The city of Steamboat Springs has been awarded $1,440,076 from Great Outdoors Colorado, or GOCO, in support of purchasing a 181-acre parcel known as Slate Creek.

The parcel is adjacent to Bob Adams Airport and is being offered to the city for $5.25 million under a purchase agreement signed last summer that expires in July 2026. Along with the GOCO funding, City Council has committed $500,000 in capital improvement funds toward the purchase.

The city is seeking to buy the property to develop a regional park that would include a 46-acre park featuring indoor and outdoor ball fields, 10 acres of secondary access to the housing authority’s Brown Ranch property, and 131 acres of open space featuring passive recreation that would also include an encumbered conservation easement.

City officials estimate the $5.25 million asking price included in the purchase agreement to be roughly $750,000 below the property’s appraised value. The land was last sold for $600,000 in 2019, according to property assessment records.

The GOCO grant money is a major boost to the purchasing effort, as the city continues to seek grant and partner funding to fill a roughly $3.25 million funding gap.

“We also have had grant applications out to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, CPW and also to the county’s Purchase Development Right Program,” said City Parks and Recreation Director Angela Cosby.

“We are seeing good progress and responses from our granting agencies. They see this as a high priority, just as the city does, so we are getting excited as we see that gap narrow and hopefully continue to be more fortunate in receiving grant funding,” she added.

The GOCO grant was awarded as part of the organization’s Land Acquisition program, “which supports urban and rural landscape, waterway and habitat protection priorities and improves access to the outdoors,” according to a news release.

Voters approved creation of GOCO in 1992. Since then, the organization has committed more than $1.4 billion in lottery proceeds to more than 5,800 projects across all 64 Colorado counties.

The organization uses a portion of lottery proceeds “to help preserve and enhance the state’s parks, trails, wildlife rivers and open spaces,” according to the GOCO website.

While the Slate Creek parcel purchase is connected to the future development of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority’s Brown Ranch property, Cosby said boosting park capacity on the west end of Steamboat has long been part of the city’s long-range plans.

“Whether it is the West Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan, the Steamboat Springs Area Plan or even our Parks and Recreation Open Space and Trails Master Plan, all call for a large regional park on the west end of town and specifically call out the Slate Creek property,” said Cosby.

“All of those were adopted well before the Brown Ranch property was owned by the housing authority. It just makes that property so much more important if Brown Ranch comes to be,” she added.