GOCO Awards $400,000 to Rocky Ford for the Arkansas Valley Fairgrounds & Crystal Lake Master Plan

Description: Of the total funding, $68M will go toward large-scale, once-in-a-generation Centennial Program projects that will create lasting impact for the state’s people, places, and wildlife.


Published: 03/15/2024
Byline: SECO News

Today, the Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) board announced $117,151,438 in investments for partner-led conservation, recreation, and outdoor access efforts statewide.

Investments include:

  • $68,878,420 in Centennial Program investments for large-scale, high-impact projects

Arkansas Valley Fairgrounds & Crystal Lake Master Plan, $400,000 to the City of Rocky Ford

The Arkansas Valley Fairgrounds host the 145-year-old “oldest continuous fair in the State of Colorado” while also supporting community events, athletics, and youth organizations such as 4-H and Future Farmers of America. Adjacent to the fairgrounds, Crystal Lake offers opportunities for expanded recreation that could better serve the growing region. Funding will help the City of Rocky Ford continue its planning efforts to revitalize these two local amenities to support outdoor recreation and access. GOCO-funded visioning efforts launched in summer of 2022 produced a comprehensive concept for the revitalized properties. Through community engagement, partners identified an opportunity to partner with the City of Aurora to provide public access to nearly 5,000 acres of formerly agricultural land it owns stretching along the Arkansas River from Manzanola to Swink.

GOCO’s Centennial Program invests in high-value, once-in-a-generation visions and projects that will create lasting impacts on the Centennial State and future generations. $33,992,920 in competitive grants were awarded to seven projects that are getting ahead of Colorado’s population growth, visitation to natural places, stressors on habitats and wildlife, and inequities in outdoor access. They join two other Centennial projects awarded a total of $5,000,000 in December 2023.

These nine Centennial projects will:

  • Help conserve 3,246 acres of land rich in natural resources, wildlife, and recreation potential.
  • Contribute to regional trail projects that, once complete, will traverse a total of 276 miles.
  • Impact around 78% of Colorado’s population, or 4,517,913 people, who live within a 20-mile radius of the projects.
  • Represent a combined 132 years of visioning, planning, and implementation work to date.

The GOCO board also committed to $34,885,500 in investments for CPW Centennial projects. Details of these investments will be shared after further visioning.

Statewide Natural Heritage Survey, $7,892,920 to the Colorado Natural Heritage Program at Colorado State University

GOCO’s largest-ever investment in data, this funding will help the Colorado Natural Heritage Program conduct the Statewide Natural Heritage Survey over the next five years, generating–for the very first time–a uniform and reliable baseline measurement of the state’s biodiversity. This information will be instrumental in Colorado’s ongoing and future conservation and recreation planning efforts, and may deliver new discoveries related to Colorado’s natural resources and wildlife. Data gathering will engage both professional scientists and interested community members. As results come in, they will become publicly available, free of charge on Colorado’s Conservation Data Explorer (CODEX) website. Colorado Parks and Wildlife contributed $500,000 to this project.

A $1,200,000 investment will go toward the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s RESTORE Colorado Program, which brings funders, including GOCO, together to collaboratively invest in at-scale habitat restoration and stewardship projects on public and private conservation lands that have the greatest benefit for wildlife and local communities. The program’s 2024 grant awards will be announced soon.

Lastly, a $10,000,000 loan to Pitkin County will help purchase and hold the highly valuable, 650-acre Snowmass Falls Ranch while partners work toward an eventual United States Forest Service acquisition and the property’s integration into the adjacent Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.



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