Some improvements and benefits to the popular and world-renowned Dinosaur Ridge and its visitors center could result from the development of part of the Alameda Parkway and C-470 interchange in Jefferson County.

The county’s planning commission held a four-hour long public hearing Wednesday night, Dec. 7, followed by a more than three-hour meeting the next night, before they voted 5-2 to recommend that a rezoning request for a 40.5-acre parcel be approved by the county commissioners on Jan. 17.

Property owners, including a family member of the Stevinson auto dealerships, asked the county to rezone the northwest parcel, also the site of the Dinosaur Ridge Visitors Center, to allow between two to four “boutique” dealerships, a 50-foot high hotel or motel and a gas station. The project would be known as the Rooney Ranch Business Center, after the nearby historic ranch. The parcel and land where the interchange is located was once part of the ranch.

Greg Stevinson, whose family established a string of auto dealerships in the Denver area, is a partner in the Three Dinos, LLC, ownership group and was involved in the Denver West and Colorado Mills projects. Three Dinos owns the land at all four corners of the interchange.

Stevinson said Three Dinos will donate up to $700,000 to the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge to help move the visitors center, provide about 3 acres on the south side of Alameda for a parking lot to be used by those who stop at the visitors center and help the group raise enough money to build a new center. In exchange, the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge agreed to take a neutral position on the development project.

Jefferson County Open Space Director Tom Hoby said the department tries to avoid acquiring sites suitable for commercial development, such as the Three Dinos parcel, “Because that’s not the highest and best use of our funds.”

“We think this site would be about a $9 million acquisition at $5 a square foot,” he added.

Instead, the open space program is working with the group to help find the best site for a new visitors center and protect the fossils and tracks on Dinosaur Ridge, Hoby said. Those talks are expected to begin in earnest after the rezoning process is finished.

The plan is to move the visitors center just west of its current site, Hoby said, “so its closer to the tracks. We’d help them build a trail to the tracks and up the ridge, with parking available on the south side of Alameda. We want to make sure we do this right.”

Dedicated bicycle lanes on Alameda Parkway leading up to Dinosaur Ridge, with shelters, would also be built, Stevinson said.

The current visitors center is on property leased from the open space program, but lacks adequate parking, has no water or sewer service and is too small. Hoby said the lease is due to expire in November 2018 but could be extended, renewed or switched to a month-to-month arrangement.

Stevinson said the Three Dinos funding agreement is contingent on obtaining the rezoning, with the money coming from some of the sales price of every vehicle sold at any of the dealerships.

“We think that once we can show there’s $700,000 in the bank, they can raise another $300,000 to $400,000 or however much they can, to help them build a new center,” Stevinson said. “That would help show they are a substantive group and for the first time in their 20 or so year history, they can get something done.”

Brian Connolly, an attorney for Three Dinos, called the project a “profound” opportunity to attract more people to visit Dinosaur Ridge, and having a hotel at the interchange would help keep those who attend concerts and events at nearby Red Rocks amphitheater in the area.

“In many ways, we think this is the best of both worlds without the worst of both worlds,” he added.

Organized opposition clear

The development proposal’s introduction last spring led an opposition group, Dinosaur Ridge Neighbors, to form. The group claimed to have gathered 21,000 online signatures on an opposing petition, 1,000 written signatures and more than 800 emails against the plan. More than 40 people spoke against the proposal on Dec. 7, claiming the proposal was incompatible with the county’s master plan and would have impacts on traffic, aesthetics, the environment and adjoining open space. Popular hiking and biking trails also go through the area, which is a major raptor migration route and offers habitat for deer, black bears, mountain lions and other wildlife. One possible species, the Preble’s Meadow Jumping Mouse, could trigger federal endangered species protection regulations if confirmed in the area.

Three Dinos plans to build two to four smaller, “boutique” dealerships, each between 6-8 acres in size, in the northern part of the parcel. Stevinson, who is not personally involved in his family’s auto dealerships, said no Stevinson dealerships will be at this site. He noted auto manufacturers are moving toward making more smaller, energy-efficient vehicles, which made the site attractive.

Connolly said a major part of the reason the site had not been developed to this point is the high cost of extending water and sewer infrastructure from the Soltera subdivision across C-470 to the site. The auto dealers have agreed to pay those costs, he added.

