After years of costly delays, a new plan for Cheyenne Mountain park

Sometime this fall, the campgrounds at Cheyenne Mountain State Park are slated to open, years behind schedule, over budget, and just in time for the end of the camping season.

The campgrounds are part of a pattern of delays, cost overruns and mismanagement marring the $41 million state park that was supposed to be the model of self-sufficiency.

Instead, park officials now say, Cheyenne Mountain offers instruction in how not to manage state parks. The park, five years behind schedule and $16 million over budget, has consumed money and time that could have been spent on other projects and has sullied the reputation of the agency and kept the public from enjoying the eagerly awaited mountain park.

"It's a lesson learned," said state parks director Dean Winstanley, who took over management of the state's 42 parks almost a year ago. "It teaches us that we need to get back to our mission as a park system, which is providing recreation opportunities through stewardship. We got away from that. I think Cheyenne Mountain will live long in our institutional memory."

The park's visitor center and trails are open, but other promised amenities, including picnic and camping areas, are still under construction. They are scheduled to open in November, but recent damage caused by a water leak may postpone the opening. Delays have drastically cut the number of visitors, and the money they bring in. Planners predicted 600,000 people a year. In its first full year of operation, the park saw 52,000.

At the start, the park was welcomed as an outdoor playground for growing El Paso County. When the 1,680 acres southwest of Colorado Springs were purchased by the state and city of Colorado Springs in 2000, locals and park officials lauded the preservation of what they called a "spectacular" mountainscape, which connects the city to Pike National Forest. Initial plans called for a spartan visitor center, picnic grounds, campsites and trails. The estimated price tag was $8.6 million.

But the list of amenities multiplied under the direction of then-state parks Director Lyle Laverty to include 22 luxury cabins the park planned to rent for up to $160 per night, an amphitheater, a swimming pool, hot tubs and a 10,000-square-foot event center for high-end weddings.

Construction of the first trails and roads began in 2002. But plans continually evolved, becoming so lavish that by 2006 state parks employees were referring to Cheyenne Mountain State Park as "The Taj Mahal."

The vision of such an elaborate park developed during lean budget years in 2003 and 2004, when the parks system was getting less funding from the state government. The idea, Laverty said at the time, was to use proceeds from Cheyenne Mountain's attractions to pay for the park and cover costs of money-losing parks in more remote areas. He said he hoped Cheyenne's "first-class state park experience" would be the model for a string of similar money-making parks.

But Cheyenne Mountain hasn't made a dollar.



RUNAWAY COSTS

As development visions became more lavish, four plans were drawn up in five years. A state audit released in July found the almost annual changing of plans cost a total of $449,000.

Originally slated to open in mid-2003, the date was pushed back at least four times as construction delays and costs piled up. During that time, Laverty spared no expense. Helicopters were used to drop gravel on trails in parts of the park - a costly technique not used on any other trails in the region. The audit found that under his direction state parks paid $285,000 for the design of Cheyenne Mountain's visitor center. Designs for visitor centers at other parks had cost about $25,000.

As plans changed and costs soared, the audit said the State Parks Board was not kept informed.

By the time park managers held a grand opening in October 2006, the park was $12 million over initial budget estimates and far from being finished. It closed the day after the ribbon cutting so construction could continue.

The gates didn't open full time for almost a year. At that time, only the visitor center and trails were complete.

The cabins and event center were still in the planning stages.

Ongoing construction of roads and utilities for the buildings kept the practically completed campgrounds from opening. The audit notes that Cheyenne Mountain not having campsites open between October 2006 and June 2008 cost the park about $265,000.

Officials who were running the park and the system at the time will not talk about what caused the delays and runaway costs. Park manager Rich Dudley, who has overseen the park since its inception, didn't answer repeated phone calls and refused, through a spokeswoman, to discuss the park's history. Former director Laverty, who oversaw the project and now works for the U.S. Department of Interior, could not be reached for comment.

Eventually, other state agencies began to ask questions. Colorado State Parks repeatedly went to its main source of money for capital projects, Great Outdoors Colorado, asking for more. The state agency, which funds parks and trails using lottery money, gave Cheyenne Mountain more than $25 million from 2000 to 2007.

By January 2007, Cheyenne Mountain's plan called for at least another $20 million. Great Outdoors said enough.

"Our board felt they had gone too far," said GOCO spokeswoman Chris Leding. "I mean, does a high-end events center really serve the public?"

In February 2007, the agency began withholding money, even dollars that had already been promised.

Great Outdoors also publicly rebuked state parks for wasteful spending and shoddy accounting, demanded an audit, and said it would no longer fund big-ticket capital improvements.



A NEW STRATEGY

Late in 2007, Gov. Bill Ritter replaced Laverty, who had been appointed by former Gov. Bill Owens, with Winstanley, a long-time state parks employee who has stressed fiscal reform.

He has begun to implement financial checks and balances recommended by the state audit.

"One of the things I'm bringing in is looking really closely at every dollar we invest," said Winstanley. "I wasn't around when the (Cheyenne Mountain) master plan was approved, but it is a lot of money and in my estimation, given the needs of this system, it's not going to happen."

Winstanley said he has no plans to continue crafting Laverty's vision of a "first-class" event center and cabins. Though a few modest cabins are possible, he said, "there will never be a park plan like that again."

The change in plans at Cheyenne Mountain State Park will save an estimated $14 million, but come at a cost. The park has already spent $822,000 on infrastructure for the buildings.

Winstanley said that taking the loss is worthwhile because unrealistic business plans for Cheyenne Mountain never factored in the cost of maintenance and depended on money from Great Outdoors.

"The numbers they used to make Cheyenne Mountain's plan didn't make sense," Winstanley said. "Looking at it realistically, we would have never broken even on that event center."

On top of that, he said, the high-rent amenities aren't what most park users want. Studies showed spending $10 million on cabins would eat up 25 percent of the capital budget, but surveys showed only 3 percent of state park users expressed interest in renting them.

He said the state parks system will never be self-sufficient, but it still has to concentrate on keeping costs in check and generating revenue. The best way to do that, he said, is to steer away from high-end development and concentrate on proven moneymakers such as campgrounds and boating.

"We need to get back to our mission," he said. "The reason we're in existence is to maintain these incredible places in our state and help people enjoy them. I hope we can do that at Cheyenne Mountain."

Through the tumult, he said, the primary attraction of the park - the land - has gone largely unchanged.

"I think when we get Cheyenne fully open, people are really going to realize what an incredible park they have."

Contact the writer: 636-0223 or dave.philipps@gazette.com