An urban renewal project in Colorado Springs on the site of a former gold and silver mining operation has now received important city funding support.
Located just to the southeast of U.S. Route 24 and 21st Street, the project in the Gold Hill Mesa subdivision will see the building of new homes, restaurants, retail space, and even a hotel.
While more than 600 homes have already been built on the 200-acre site where the Golden Cycle Mill company ran its operations for more than half a century, plans currently call for the eventual construction of up to 1,200 homes.
The city support comes in the form of a recent vote taken by the Colorado Springs City Council officially designating around 106 acres of the site as a commercial urban renewal zone. By so doing, the council makes it possible for property owners at the site to be compensated for infrastructure improvements as well as environmental remediation work.
Council members also gave the green light to using an anticipated $13.5 million in future sales tax revenue for the development of the renewal zone.
The Golden Cycle Mill was one of the most successful gold ore mining operations of its kind in the country, keeping hundreds of workers employed during even the worst years of the Great Depression. The mill ceased operations in 1948.
Not until the late 1990s was a subdivision development of the site undertaken, with the first homes going up in 2006 and gradually emerging into what the publication Springs Magazine has called “an award-winning community at the crossroads between downtown Colorado Springs and its nearby mountains and trails.”
According to the Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority, work on the former mill site has seen the building of new housing, transit improvements, and infrastructure, all designed to create a “gateway to the City from the west.”
By Garry Boulard
