More than 600 acres just west of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge will be purchased and preserved as open space in exchange for Boulder and Boulder County dropping their opposition to the Jefferson Parkway toll highway.
The deal, announced Tuesday by staffers from Jefferson County and the Boulder governments, must still be approved by elected officials. If approved, it would be a significant step forward for the proposed $204 million parkway.
The 10-mile toll road, backed by Jeffco and the cities of Broomfield and Arvada, would run from a point on Colorado 128 near Jeffco’s airport to Colorado 93, near West 64th Avenue, north of Golden.
In a separate transaction, the toll highway authority is buying a 300-foot-wide sliver of the wildlife refuge’s eastern side — totaling about 100 acres — from the federal government for $2.8 million. The land is needed for a key section of the highway right of way.
Proponents have touted the toll road as a key link in the effort to complete the beltway around metro Denver.
Officials from Golden and the two Boulder governments have consistently raised concerns about the toll highway.
Jeffco officials still are negotiating with counterparts in Golden over that city’s concerns about the Jefferson Parkway.
On Monday, the toll highway authority announced that it had started three months of “exclusive negotiations” with a Spanish company, Isolux Corsán, about the European firm possibly financing, designing, constructing and operating the road.
A Portuguese company currently operates the Northwest Parkway, another area toll road, under a 99-year lease for which it paid about $600 million four years ago.
Under today’s agreement, Jeffco will contribute $5.1 million, almost entirely in open space funds, to acquire the 640 acres, known as Section 16 of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site, along Colorado 93 just north of Colorado 72.
Boulder city and county each will contribute $2 million, also in open space funds, toward the full $10 million purchase of Section 16 from the Colorado’s State Land Board.
Jeffco Administrator Ralph Schell told his county commissioners that the agreement still requires the parties to come up with a final $900,000 to complete the purchase.
The complex transaction also involves the acquisition and transfer of a number of surface and subsurface mineral and other lease rights on the property and adjacent land that are held by private interests.
Once the acquisition of Section 16 is complete, the agreement calls for the three jurisdictions to turn the property over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for inclusion in an expanded Rocky Flats wildlife refuge.
Jeffco commissioners are expected to formally take up the Section 16 transaction on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, Boulder County commissioners will hold a public hearing on the agreement, and possibly take action on the measure. On May 3, Boulder city officials similarly will consider the issue.
In addition to getting Boulder city and county to withdraw opposition to the toll highway, the agreement prohibits any of its signatories from taking action that “that would degrade any existing lanes” of Colorado 93.
Furthermore, it says Jeffco can’t enter into any agreement, as a member of the toll highway authority, “that would preclude maintenance, operational or capital enhancements” of 93.
One concern of toll road opponents is that public highway authorities promoting the pay-for-use roads often seek to forge so-called “non-compete” agreements with surrounding local governments that are aimed at preventing improvements to local roads as a way to maintain traffic on the tolled road.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
