Dillon residents will soon be asked to help craft the vision for a new restaurant being proposed on the town’s lakefront.

The Dillon Town Council on Tuesday, May 28, voted 6-1 to approve a resolution to hire the Montana-based architectural consultant Cushing Terrell for $65,000 to help develop three conceptual drawings of the proposed restaurant.

Some Dillon Town Council members have made clear that they have high expectations for the restaurant and bar, which would be nestled in the hillside by the Dillon Reservoir between the amphitheater and the marina.

“I think that spot over there is the No. 1 most awesome restaurant location in the state of Colorado,” Town Council member John Woods said during a work session late last year about the proposed restaurant. “Can we all agree with that?”

The location where the restaurant is contemplated is sometimes known as the old Crow’s Nest, after the snack bar and picnic site that was demolished there in 2012, Dillon Town Engineer Dan Burroughs said at the Town Council meeting last week. When the town issued a request for proposals seeking an architectural design team to develop concepts for a restaurant there, the response was “huge,” Burroughs said.

Of the 18 architecture design teams that submitted proposals, five were interviewed by town staff before Cushing Terrell was selected, Burroughs said. The Cushing Terrell team was “energetic about the engagement process with the community, and they had some very good ideas,” he said.

The proposal from Cushing Terrell contemplates a 16-week process that will involve developing initial drawings and graphics, hosting an open house to solicit feedback, narrowing concepts down to a single idea, and then holding another open house to refine that idea.

The proposal outlines three possible ideas: a single-story restaurant, a two-story restaurant or two separate restaurants on two separate floors of the building. Playing off the “materiality and design” of the amphitheater, Cushing Terrell had a “little fun” and shared in the proposal a rough sketch of what a two-story restaurant might look like on the waterfront.

Based on the theoretical mix of spaces needed for a restaurant, Cushing Terrell estimated in the proposal that it could design a restaurant in the provided space that would serve 100 patrons indoors and at least 50 outdoors.

Dillon Mayor Carolyn Skowyra said, when she met with Cushing Terrell, “the team was super dynamic and fun to be around.”

“It was kind of like your classic brains and color,” Skowyra added. “Together, they were just speaking our language and had a nice presentation for us.”

But while other members expressed excitement about the proposed restaurant, Town Council member Kyle Hendricks voted against moving forward with the restaurant design. Hendricks said that he believes the project should wait and be part of the town’s masterplan for the marina. He previously questioned whether the town should get involved with running a restaurant business.

While Cushing Terrell has been hired to help come up with conceptual designs for the building, Dillon Town Manager Nathan Johnson has said that another request for proposals will have to be issued in the future to find a restaurateur to run the restaurant once it is complete.