City planner Michelle Anthony was volunteering at the Manitou Springs Heritage Center’s front desk one weekend about 12 years ago, shortly after the museum opened.
As she looked out the front window onto Manitou Avenue, she got curious about all the cars pouring into town.
“I was amazed,” she said, “at the amount of traffic I was seeing, and I kept wondering ‘Is there an event or something going on?’
“Then it occurred to me. No, there’s nothing special happening today. Manitou is the event.”
It’s safe to say that Anthony, who recently retired after 35 years in the Planning Department, has witnessed more changes in the city than most people. Chief among the differences, she said, is Manitou’s transformation from a seasonal, summertime economy into one that stays in high gear nearly year-round.
“When I first started with the city (1987), our economic season, if you can call it that, was really very limited,” she said. “It was three months. Period. In other times it was like they rolled up the sidewalks.
“But through the years, the economy began changing due to economic development programs, the Downtown Streetscape Revitalization Program and the undergrounding of utilities. We started to see those ‘shoulder seasons’ extending.
“Now we have maybe three down months, depending on the weather, and people are coming here every weekend during the year.”
However, Anthony realizes the changes have come with costs. The added traffic and demand for parking, for instance, have generated a real space crunch.
“There are residents who haven’t liked all the activity, but the fact is we live and die by those people coming over and spending money, and being able to have healthy businesses. It’s a great benefit for the community in a lot of ways, and it’s real gratifying to have been part of that,” she said.
Before coming to Manitou, Anthony worked at a Colorado Springs insurance company, handling underwriting and claims responsibilities. When she heard Manitou was looking for a secretary in its planning department, she applied and got the job.
“I started at ground zero,” she said. “I didn’t know what a lot line was and didn’t know what a subdivision was.”
But under the direction of then-planning director Deborah LaFountaine, Anthony embarked on an intense learning curve.
“It was like going to planning school with her,” Anthony said. “She explained planning theory, we discussed what all the terms meant, and I learned a lot. I also realized I had an aptitude for this kind of work and I really enjoyed it.”
After a year, Anthony was promoted to planning technician and soon began functioning as a regular planner, a title she secured when she earned her certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners.
When she retired last week, she had risen to the rank of senior planner and was also serving as the interim planning director while the city looks for a new director. She said that, through the years, council members have approached her about taking the director’s position.
“But I am better as a second-in-command or a lieutenant than a general,” she said, pointing out that during her time with the department she had worked for about a dozen directors or interim directors.
“I’ve never really wanted to be on top of the heap. I’ve always just wanted to do the work and support the people around me.”
Among her most memorable efforts were initiatives to help save two of the city’s unique buildings, The Cliff House and the Spa Building, by acquiring millions of dollars in grants that enabled Murphy Constructors to renovate the buildings.
When Anthony started with the city, the Cliff House was a vacant “burned-out shell” with extensive water damage caused by a 1982 fire. It finally got renovated 16 years later. But a State Historic Fund grant, one of the biggest of its kind up to that point, made the building’s rehabilitation possible.
When the Spa Building fell into disrepair after a flood in 1999, there was discussion of demolishing the building and possibly turning it into a parking lot. However, with the help of Colorado Preservation Inc. and its Most Endangered Places program, the building was eventually saved.
“I think everyone can look back and say we made the right decisions,” Anthony said. “Being able to have helped is gratifying.”
She was involved in creating Plan Manitou, in which the city applied for funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Developments’ Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery after the 2013 floods.
She was also instrumental in creating the Residential Parking Program and the Transportation and Parking Board.
In a memo to City Council, city administrator Denise Howell wrote, “It’s fair to say that Michelle has had an involved and front-row seat to some of Manitou Springs’ most interesting eras and events.”
Anthony hopes that the city will continue undergrounding utilities lines in all areas of town as both an investment in safety as well as enhancing the city’s beauty.
“And we really need to take a long hard look at the housing situation,” she said. “We need to have decent housing choices for first-time purchases and rentals so we can keep a diversity of housing. I’m concerned that we’re losing the young family population, as exhibited in the current census.
“If we continue to lose kids out of the school district and continue to be a place where only people with a pretty significant income can live, we’re less of a community.”
Anthony, a Heritage Center board member and one of the organization’s founders, plans to keep volunteering her services at the center.
“I’m not disappearing,” she said, “and I’m not going to just be sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. I’m starting an online collectibles and antique business with friends, and I’m planning on doing some consulting. And I plan to spend more time with family.
“But I’ll miss sitting down with people, working with them and helping through the processes, the back and forth of development.
“And I’ll miss my co-workers.”