Ouray Ice Park Price Tag $870,000

Ouray Ice Park Price Tag: $870,000
by Christopher Pike7 - Ouray County Watch

OURAY – An unexpectedly high price of $870,000 is what an appraiser has attached to 40 acres of U.S. Forest Service land situated on the south edge of Ouray. The acreage, however, is choice: It is the site of the world-acclaimed Ouray Ice Park, the purchase of which has been a topic of negotiation between the forest service and Ouray officials for at least 18 months.

“The appraisal is a little higher than the city would like. We just got it back. We all have a real vested interest for this. We want to help the city,” Tammy Randall-Parker, forest service district ranger, told representatives of Ouray, Montrose and San Miguel counties at their quarterly Tri-County meeting on March 18 in Ridgway.

Both Ouray officials and the forest service would like the deal to be consummated, now that the details have been worked out. But is the late-arriving price out of reach?

City officials see the park as an essential component of Ouray’s reviving winter economy. However, with an already tight budget, and the 6th Street renovation about to break ground at a price tag of $478,000 (of which the city will pay approximately $150,000 out of pocket), acquisition of the ice park is likely to become more complicated.

“I thought there was going to be a land swap or buy/re-sell/trade. I thought it was for land, like an inholding,” said Ouray County Commissioner Keith Meinert.

“Yes, but for essential, critical needs,” replied Randall-Parker. “We can do land exchanges or an outright sale.”

Ouray Mayor Bob Risch told The Watchthat the city is still negotiating, but for less land. “There was not enough of an exchange value. We will have to reduce the size of the parcel. The appraiser is looking for the highest and best value to protect the public’s interest, even though we wouldn’t allow any real estate development… [Ouray’s acquisition of the ice park] is something everybody wants. The forest service doesn’t want the permitting challenges [associated with the ice park] either, including liability concerns.”

In other forest service news, some of the 22 existing range allotments for cattle and sheep in Ouray County could be permanently closed. “It’s down to 13 cattle and nine sheep allotments,” said Randall-Parker. Invoking the Range Rescission Act, the forest service and the Colorado Division of Wildlife have visited with all of the livestock permit holders and are instituting measures to reduce the risk of contact between bighorn sheep and domestic cattle and sheep, which can spread pneumonia to local populations of bighorn.

Randall-Parker also announced that the U.S. Forest Service plans to host field trips on Red Mountain National Historic District’s trails and roads to talk with user groups about management of the areas.

This summer Volunteer Outdoor Colorado will create a new campsite in Yankee Boy Basin for climbers approaching Mount Sneffels, and will eliminate others due to resource damage along the streams.

The forest service has also joined forces with Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute in a forest restoration project covering about 80,000 acres on the Uncompahgre Plateau, according to Randall-Parker.