Comprehensive Plan Update
SE Group worked with the Town of Silverthorne Colorado on several initiatives to revitalize and re-energize the community. While the Town knew it needed to update its Comprehensive Plan, it wanted this effort to focus the Town Vision for creating a new, vibrant town center. With this in mind, SE Group began formulating an engagement and analysis strategy that allowed the prioritization and exploration of ideas and policies associated with the new urban fabric (form, materials, uses, densities, connectivity), while addressing some of the real barriers for integration (market, state highways, river access).
Project Planning
The Blueprint Silverthorne framework has enabled significant public input and established parameters for next steps, including updates to zoning and determination of community inputs (infrastructure) to support the nascent downtown. The plan was finalized and quickly adopted in May 2014, and in 2015 the Town began implementation of the Comprehensive Plan policies by adopting revised Design District Standards and Guidelines for the Town’s six commercial districts. Additionally, construction of a new performing arts venue located along the Blue River was completed in 2017 and will serve as the community’s arts and cultural epicenter.
The Town used this momentum to move quickly into another planning process and develop the Parks, Open Space, and Trails Master Plan.
Town of Silverthorne Parks, Open Space, and Trails Master Plan Update
Following quickly on the heels of the Comprehensive Plan, SE Group assisted the Town of Silverthorne—a mountain town where recreation, culture, and the outdoor lifestyle are part of the community fabric—with a renewed Parks, Open Space and Trails (POST) Master Plan. The POST Master Plan is a supporting document to the Town of Silverthorne’s Comprehensive Plan: Blueprint Silverthorne. The vision of Blueprint Silverthorne was woven into the Master Plan—identifying new connections between parks/open spaces and the urban fabric, finding ways to appeal to residents and visitors, and enhancing recreational/cultural amenities to promote cohesion. The two documents work in tandem to promote parks, open space and trails resources that serve residents and visitors, and add to Silverthorne’s quality of life.
The POST Master Plan is the Town’s guide for future investment in parks, open space and trails. A detailed inventory of current facilities provides a snapshot of what exists today and how those resources are serving the present-day population. Analysis of those resources reveals opportunities that may improve service levels and the ability of the Town to recapture the costs of providing outstanding facilities and programs to its residents.
Creative public engagement was essential to this planning process to ensure that all members of the community were heard and needs were addressed. Extensive market research was also undertaken to more fully understand the tourism and second-home population as equally vital recreational users. All of this critical outreach helped create a document that is a true and vivid representation of what the community would like to see in the future and how exactly to get there.
