Eagle County moves forward on new mixed-use government building in Edwards
The development will be split between affordable housing units and office space
Courtesy photo
The first designs of a new government building in Edwards were presented to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners last week. The board was shown three options for the new development and has chosen to proceed with the design that includes equal parts of affordable housing and office space.
The preferred site plan includes 24 one-bedroom apartments, 14,400 square feet of office space, and 96 parking spaces. The total estimated cost of the development is just over $32 million.
Eagle County owns the 1.35-acre plot of land located just north of the Edwards Field House and has been looking for opportunities to expand its presence in the upper valley. Jeff Schroll, the county manager, said that the organization is growing beyond the limits of its current location in Avon, and is seeking to sell that space in favor of establishing a more permanent home.
The primary departments that will be occupying the new office space are the clerk and recorder department — which handles elections and motor vehicle services — and the public health and human services department.
Courtesy photo
Creating a permanent storage and operations space for local election processes is a priority for the new building. Regina O’Brien, Eagle County’s clerk and recorder spoke about the increasing state and federal guidelines for electoral procedures, and how having a designated space will be a dramatic improvement over the county’s current use of hallways and other miscellaneous available spaces.
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“The election landscape has really dramatically changed in the last two to four years, specifically our legal requirements, our security requirements, our technology requirements … so having a well planned and designed election area has always been something we’ve been working towards and there is potential in this building that we can create such a space,” O’Brien said.
The public health and affordable housing usage of the building also provides a good opportunity to use pandemic recovery funds from the American Rescue Plan.
The affordable housing units will be designated for government employees, and may also be available to qualified members of the local workforce. The idea for a child care center was raised in the working session, but Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney said that while she’s not against the idea, the real need is affordable housing for the child care providers.
In order to expedite the development process, the commissioners are opting to pursue a Location and Extent land-use process, which allows the county to entitle the land for housing by receiving approval from the planning and zoning staff, instead of going through a months-long public hearing process for a planned unit development. This is the same process that the county recently used for the collaborative housing development with Colorado Mountain College and employee housing at Battle Mountain High School.
“I think those are very high priority projects, not just for those entities but the valley public as a whole, and I think this project fits into a similar category,” said Community Development Director Bill Gibson. “We’re talking about public uses here, we’re also talking about workforce affordable housing options that don’t otherwise exist.”
The current schematic design is a starting point, and is not completed. The architect, Luis Menendez, will be tweaking the designs with feedback from the commissioners and will present a finalized concept in the upcoming months.
