Estes Downtown Loop nears completion

ESTES PARK — Several months ahead of projections, Estes Park’s controversial downtown Loop project is nearly complete.

Just in time for the busy Labor Day weekend and fall foliage viewing in the tourism-dependent mountain town, “the Loop is open and operating,” Estes Park public works director Gregory Muhonen said Friday. “Visitors can drive downtown without the disruptions we’ve had for two years.”

The one-way couplet that is designed to aid U.S. Highway 36 tourist traffic going to and from Rocky Mountain National Park has snarled traffic and created headaches for downtown businesses, but its final phases of construction – striping, landscaping and installing signage – are being completed early, well ahead of the contract completion date of Jan. 11.

“I’m optimistic it will be complete soon,” Muhonen said. “We’re planning a ribbon cutting in early October, so I sure hope so.”

Muhonen said there are still “some nuances we need to tidy up with some signage. We need those wrapped up before I can heave the big sigh of relief.”

He added that there are “still a punch-list of cleanup elements that need to be addressed by the contractor, things like shrubs, trees, seeding and sodding.”

Muhonen advised visitors to “pay close attention to the new signage, because the flow patterns are changed and we want people to pay attention so somebody doesn’t get hurt.”

Construction crews planned to be off the streets by noon Friday to stay out of the way of holiday weekend tourist traffic. When work resumes on Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the town, “they will continue manhole and valve box adjustments throughout the Loop so they are consistent with the new pavement elevations. Other activities include landscaping, inlet fencing on South Crags Drive, miscellaneous small paving at the guardrails on East Riverside Drive and Moraine Avenue, and sidewalk sealing on East and West Riverside drives. Night work will resume on Tuesday night through Thursday from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for permanent striping and pavement markings.

“All schedules are subject to change based on weather, unforeseen circumstances and available resources needed to complete the job.”

Previously, U.S. 36 in both directions followed Elkhorn Avenue westward to Moraine Avenue, then Moraine south and west to the park entrance. The completed Loop will still send park-bound traffic that way, but eastbound traffic leaving the park on U.S. 36 will now travel  east on Moraine to a new roundabout that connects Crags Drive, Moraine Avenue and Riverside Drive, then follow West Riverside Drive northward, cross a newly constructed bridge over the Big Thompson River onto East Riverside Drive, then continue northward to East Elkhorn Avenue. Elkhorn is now one-way westbound between East Riverside and Moraine, and Moraine is one-way southbound between Elkhorn and the roundabout.

Broomfield-based Flatiron Construction is the prime contractor, under the direction of the town, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration’s Central Federal Lands Highway Division.

Construction originally was expected to begin in 2016, but fierce community controversy and a lengthy process for acquiring additional rights of way for the project delayed the scheduled start of work until 2018, then 2021. New Federal Emergency Management Agency modeling and mapping procedures for the revised floodplains within the project, triggered by the September 2013 Front Range deluge, further delayed permit applications and pushed the start of construction back two more years.

Then in October 2022, Muhonen stunned trustees when he revealed that the lowest of two bids he received to complete the project —  more than $27 million — far exceeded the $15.7 million estimate consulting engineers had made three months earlier. In November 2022, trustees agreed to spend an extra $1 million of the town’s money to match an extra $1 million from CDOT’s Responsible Acceleration of Maintenance and Partnerships (RAMP) program  and a supplementary infusion of $9.3 million from the Federal Lands Access Program.

Some opposition remains from downtown businesses, but “the comments I’m hearing now are encouraging,” Muhonen said Friday. “People are noticing the improvement in traffic flow. The best comment I heard this week is from somebody who heard a woman say, ‘I  used to be opposed to this project but I’m really warming up to it now that the traffic’s moving really well.’”