Banning Lewis Ranch, the largest planned unit development project in the Colorado Springs area, has started preparations for construction of its first phase – Village I. Of the 22,000 acres reserved for the project, Village I consists of 300 acres and more than 1,000 housing units.Paul Tice, land use review division manager for the city of Colorado Springs, said Village I’s 300 acres are located northeast of Marksheffel Road, and the future Dublin Boulevard area will consist of 800 single-family homes, 110 duplexes and 172 town homes.The project is still in its early stages, but there are currently earth-moving crews clearing dirt to begin building necessary structural requirements.”We haven’t approved any lots yet, but we approved some roads and drainage areas,” Tice said. He said approval for the lots will more than likely not happen until this fall. “It probably will go to the planning commission in September and then on to Council, then finally approved around the end of the year,” he said. “So we would probably see home construction starting around the first of the year.” He said no decision has been made on which construction companies will be selected to build the homes yet.Capital Pacific Holdings, the company that has the current holdings on the land, is a home-building company, but Tice said they won’t build everything within the development because it is too much. “What they’re doing is they’re going to create these 650 lots, and then they are going to sell them in groups of whatever, large groups to other builders,” he said. “They are out there talking to other large-scale builders.”Tice said some of the delay in home construction is due to readjustment of the project’s zoning issues. “The zoning was put in place on this project when we annexed it in 1988, so they already have zoning in place that allows this kind of development to occur … but they are changing the existing zoning to a planned unit development to get a little more flexibility,” Tice said.Plans to include commercial development within Village I have changed. “There was a little bit of commercial originally, but they are taking it out and converting it to residential for the first phase,” Tice said. There also are plans to build an elementary school for grades K-8, as well as a park/recreational area. “The park and recreation center are kind of merged together by the school,” he said. “And then there is some open space and some trails as well.”With a project the size of Banning Lewis Ranch, it is no surprise that it has run into its fair share of setbacks, including tackling financial and city infrastructure issues. Tice said a series of complications began when the original person who annexed the land, Frank Aries, filed for bankruptcy. “After he annexed it and had it zoned, he ran into financial difficulties,” Tice said. He said the land then went into the Resolution Trust Corporation where Saudi Arabia’s royal family purchased it. “I don’t think they had any intention of actually building there, but they put it in their portfolio as a real estate investment,” he said. From there, the land was purchased and is currently owned by Capital Pacific Holdings, a Newport Beach, California-based real estate development firm.In addition to overcoming some of the financial hurdles, Tice said one of the big problems with developing Banning Lewis Ranch has been providing city infrastructure. He said that in 1988 infrastructures, such as water, sewer, gas and electric, were not available east of Powers. But with the building of Stetson Hills and Springs Ranch, those utilities have been extended and are now available. “Now it is more feasible to actually extend water, wastewater, gas and electric into the property. It’s still a major investment, but at least it’s not nearly the extension that it would have been 18 years ago,” Tice said. There are still a few issues concerning the utility extensions, but they are close to being resolved, he said. “There are still some complexities there, but they’re moving forward to finding resolutions to those.”For more information on the official city land and development plan for Village I, visit http://www.springsgov.com/Page.asp?NavID=5789.
