Residents of the Genesee Fire Protection District voted in May 2025 to approve the construction of the Emergency Accss Route. Since that time, the GFPD Board of Directors has been diligently working towards constructing this road.

GFPD worked with legal counsel, bond counsel, bond underwriters, and others and prepared and published a Request for Proposal soliciting construction bids for the road. In response to this RFP, GFPD received final bids from four vendors and GFPD then assembled an independent committee to evaluate and score the technical proposals.

Based on the recommendation of the committee, GFPD entered into an agreement with its top-ranked construction vendor and conducted a Pre-Construction Conference on August 11 with the vendor, addressing schedule, Quality Control/Assurance, additional Value Engineering options, safety, and community concerns, including impacts on traffic, dust, and noise. The vendor started mobilization activities on August 12, 2025.

In addition, GFPD, together with underwriters and bond counsel, has issued and sold the bonds necessary to fund the project and has now completed the closing for the bond transactions as of July 31, 2025.

Construction on the road started in August and the construction vendor has made significant progress already as shown below:

The blasting was successfully completed as scheduled on February 5, 2026. This blasting used small charges in 3 1/4” diameter holes, 8 feet deep with 2-3 feet of slurry explosive in the bottom, and 6-5’ of sand stemming on top to keep the energy in the rock. The project is approximately 3/4 complete and, to date, there have been no safety accidents, no lost time, and no environmental deficiencies identified by either Jefferson county or the contractor. Project work continues on the following tasks:

• Cut and fill
• Final grading on full width sections in preparation for 6” road base.
• Stormwater quality basin substantially complete (designed to control turbidity that might go into Bear Creek)
• Corrugated Metal Pipe (CMP) Culverts being installed
• Rock lined ditch work
• Embedded boulders on 10’ centers for guardrails for most of the project; metal guardrails will go where embankment slopes away on both sides (the 2 box culvert stream crossings)

Genesee Fire Protection District has recently acquired a pair of gates that total 20’ wide at an excellent price in a recent auction. These gates will replace the temporary chain at the southern end of the EAR near Highway 74.

The vendor is hydroseeding the earth slopes to stabilize them. The revegetation of these slopes will emerge next spring. Chipping of trees and slash is complete at the Solitude end, and these materials will be thinly spread for slope stabilization in accordance with specifications provided by the Foundation’s Open Space Manager and Fire District.

Genesee Fire Protection District is in negotiations with Xcel Energy for cost sharing of construction of pads and use of the EAR needed for the replacement of Xcel’s 1950’s wooden transmission line poles (location noted on the drawing as Xcel poles #9794-25). The current draft of this agreement would limit Xcel access to entry from Highway 74 and only as far as required to reach their poles (i.e., so no access from Solitude between Daisy and Bitterroot).

EAR construction continues to be a daily activity, proceeding both from the north end near the Solitude tennis/pickleball courts and the south end from Highway 74. Trucks and equipment will be going through the neighborhood at times. Please be alert as you drive in and out of the neighborhood. Based on the current progress, GFPD expects to have the project completed in May 2026 as scheduled.