Shoppers who plan to breeze to Colorado Mills aboard the light rail will be disappointed once the west corridor transit line opens in 2013.
RTD and local officials aren’t planning to stop the new rail line anywhere near the mall. The closest stop will be at Red Rocks Community College, on the south side of U.S. 6.
The news comes just weeks after RTD riders on the new southeast light-rail line experienced a similar disappointment at Park Meadows mall.
Park Meadows’ previous owners had balked at building a pedestrian connection to the rail stop. Following complaints about the lack of access, the current owners changed course and agreed to allow a bridge that will connect the center to the station. It is expected to be completed in 2008. In the meantime, they are splitting with RTD the cost of temporary shuttle service.
Those involved in the Colorado Mills situation disagree about why there won’t be a station near that mall.
Last week at a west light-rail planning meeting, RTD officials said owners and developers of Colorado Mills and the adjacent Denver West development rejected the option of having a station three or four blocks from Colorado Mills.
The Regional Transportation District is nearing its final design of the $511 million west corridor light-rail line to Golden.
When an environmental study was conducted to plan the train, RTD talked with Colorado Mills developers. Dennis Cole, RTD’s project manager for the west line, said they were not particularly interested in a rail station serving their area.
But Greg Stevinson, whose family owns the Denver West shopping center and is a silent partner in Colorado Mills, disputes that contention. Stevinson said he originally wanted a rail station beneath the mall.
The route was later moved so that was no longer possible. On the currently planned route, the most logical spot for a station does not facilitate an easy link to the mall, so Stevinson said he passed on the opportunity.
When west train service begins, there will be a station at Red Rocks Community College on the south side of U.S. 6. After stopping there, westbound trains will cross over the highway to the north side of U.S. 6.
If a station were to be added at the point where the rail is closest to Colorado Mills, according to Stevinson, it would still be blocks away. The path shoppers would have to take between the station would be inefficient and difficult at best, he said.
In addition to the distance, “there would be severe topographical issues as well,” Stevinson said. “It is such a far distance from the mall that it really would not have served the purpose RTD had hoped and we would have liked.”
Now that the environmental study is finished, a station can’t be added to the west line without reopening the study process. That won’t happen, officials said.
To accommodate a possible Colorado Mills/Denver West rail stop there in the future, RTD is designing the portion of the track closest to the retail area – on the north side of U.S. 6, just east of Indiana Street – with a “ghost station,” said Cole and RTD engineering chief John Shonsey.
That means designing track geometry and grades that would most easily allow the retrofit of a station for Colorado Mills sometime after the train line opens, they said.
Still, it is expected to be more costly and disruptive to add the station later than to have built it in the first place.
Adding the pedestrian bridge from RTD’s County Line rail platform to the Park Meadows mall parking lot will cost about $5 million.
Stevinson said he someday intends to offer a shuttle program that would connect Colorado Mills and Denver West to the Red Rocks station.
“What we’d like to do is eventually have shuttle service through the entire office park, retail and apartments,” he said.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-954-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
