MOUNTAIN AREA MASTER PLAN

Client: City of Steamboat Springs
Location: Steamboat Springs, Colorado
Project Status: Completed

The Mountain Area Master Plan was a City-driven long-range planning process that aimed to position the lands in and around the Steamboat Ski Resort base area for future success. The process included outreach to a wide variety of  key stakeholders, residents, workers, visitors, and the public in general for their ideas on challenges and opportunities, in the physical and non-physical realm, to determine recommendations for improvements. Initiated at a critical time in the city’s economic history as more and more people seek to permanently reside in Steamboat Springs due to migration away from metropolitan centers and the amazing mountain lifestyle, the engagement process had to pivot toward virtual and socially-distant engagement during the COVID pandemic – with much success! The planning team conducted an extensive stakeholder interview and community survey process to gather high-quality data either through online surveys, video conference focus groups, and safe, socially-distanced individual meetings on the topic above.  Moving away from reliance on the standard open house, Connect One Design created marketing collateral to get the word out and made use of the City’s Bang the Table outreach platform, “Engage Steamboat”, for web-based feedback. This information was analyzed to determine community-driven recommendations for improvements in the study area. Some were smaller, more specific, easier to implement projects and some were large, high-impact proposals that will need to be incorporated into the City of Steamboat Springs’ long-range vision. The project team also shared the findings with the community to ensure the direction was correct.