Chaffee County kicked-off construction plans for its new North-End Public Safety Complex with a groundbreaking celebration on Friday, April 21st.
Honorary guest U.S. Senator Michael Bennet addressed the ceremony’s dozens of participants, joining the Chaffee County Commissioners, local county leadership, and many of the partner organizations also involved in the initiative, including Town of Buena Vista and Chaffee County Fire Protection District. Representatives from the offices of U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper and U.S. Representative Brittany Pettersen were also in attendance to share support for the project.
The $10 million dollar North-End Public Safety Complex will be a two-story 16,000 square-foot facility supporting emergency management and response operations for Chaffee County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and serving as an annex for Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office. In addition to dedicated spaces for EMS and Sheriff, it includes a large flexible-use conference room with capacity for up to 100 people that will be utilized for Board of County Commissioners meetings, county trainings, and public convenings. This flex-space will also serve as an auxiliary Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for the County’s Office of Emergency Management. The building design includes a roof-top solar array to provide the majority of power needs for the facility through renewable energy.
Located a mile south of Buena Vista just off of Highway 24 adjacent to the Central Colorado Regional Airport, this joint-use public safety campus has been a developing concept for almost 15 years. The multi-agency facility concept initially originated in 2008 through recognition of the growing need to meet increasing demands for emergency services in the northern half of Chaffee County, and began to solidify in 2017 when Chaffee County Government purchased the 2-acre parcel as its future permanent home. The project architect Wold Architects and Engineers and numerous consultants have worked with the County throughout 2021-2022 to complete the designs for the campus. Diesslin Structures, Inc. is serving as the project’s Construction Manager/General Contractor, with Crabtree Group Inc. Civil Engineers, Mountain Aspect Landscape Architecture LLC, and JVA Consulting Structural Engineers also contributing technical expertise. Construction will commence over the coming month and is expected to be completed by summer 2024.
The County secured funding for the project through a combination of local, state, and federal sources, including $1 million from the county’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation, $1.6 from its federal Department of the Treasury Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund allotment, a $750,000 Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) grant, and a pending $1 million Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) EOC grant, which was pursued through a Congressionally Directed Spending recommendation championed by Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper. The County is covering the balance of the construction costs through Certificates of Participation bonds and its capital reserves.
“We are looking forward to beginning construction on this long-awaited milestone project and express our gratitude for the incredible community support that has allowed this project to finally become a reality,” said Keith Baker, Board of County Commissioners Chair, in his welcome at the event.
Josh Hadley, who has served as Chaffee County EMS Director for the last 8 of the 24 years he has worked for the agency, echoed the collective excitement and gratitude for the initiative during his comments at the ceremony, sharing, “We believe this new facility will substantially enhance our County’s ability to serve our 20,000+ residents and hundreds of thousands of annual visitors for decades to come.” Hadley concluded by thanking the many supporters over the years for making this significant investment for EMS, Sheriff, and OEM, but more importantly for committing to this important investment for the whole Chaffee County community.
