The Manitou Springs City Council voted this week to approve the master plan for Higginbotham Flats/Overlook Park, but ongoing concerns about the 2025 budget leave the park’s future unclear.
A presentation from Robyn Bartling and Mia Requesens of the architecture firm Hord Copland Macht presented the plan for the undeveloped parcels next to StorQuest Self Storage on Higginbotham Road. The park will feature an ethnobotanical garden, which will provide native plant species that grow in the space and have low maintenance and water requirements, art installations, and connectivity to other local trails.
“The medicine sage, sweetgrass, wild tobacco and red willow if possible are all non-toxic plants that have used for peace offerings and ceremonies for thousands of years,” local artist Manuel Pulido was quoted in the presentation. “The idea is to have these plants available for ceremonies in a beautiful park setting around the sculpture.”
In addition to the garden and trails, the park will feature Pulido’s Stone Cairn art installation, 13 parking spaces, bike racks, a composting toilet, a viewing platform and shade structures.
The cost for the construction documents based on the master plan will be $75,000. “I think it’s a lovely design, but I do have a lot of concerns,” said Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Fortuin. “I’m very concerned about it going forward any further in the near future … I don’t know what the rough order of magnitude is to construct this, but I expect it to be quite large, in the million plus dollar range, to accomplish this, if we were to go forward to it. I think that with all the projects that we currently have ongoing it’s unrealistic to expect this to happen anytime soon. That being said, before we approve it, I would rather the funds of $75,000 to do the construction drawings be used to fund Soda Springs Park phase two, and potentially phase three, which we’ve taken, I believe $900,000, out of the general fund to support phase two, and at this point I think council is concerned about our budget and I think that would be a more appropriate use of the funds at this point in time.”
Last month Manitou Springs City Council discussed a possible budget shortfall as a result of the recently approved retail marijuana ballot measure in Colorado Springs. City Administrator Denise Howell told department heads, “not to spend anything except for those that we have grants.” Council plans to reassess the budget in March of 2025 based on revenue.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Howell noted that $80,000 had already been allotted in the existing budget for the Higginbotham Flats construction project.
Fortuin also raised concerns about the strain an additional park would place on city maintenance personnel. “I wonder where the tipping point is, as we continue to build assets within the city,” she said. “Where’s the tipping point where we can maintain these things? This appears to be not that much maintenance it will still require a lot initially, even if you plant all these trees and flowers. Initially it will require a lot of water to get them started, so I think that, as I’ve raised before, I think that talking with both OSAC [Open Space Advisory Committee] staff and PARAB [Parks and Recreation Advisory Board] as to what we can truly accommodate in terms of maintenance in the future – I would rather that happen and that we get some sort of a recommendation back on that before we move forward with any other large project in this regard.”
Councilor Julie Wolfe raised safety concerns. “I do have concerns that it’s going to be a really convenient drug dealing location,” she said. “You stop, you use the bathroom, you pull over there, it could be a convenient place for bad things to happen. We may need to end up looking at more police patrol up there and lighting or what have you.”
Mayor John Graham was the sole dissenting vote on approval of the master plan, citing the cost of existing projects and the need to use the Higginbotham Flats area for emergency staging in the event of fire or flooding. “It seems to me the timing would be to wait until we get some of these construction projects done and then develop the park,” he said.
The Council also voted to delay the purchase of the construction document until April, after the first quarter review of the city budget.
