trickled down, creating longer-than-anticipated approval schedules and city planning and zoning permits. Various approvals from other local and state agencies also took longer than expected, Livingston said.

The total cost of the project will total nearly $11 million with 60% of costs being funded through a grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The office is meant to serve as headquarters with adequate office space to fit over 40 agency staff members in the Durango area, as well as provide a single location for all regular CPW operations.

The Southwest Region is the only one of four CPW regional headquarters without a joint office with an area wildlife office, Livingston said.

In addition to consolidating all the staff members under one roof, it will eliminate community confusion about which office to visit in order to receive customer service or discuss important topics with managers, he said.

There are also plans to modernize the wildlife museum and host public meetings and educational opportunities that previously did not have space to accommodate.

Construction will start once CPW receives final approvals regarding flood plain and stormwater design and signatures on the CDOT access permit.

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