Coors Property on South Table Acquired for Open Space

On November 10, 2004 over thirty years of advocacy for South Table Mountain open space was finally rewarded with the announcement that the Coors Brewing Company and Jefferson County had agreed to the preservation of 737 acres of Coors property on the West side of South Table Mountain as open space. The cost of the open space acquisition is $10,000,000. This fee simple acquisition was completed December 15^th.

Discussions between Coors representatives and the Jefferson County Commissioners, which culminated in the agreement, had actually been taking place over the last year. Commissioner Michelle Lawrence had an important role in seeing that the discussions were successfully concluded. They and the representatives of Coors Brewing Company, led by Neal Jacquet, are to be commended for their creative efforts in bringing this deal to fruition. Commissioners Holloway and Lawrence will be leaving office in January so the acquisition of South Table Mountain for Open Space represents a significant addition to their legacies of open space protection during tenure.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national non-profit land conservation organization, also participated in these discussions and was an intermediary in the conveyance of the property to Jefferson County Open Space. Coors made a $200,000 charitable contribution to the Jeffco Open Space Foundation for the future protection of South Table Mountain property. Open Space reimbursed TPL for their expenses and paid a $150,000 fee.

The acquisition was formally approved by the Jefferson County Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) at a special meeting on the evening of November 11 and subsequently by the Board of County Commissioners on November 16.

Virtually lost in the euphoria and hype surrounding announcement of the deal has been the over thirty years of citizen advocacy for the preservation of South Table Mountain. South Table Mountain has been a high priority acquisition for the county open space program since its inception in 1972 but its high priority has, no doubt, been fueled by tenacious and successful citizen opposition to repeated threats to development- from quarries proposed in the 1970's through the early 1990's to a NIKE corporate headquarters proposed in the late 1990's. Literally generations of citizen open space advocates - from the Alliance for the Preservation of South Table Mountain to Save the Mesas to the Table Mountains Conservation Fund and the numerous homeowners associations in Golden, Applewood and Pleasantview and the SOS bond campaign- have maintained preservation of South Table Mountain as a high visibility issue.

It is hoped that the acquisition of the Coors property will spur subsequent acquisition of 400 acres of Bradley property- the remaining privately owned land on South Table Mountain - for open space.

However, citizen advocacy regarding South Table Mountain and North Table Mountain should not, and will not end with their acquisition as open space. It will just enter a new phase associated with the management of the land as open space parks. Citizen groups will be active participants in the crafting of creative and appropriate management plans, sensitive to the significant natural values of the land and the communities that surround the new open space.

by Elliot Brown