In an apparent effort to scuttle the Jefferson Parkway toll road, Golden officials said Friday they are offering $3 million to buy a 2.76-mile strip of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge along Indiana Street in Jefferson County and use the property for biking and walking paths.
Earlier this year, Parkway board members voted to buy the same strip of refuge land for $2.8 million from the federal government for the toll highway right of way.
The Jeffco Parkway is a collaboration of Jefferson County, Arvada and Broomfield, and its plans call for the 10-mile toll road to run from Colorado 128 near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport to Colorado 93 near West 64th Avenue, north of Golden.
In a statement, Golden trumpeted the fact it is offering $200,000 more for the refuge land than toll road officials.
But Bill Ray, an Arvada official who is interim director of the toll highway authority, said Golden’s bid “is not a legitimate offer.”
“It’s plain that this is a transparent attempt to insert themselves in a process that has taken place between the authority, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other interested parties that has been thoughtful, thorough, complete and within the bounds of requirements established by the federal government,” Ray said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service manages the refuge.
Ray said Golden’s bid to buy the strip of refuge land, if successful, would undermine a related transaction in which the city of Boulder and Jefferson and Boulder counties are contributing nearly $10 million to buy 640 acres along Colorado 93 for preservation as open space. Once purchased, the land is to be folded into the wildlife refuge.
Parkway officials estimate the toll highway will cost about $204 million. Last month they said the authority was in talks with the Madrid-based construction firm Isolux Corsán about financing, building and operating the road.
Promoters of the highway say it will help complete the beltway around metro Denver, but Golden Mayor Jacob Smith said the road will likely result in “lots of impacts” on his city, and “Golden needs reasonable mitigation from those impacts,” which the highway authority “has so far been unwilling to agree to.”
From the toll road authority, Isolux and other sources, Golden is seeking at least $45 million to fund key highway improvements in the city’s U.S. 6 and Colorado 93 corridors, Smith said.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
