Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct information surrounding the price of the project.

Silverthorne Town Council received an update at a Jan. 22 meeting regarding the price for a project that is slated to expand its community recreation center by 23,000 square feet.

Chris Guarino, director of the Summit County-based Artaic Group — which was chosen to represent the town’s interest throughout the process — told officials they would be presented with a guaranteed maximum price for the project in March. He said his team and the town have been working to get the price tag closer to $23 million for hard costs since the town budgeted $29 million total for the project. 

“(During) the first round of pricing, we priced the dreams, alongside the needs and the wants and pricing came in high. … (Town) staff has been incredible, and they were very helpful in carving out some of those (project aspects) that weren’t absolute necessities,” he said. 

He pointed to high-end acoustic ceilings, which largely would have served aesthetic purposes over anything else, as one of the cuts the team made to save money. He said the team was able to slash costs despite a last-minute addition to project plans. 

Guarino explained the project team originally thought the renovated facility would be exempt from international fire code that requires buildings that are over 50,000 square feet in size to have a fire command center since the build would be 50,000 square feet nearly exactly and not over that. While the team wasn’t bound to that specific fire code, he said Summit Fire & EMS requested the building have a fire command center anyway. 

The center will eat up 200 square feet and must be easily accessible from the outside. 

Council member Tim Applegate wondered how soon the construction could start, and Guarino said “as soon as the snow melts. The plan is to break ground in early May. 

Guarino updated officials that the project won’t be as ambitiously sustainable as they had previously hoped. He said the team looked into fully electrifying the building’s mechanical systems, but the building’s high altitude and other factors reduced the feasibility of those ideas. He said the systems out there weren’t proven enough for the town to take a gamble on, but a solution was found that will cut costs and make the system throughout the building more connected. 

“As a building, you have to go blue before you go green, which is to control your emissions and what you’re putting out. … Having multi-fuel systems is going to be important,” council member Erin Young said, drawing attention to the fact that multi-fuel systems with redundancies can be a day-saver in the event one system goes out. 

Silverthorne’s Sustainability Coordinator Kristi D’Agati, who was consulted about the matter, said she agreed with the direction the project team was going, noting that it was still a more sustainable option than others.

Over half of the square footage for this 23,000 square foot expansion will be for a multipurpose gym which will allow more activities to happen at once. There’s also plans to add over 1,000 square feet of fitness area to the center that will also house some more equipment alongside a child care center intended to have licensed, school-age programming. Council members were perhaps most excited about a lounge/viewing area being added to the facility where guardians could comfortably watch their children in the gym.

Officials landed on this concept after being presented with three others.

Similar to the town’s project to build a larger, new police facility, the recreation center expansion is meant to accommodate a growing community. Where Silverthorne’s population was around 1,700 in 1990, the population is over 5,000 presently.

In April, Silverthorne residents voted to take lodging tax from 6% to 8% to provide funding for the project and other capital improvement projects.