{"id":2450459,"date":"2019-10-28T22:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T04:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-public-shows-little-interest-in-mountain-to-town-connection-plan\/"},"modified":"2019-10-29T09:02:51","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T15:02:51","slug":"aspen-public-shows-little-interest-in-mountain-to-town-connection-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-public-shows-little-interest-in-mountain-to-town-connection-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen public shows little interest in mountain-to-town connection plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Snow covers Galena Plaza in Aspen on Saturday, October 26, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

As city officials redesign a key downtown Aspen park area at the request of a group of <\/a>residents who think a new government building blocks the river from the mountain, the public has shown little interest thus far in the process.<\/p>\n

Fewer than two dozen people attended three community outreach meetings last week on what the future of Galena Plaza should be, and many of the attendees were government representatives.<\/p>\n

Those meetings are just the beginning of a nearly $10,000 public outreach effort that Aspen City Council approved this past spring to better connect Rio Grande Place and the downtown core.<\/p>\n

Council agreed last month to a $201,000<\/a> change order to the roughly $50 million City Hall project so that the plaza is designed with more thought than what was done previously.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Wanatowicz, whose public relations firm, PR Studio, is contracted with the city to conduct the outreach, said her team will be in the plaza when the weather allows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout the month of November we will have several pop-up (events) and grab people (in the plaza),\u201d she said. \u201cYou might see us out there grilling hot dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The open space is mostly used now as a pass-through for those walking to and from town from the north end neighborhoods like Hunter Creek and the popular Rio Grande Park.<\/p>\n

Government buildings, including the library, the jail, the courthouse, county administrative offices and the police department, surround the plaza.<\/p>\n

How it functions and what goes on the open space is partly based on council\u2019s decision this fall to have the new office building be City Hall where public meetings occur and legislative support staff are based, said Mike Tunte, landscape architect and construction manager for the city\u2019s park\u2019s department.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t overstate that this is going to be the government seat of the city,\u201d he said, adding that will change the dynamic of the plaza.<\/p>\n

His team, along with landscape architecture firm Design Workshop, will take public feedback and build conceptual designs around it. The plans will be unveiled Dec. 4 at an open house.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving three concepts is a powerful way to have the public weigh in, and I know it\u2019s hard to get people excited but it\u2019s incredibly important that people share their thoughts,\u201d Tunte said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping that this process gets us to a design that\u2019s inspirational.\u201d<\/p>\n

He, along with Wanatowicz and Tracy Trulove, the city\u2019s communications director, recognized that getting people to care during the planning process is a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing to put a plan in place and use all the tools and they don\u2019t show up,\u201d Trulove said, adding that the city asks a lot of its residents to weigh in on a number of initiatives at the same time. \u201cIt\u2019s either people think it\u2019s too many things coming at them or they don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trulove, who started in the newly created position this past summer, said she is working internally to see what kind of public outreach is most effective in a city where people tend to show up at the last minute, right before something is about to be approved after months or years of public process.<\/p>\n

Wanatowicz said she placed four newspaper ads in advance of last week\u2019s community outreach meetings, as well as a Facebook Live with Trulove and reached out to people through the city\u2019s website, www.aspencommunityvoice.com<\/a>, where about two dozen people have weighed in on Galena Plaza.<\/p>\n

She added that while there was not a lot of people at the meetings, there were some good suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we didn\u2019t have a lot of quantity, we did have a lot of quality,\u201d she said. \u201cIn December, when we have something to react to, we\u2019ll have more participation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when people are expected to choose a conceptual plan, which may include an amphitheater, outdoor seating, vending carts and what the stairway from the plaza to Rio Grande Park would look like.<\/p>\n

A preferred plan will be selected in January and by the spring, it will be solidified.<\/p>\n

Tunte said the current site plan is years old and doesn\u2019t reflect what the space is currently used for, or in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the attention was going to the city offices and not a lot of attention was paid to Galena Plaza,\u201d he said, noting that 38% more open space is being added. \u201cGiven some of the changes that have occurred, that plan was not great. \u2026 Here\u2019s a chance to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snow covers Galena Plaza in Aspen on Saturday, October 26, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times As city officials redesign a key downtown Aspen park area at the request of a group of residents who think a new government building blocks the river from the mountain, the public has shown little interest thus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 11:25:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2450471,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450459\/revisions\/2450471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}