Construction of a new Love’s RV Park slated to begin this year likely will be pushed into 2023 after some late-coming input from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Local officials, however, are doing everything within their power to continue to push the project to the finish line.
The nearly 52-acre lot located at the eastern entrance to Cañon City is slated to include an RV park, hotel and travel plaza. There are several phases that must gain approval from the city, and the city requests input during each phase from various agencies, including water, sewer, utilities, fire and CDOT.
CDOT was late to give input, according to local officials.
“They have been invited to provide comments on numerous occasions, four different occasions, and there is a time limit the city gives to provide those comments,” said Rob Brown, the executive director of Fremont Economic Development Corp., who also is the project representative. “If you don’t provide comments, it is an indication as your agency that you don’t have comments or that the project meets your needs.”
The city had all of the permits ready to go when CDOT came in with their comments.
“The comments that they had aren’t particularly challenging in the grand scheme of things, had they been done in context with the rest of the development,” Brown said. “But when they are very near the permit stage, then it becomes a bigger challenge.”
Because the comments are in ongoing negation, Brown isn’t able to discuss the specifics at this time, but he said they mainly are things related to traffic flow.
Everyone, myself included and FEDC, is working really hard to come up with a solution to resolve these issues.”
He said the city, Love’s and CDOT will go through a process to discuss these requests.
“It’s not an issue to cause the project to stop or to not go forward,” Brown said. “What it is is an issue that will cause the project to slow down and could potentially push the project well into 2023 as opposed to something that could be starting right away.”
This affects local vendors and contractors, and from the city’s perspective, the sooner the project gets completed, the sooner the advantages associated with having a major retailer in the area will start to happen, including collecting sales tax and attracting tourists.
“Everyone, myself included and FEDC, is working really hard to come up with a solution to resolve these issues,” Brown said. “Everybody, especially Love’s, wants this to be a positive, safe project.”
