DENVER—Gov. Bill Ritter has placed on hold construction of a new Department of Corrections headquarters in Colorado Springs, citing the state’s budget shortfall.
The new building was to be built near the existing 65,000-square-foot Corrections Department headquarters, making the agency a principal tenant of the proposed Vineyard Commerce Park office complex.
Mortenson Development Inc. of Minneapolis is developing the complex on Janitell Road; company spokesman Mark Alexander did not immediately return an after-hours seeking comment Thursday.
The state’s 30-year, lease-to-own deal on the new 100,000-square-foot building would have been worth about $90 million.
However, Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said Thursday that the new headquarters has been “indefinitely halted.”
He noted that the cancellation was prompted by the state’s budget woes and is not related to complaints about the decision on where to build the new headquarters.
The department solicited bids on the project last year, and proposals from Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Canon City were among the finalists.
After Colorado Springs won the bid, Pueblo and Canon City charged that their bids would have saved taxpayer dollars and that the department chose Colorado Springs out of convenience for its 240 headquarters employees.
The agency has repeatedly defended its decision.
Sen. John Morse and Rep. Dennis Apuan, both Democrats from Colorado Springs, said the DOC decision was one of many difficult choices the state will have to make as it pares its budget in the face of a recession that has hammered state revenues.
“I really regret that we have to halt this project that would create jobs,” Apuan said. “But I think there will just be tough choices that will need to be made.”
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Information from: The Gazette,