Stevinson said the original plan was to “industrialize” all four corners of the interchange, and the northwest parcel was considered for retail businesses. But Three Dinos backed off due to the high traffic counts, needed lighting and the belief that including a grocery store as a retail anchor would have “wiped out” the Town of Morrison’s sales tax base, he added.

“And morally, we couldn’t do that,” Stevinson said. “There would have been more than 1 million square feet of nothing but warehouses and industrial manufacturing. If this was Southern California, you could hide a lot of sins architecturally. But because of the importance of this area, we said we gotta find something else to put there.”

If Three Dinos had pursued industrial development of the property, Stevinson said financial help for Friends of Dinosaur Ridge would not have been possible, “and not to the same level if we’d gone retail.”

The other three parcels of land at the interchange are also owned by Three Dinos, with the southwest parcel already rezoned and a rezoning application for the southeast corner pending, Connolly said. An earlier plan for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership on that parcel was abandoned due to neighborhood concerns.

Lighting a major concern

Connolly noted the current zoning of the parcel allows for three times the amount of light trespass from the site as proposed by the rezoning, along with limits on time of operation, setbacks and screening.

While Three Dinos originally wanted lighting limits of 25 candle feet, they agreed to a 20-candle-foot limit that was also acceptable to the planning commission. The nearby Echo Park dealership was approved without any candle-foot lighting limit, Connolly said, only light trespass limitations.

Opponents were also concerned with glare, brightness and the effect on the night sky. Connolly said the plan is to turn off all lights – except for security needs – at night, expected to be around 10 p.m. He added the developers would limit those lights to 10 candle feet.

Commissioners voice concerns and support

Planning Commissioner Gardiner Hammond noted the close proximity of the dinosaur fossils and tracks and asked “this is a regional draw for many people, so is this use what we want to see out there?”

“This site is something pretty special to Jefferson County and we heard a lot of comment about that,” he said. “Let’s not screw this up. The applicant has done a great job of trying to mitigate the issues, and I know it would be a quality development. But I’m still uncomfortable with auto dealerships as the focus.”

Commissioner Jerry Burke agreed and noted people who live in Soltera or in Morrison have to drive between 3 to 6 miles for basic services.

“This area is identified as an activity center in our master plan and typically those areas help provide services for area residents,” he said. “I don’t see a lot of those people buying cars.”

Commissioner Curtis Westphal noted the county slogan of “Gateway to the Rockies” and said “as you come down C-470 and see the auto dealerships, you think somewhere in the back alley is the dinosaur park. I just think if there’s a procession of cars coming down C-470 going to the dinosaur monument, this will be dominating too much.”

Commission Chairman Tim Rogers said that if auto dealerships are not present, “something will be and it’ll likely be retail and there will still be cars parked there. I think we might want to be careful what we wish for.”

“My first thought was four dealerships, really?” he added. “But this is not the typical mindset of what a dealership is about.”

Commissioner Dawn Moore felt the county was “probably lucky to be dealing with the developer that we are.”

“I’m not sure we’ve ever had an applicant present as much community involvement,” Moore said. “We could be dealing with an out-of-state developer who doesn’t care, so we’re lucky to have a developer who wants regulations and wants to do the best he can to address community concerns.”

Hammond said he thought the county had done the best it could to mitigate community concerns. “I still don’t think auto dealers are the best possible use, but it is workable and a good developer who wants to do the best job we can see,” he added.

Burke noted other proposed development projects could see another 4,000 homes built in the area.

“So I think this plan fails to meet the goals of the master plan for this area, but if there’s only two dealers and more retail here, I could support it,” he said.

Commissioner Tom Hatton agreed with Burke in wanting to see development “that brings more of a benefit to the community. I live in Soltera and this will not give us a benefit.”

Rogers said there was a benefit: “To create the kind of infrastructure the neighbors have waited for and deserved for many years. I hope once the infrastructure is there, other projects come forward. At the end of the day, I think we’ll make the right decision for the community.”

“There’s always compromises in things like this and no matter what we do, no one ever leaves with everything they want,” said Commissioner Adam Schiche. “And maybe that’s the best result.”