Home

At Home, Spring 2007

• Artists at Work
• Crossing Borders
• All in a day's work
• Capture nature's beauty in photos
• Take a trip off the beaten path
• More in At Home

It's hard to smell the roses if you can't find the garden.

Tracy Barnett, program manager for Main Street Steamboat Springs, won statewide recognition in March for her work promoting and bringing vitality to downtown Steamboat. Said Vince Martinez of the Colorado Community Revitalization Association, the state's oversight body for cities that participate in National Trust Main Street Center programs: Steamboat "truly has the feel of a real community - you feel that local flavor right away."

But for tourists and newcomers to Routt County, that local flavor can be elusive. In January, Barnett told the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission that she frequently sees visitors turn around at First National Bank on U.S. Highway 40 because they think they "missed" downtown. In actuality, they just needed to drive another mile or so west.

"We could really use more signs on the highway," Barnett said.

Improving the "entryway" corridors that bring visitors along U.S. 40 into Steamboat is the task of a team of staff from Denver-based consultants Clarion Associates and Civitas, hired by the city to give travelers a nicer experience on their way into and out of Old Town. The consultants hope to make final recommendations early this summer.

Although the consultants' scope is focused on the U.S. 40 corridor west and south of town, one natural result likely will be an increased awareness of downtown Steamboat.

"Downtown is invisible until you get to it," said Richard Farley of Civitas. "I think there is a real opportunity for Highway 40 to be something really special for Steamboat Springs."

Farley noted that travelers driving over Rabbit Ears Pass and entering Steamboat from the south don't see downtown until rounding a sharp downhill curve near the Old Town Hot Springs at Third Street and Lincoln Avenue. Travelers entering Steamboat from the west, Farley added, approach Steamboat from a higher elevation than downtown and also are unable to see it until they're in it.

"This is really a chance to talk about big-picture issues," said Darcie White, a senior planner with Clarion Associates. "We're really looking at the character of that (U.S. Highway 40) corridor."

Old Town Steamboat is on the verge of a booming construction period that will not only change the face and skyline of downtown, but also is extending growth outside of downtown and into the city's entry corridors. While the city has previously hired consultants to recommend building design standards for downtown and the base of the Steamboat Ski Area, the consultants hope to enhance the areas that lead to those locations.

White said the consultants' proposals will affect new developments on U.S. 40 by stressing an increase in landscaping, sidewalks, bike paths and a focus on enhancing the area's "naturalistic" feel.

And Barnett might just get her signs.

Clarion managing director Christopher Duerksen said Steamboat's city sign code, which regulates the size, location and materials of signage for new developments, could use some changes.

"Your sign code has a very archaic approach," Duerksen told city planners. "It basically says the more frontage you have on the highway, the bigger your sign can be. That's an approach you don't see much anymore - and certainly not in progressive mountain towns that value their image."

Appropriate signs on U.S. 40 - ones that would point the way to downtown and the ski area while highlighting landscaped, natural-feeling, pedestrian-friendly growth on the corridors into and out of downtown - is the image Clarion and Civitas hope to create.

And it's an image Martinez said Steamboat city planners should work hard to protect.

"The opportunity to mix this new development with the current, community feel is unique to Steamboat," he said. "But it will be a challenge."