A Grand County district judge has sided with the town of Fraser in a thorny dispute over protection of historic open space inside the Grand Park development.
The fight between Grand Park owner Cornerstone Holdings and the town of Fraser dates back to agreements made in 2003 and 2005. The 2003 annexation agreement called for conservation easements on two parcels, Cozens Meadow and Elk Creek Meadow. A new developer of the property in 2005 amended that agreement with a mention of open space protection for the two meadows but not formal conservation easements.
Following four years of litigation that culminated in an 11-day trial in August 2024, Grand County District Judge Mary Hoak on Nov. 26 ruled that the 2003 agreement to place Cozens Meadow and Elk Creek Meadow into conservation easements “is a continuing and unfulfilled obligation by Cornerstone.”
“Overall, the court understood the facts and the law behind the dispute as Fraser did: a promise and agreement was made to preserve the natural beauty in Cozens Meadow and Elk Creek Meadow, and that promise is still owed to the town 22 years later,” reads a Dec. 2 statement from the town.
Clark Lipscomb, the head of Cornerstone Holdings who is developing Grand Park, said he was disappointed by the decision and his team was still studying the details of the 67-page ruling.
“I stand behind every development project we did and our company is the one that preserved this meadow area. We have been taking care of it since we acquired it,” said Lipscomb, who has raised his family in Grand Park since Cornerstone took over the development project in 2004. “It’s disappointing and disheartening.”
169 acres of open space in 292-acre Cozens Meadow
In 2003, the late Colorado developer Walter “Buz” Koelbel and his partners at Cornerstone Holdings reached an agreement with the town of Fraser to annex roughly 885 acres. That annexation agreement for the Rendezvous project set aside two parcels, Cozens Meadow and Elk Creek Meadow, for conservation easement protection as open space. The 2003 agreement updated plans that date back to the 1980s and ‘90s, when the property was called Maryvale, which placed golf courses and hotels on the meadows.
In 2004, Koelbel and Cornerstone Holdings split, with Rendezvous taking property on the east side of U.S. 40 and Cornerstone Holdings, led by Lipscomb, taking over development plans on the west side of the highway.
A 2005 amendment to the 2003 annexation agreement outlined the Cornerstone plan for Grand Park – more than 1,300 acres filled with 2,400 homes, 1,278 hotel rooms and more than 300,000 square feet of commercial space.
The 2005 amendment called for open space and development, including a portion of a golf course, in a 468-acre zone called 23W that included Cozens Meadow, Elk Creek Meadow and Leland Creek. The 293-acre Cozens Meadow part of 23W in the 2005 plan, which Cornerstone has used as a guide for its projects for two decades, called for 157 acres of open space.
Cornerstone, in the Grand County District Court trial last year, argued that it had agreed to remove several holes of golf from Cozens Meadow in exchange for the town lifting the requirement for conservation easements on the property. The town argued there was no deal to cancel conservation easements required in the 2003 annexation.
“The court finds the testimony of the town’s witnesses to be persuasive and credible that there was no agreement to remove the conservation easement requirement from Cozens Meadow, by any means, and that there was no agreement to remove the golf course in Cozens Meadow in exchange for removal of the conservation easement requirement in Cozens Meadow,” Hoak wrote in her ruling.
Since 2005, Lipscomb has built hundreds of homes, a community recreation center, a grocery and gas station, commercial space, a bowling alley and movie theater, and recently finished construction of a hospital. A few years ago he completed construction of a new underpass beneath the railroad tracks that border the Grand Park property, linking Fraser with Winter Park. He’s also built trails “and a huge amount of open space,” he said.
“We’ve developed what I think are extremely high-quality communities in this plan. And there’s been a lot of time, energy and effort spent on this plan trying to preserve every inch of the meadow areas that we possibly could, but still develop our density,” Lipscomb said of the development plan his company bought as part of the acquisition of the Rendezvous project.
Every project and building permit went through town review, with dozens of planning and commissioner meetings, all based on the 2005 amended annexation agreement and planning documents, Lipscomb said.
Lipscomb described the 2005 amendment as “a cleanup” of the 2003 annexation agreement, which he said “lacked clarity.” There was never an intention to place the entirety of the privately owned 23W planning area into a conservation easement, he said, and the 2005 amendment and planning documents showed development around the meadows with portions protected as open space.
“The whole purpose of the 2005 amendment and (planning documents) was to provide clarity to the 2003 plan,” he said.
Lipscomb said he has preserved 169 acres of open space out of 292 acres of land that the company owns in what it calls its Cozens Meadow area, which is more open space protection than was planned in the 2005 amendment.
“We need to be clear, it was Grand Park who has preserved these meadows,” Lipscomb said. “I think we have gone above and beyond.”
An “irrevocable agreement and obligation” for conservation easements
The dispute over that 2005 amendment and development plans led the town of Fraser to declare in 2021 that Cornerstone was in default of its obligation to preserve the meadows and stopped approving Grand Park construction permits. Lipscomb sued the town in August 2021 after the town blocked work on half-finished commercial buildings.
Hoak, the district judge, ruled that Cornerstone should be held to the 2003 agreement that both Elk Creek and Cozens meadows be protected in conservation easements. There is no formal measurement or boundary that defines Cozens Meadow, which has clouded conservation negotiations over the last 20 years.
“Cornerstone argued at trial that the absence of this specific language in the (2005) planning documents removed Cornerstone’s previous obligations to keep these two meadows free from development,” reads a statement from the town of Fraser detailing Hoak’s ruling.
Hoak noted that the 2003 annexation agreement said there was an “irrevocable agreement and obligation” to place Cozens Meadow in a conservation easement and that easement “was a fundamental part” of the town’s agreement to annex the property.
Lipscomb, who declined to say if Cornerstone would appeal the ruling, said “our goal is still to improve this community.”
“Over 20 years of building and I reflect upon all the things that we’ve done for the community and the fact that this developer lives in the community and raises kids here,” he said. “I love the community.”