Heath full steam ahead constructing Magic Sky Ranch

Administrators and benefactors of the Girl Scouts Mile Hi Council traveled from Denver to Northern Colorado in May, just as foundations were being poured at their $10.5 million Magic Sky Camp near Red Feather lakes.

They pressed their handprints into the wet concrete. Some scratched their initials.

“I didn’t want to tell them it would all be buried the next day,´ said Tom Niichel, project manager for Heath Construction Co., the general contractor for the job. “They were all pretty excited about how things are going here.”

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For the Mile Hi Council, the freshly poured foundations at Magic Sky represent the finish line for a grueling campaign to finance the ambitious project, the replacement for the Girl Scout group’s long-cherished summer camp home, the rustic Flying G Ranch near Deckers that had accommodated campers since 1945.

The council bought the 750-acre Magic Sky property in 1969, and has operated a scaled-back summer program in a bare-bones, tent-camper setting there in recent years. But the literal and figurative fallout from the Hayman Fire that ravaged the foothills near the Deckers camp three years ago set the group in motion to raise money for what promotional materials call their “dream camp” about 17 miles northwest of Livermore.

When Heath crews finish work on the dining hall, activities building, equestrian center, cabins and other buildings, the camp’s capacity will rise from fewer than 100 to almost 300 at a time during the summer, and about 220 during fall, winter and spring.

“We’re looking at a higher demand for year-round camping,” Mile Hi Council spokeswoman Rachelle Trujillo said. “Having the winterized facilities allows us to meet that demand.”

More than cookies

The path to groundbreaking at Magic Sky has been a longer process than the council or its design and construction consultants could have imagined when the concept first took shape six years ago.

Almost as big a job as moving hundreds of tons of granite boulders to make way for roads, water and sewer systems on the camp acreage was the job of raising more than $10 million to pay the design and construction bills.

It took more than cookie sales.

The Magic Sky Capital Campaign drew on some of Colorado’s deepest philanthropic pockets. Two challenge grants, requiring donor matches that took two years to secure, came from the Gates Family Foundation, which put up $1 million, and the Coors Foundation, which chipped in another $500,000.

The Daniels Fund contributed a matching gift of $500,000, and the estate of scouting benefactor Helen McLoraine granted $1.5 million, including $750,000 in camping scholarships that will help make Magic Sky available to all.

“Now that our capital campaign is complete, we’re working on the rest, the in-kind contributions,” Trujillo said. “We’re trying to put equipment and furnishings together – beds, stoves, blankets, the whole nine yards.”

Meanwhile, Heath crews are erecting the three biggest buildings at the camp simultaneously, a logistical feat that Niichel said was going smoothly.

“These are significant structures all going up at once,” he said. “We’ve got some challenges trying to get our arms around everything. I’ve got a $4 million dining hall, $1.5 million in the activities center, and then the equestrian center.”

Built from scratch

The Cleveland architecture firm that specializes in large camp facilities and conference centers has been on the job for five years, but final plans for the three major buildings and numerous others weren’t fully fledged until the past year.

“I can’t say that this project is out of the ordinary, because we’ve done a lot of large camps from scratch,´ said John Guzik, an architect with Schmidt Copeland Parker Stevens.

“But it’s a spectacular place,” he added. “Having worked on any number of camps throughout the country, this is one of the most beautiful. A lot of the architecture is based on some of the landforms out there. The stone, for instance, has been a blessing and a curse in some respects. It’s beautiful, but getting utilities in there is a major challenge.”

The water and sewer lines, a water treatment plant and storage tower and the network of roads connecting the building on the tract have kept Fort Collins-based Connell Resources Inc. busy for the better part of the past year.

Guzik and Niichel said the collaboration between designers and builders, so far, was going well.

“The real challenge is the dining facility,” Niichel said. “It’s an architect’s dream. I’ve got (curving) radius walls, with odd sloped roofs atop them. If builders were left to be architects, everything would be right angles, nice and square.”

Grand scale

Guzik described the 13,000-square-foot dining hall as the “capstone” of the Magic Sky project. Add the 8,000-square-foot activity center and the equestrian complex’s 9,000 square feet, and the three main buildings enclose 30,000 square feet.

In addition four of a planned dozen 24-person cabins will be built this summer, each at 2,600 square feet. When finished, the main buildings on the camp’s grounds will account for more than 60,000 square feet.

The Mile Hi Council will have no trouble filling the space when campers arrive next year.

“From the get-go, we’re increasing our capabilities in terms of how many campers we can accommodate,” Trujillo said. “This gives us a lot of room for that growth.”

Trujillo said a merger in the works now, to be concluded in two years, will unify the Mile Hi Council with the Mountains and Plains Council of the Girl Scouts that serves girls in Larimer and Weld counties. The combined memberships could top 35,000 in an area stretching from metro-Denver to the Northern Front Range.