Florida developer Bobby Ginn promised Minturn about $160 million in perks if voters annexed 5,000 acres where he planned a private ski resort with 1,700 homes. A final deal 15 years later could bury the ghost of Ginn with $150,000 and 250 acres in exchange for approval for up to 250 homes.
Minturn
Posted inCrime and Courts
10 Colorado communities support lawsuit to block Utah oil trains along Colorado River
Cities and counties the tracks run through want to support appeal of 2020 federal approval of Utah’s Uinta Basin Railway, which routes waxy crude oil trains through Colorado
Posted inWater
Drought, climate change push Eagle County to rebuild a scuttled dam, as growth brings water needs
A plan to revive Bolts Lake in Minturn could provide an additional 1,200 acre-feet of water storage
Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider
Minturn sues developer who was given land in exchange for water treatment plant, community center that were never built
The Town of Minturn is holding a long list of promises from developers made in exchange for voters annexing more than 5,000 acres into the town. A new water treatment plant. Water storage. Money for a bike trail, a community center and the acquisition of neighboring Forest Service land. It’s been 15 years since Florida […]
Posted inBusiness, Growth, Housing, News, Newsletters, Outsider
Minturn wrestles with the decade-old promises of a big-dream developer
MINTURN — It’s been more than a decade since Bobby Ginn’s grandiose dream for Minturn collapsed, but the community is still dealing with the fallout. The former railroad town’s council on Wednesday will weigh a proposal to reduce the millions of dollars in perks the bankrupt Florida developer promised Minturn in 2008. A showdown is […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, Growth, Housing, News, Water
Aurora and Colorado Springs want more water. The proposed solution — a new reservoir — would have far-reaching impacts.
By Michael Elizabeth Sakas, CPR News While most people in Colorado live on the Front Range, most of the state’s water is on the Western Slope. That’s where the snowpack melts and makes its way into the Colorado River. Much of that water flows to places like Denver through a series of dams, reservoirs, pumps […]
Posted inBusiness, Economy, Environment, Transportation
New plans for rail traffic over Colorado’s Tennessee Pass spark protest from grain-hauling competitor
The Rio Grande Pacific Corp., based in Fort Worth, Texas, has the lease to run trains on the long-dormant lines between Cañon City and Dotsero. But it will be many years before passenger cars and tankers filled with the freight-mover’s crude oil traverse Tennessee Pass — and not just because costs to fix the line […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Culture, Outdoors
Eager to experience Colorado in a different way, a Boulder woman set life aside to forge a new trail across the state
There was a terrifying, wind-whipped storm on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. There was a run-in with a bear near Minturn. There have been blisters, and many reroutes. But none of it has stopped India Wood from pressing on toward her goal of traversing Colorado from corner to corner, a more than 750-mile journey that has tested […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Growth, News, Transportation
Trains could return to Colorado’s Tennessee Pass, rumble through Leadville under pair of proposals
It’s been 23 years since trains rumbled through the tunnel atop Tennessee Pass. That could change as interest in the dormant Tennessee Pass Line between Cañon City and Dotsero grows. A fledgling railway project in Utah’s Uinta Basin and a billionaire New York City developer with thousands of acres of wheat and an existing rail […]
Posted inColoradans, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider
In the zen zone high above Minturn, slackliners traverse the state’s longest highline
MINTURN — Ben Donnelly basks in his creation, admiring a web of slings, carabiners and ropes strung between a trio of trees atop a towering cliff above this former mining and railroad town. “This is my art,” he says. “It’s meticulous and beautiful and elegant. It’s a masterpiece.” Far away, his friend Mauro Poletti’s arms […]