Scott Harrison
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — Crews are several months into a two-year, $10 million project to rebuild streets and improve drainage in Colorado Centre, a community of around 1,100 homes southeast of the Colorado Springs Airport.
The community has existed since 1984 and has had constant street and flooding issues — although county officials and neighbors disagree on when those issues began.
Federal pandemic recovery money is financing the project to repave streets and install new, better drainage infrastructure; some neighbors and even some construction workers told KRDO 13’s The Road Warrior that the project replaces poor infrastructure by the community’s original developer.
“We’re going to touch pretty much every road and repave almost every road,” said Joshua Palmer, the county’s lead engineer. “We have a lot of options as we progress in the construction contract. So, if we’re seeing savings, we can keep adding on to some of the roads that we’re doing.”
It means that the project could repave more than the dozen streets listed in the plan.
The work has been quite an adjustment for many neighbors who have torn-up pavement and heavy equipment just outside their front doors, and even a mound of dirt in a cul-de-sac that looks like a small mountain.
Nikki Maestas, who lives behind that mound, said that kids regularly climb the mound to play, against the wishes of construction workers, and that she won’t allow her kids to play there out of safety concerns.
“Everyone in our cul-de-sac doesn’t like it,” she said. “We’ve asked them how much longer, and they said another couple of weeks. We’re hoping it’s gone soon because it’s hard to get in and out.”
Streets are remaining open in most instances to minimize disruption to neighborhood traffic, but some intersections and other segments where new drainage pipes are being installed will be temporarily closed.
Megan Sauerwein inspected the work in front of her house as she walked her daughter, Kinzie, home from school.
“We knew that the streets were bad when we moved here less than a year ago,” she said. “But we didn’t expect this much construction. As much of an inconvenience it is, it’s something that we are glad they are taking time to take on.”
Kinzie said that she’s glad she lives in a large house because it gives her a place to hide from the construction noise.
One construction worker told The Road Warrior that on some streets, crews are removing several feet of the old, unstable base and installing a mesh material in the new base before repaving occurs.
Another new resident, Michael Washington, said he had heard about the poor condition of streets in Colorado Centre.
“They’ve done a lot of improvement,” he observed. “Do I like it? Yeah, by all means.”
County officials expect the work to be finished sometime next year — and not a moment too soon, as more homes are about to be built in the area.
A neighbor who identified himself as a strong critic of the infrastructure issues and of what he described as the county’s slow response, approached The Road Warrior during live reports Monday morning.
“I’m not upset any more,” he revealed. “This contractor is doing what he said he would do. He knows what he’s doing.”
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Credit: Swan Valley Fire Chief Travis Crystal
Credit: Swan Valley Fire Chief Travis Crystal
