All Categories, Civil, Construction, Water Resources
Delivering Complex Civil Design and Stakeholder Alignment for a Critical Emergency Facility
Challenges & highlights
The project was funded through a partnership among Pitkin County, the City of Aspen, and Aspen Fire, bringing multiple jurisdictions together with distinct requirements, approval processes, and operational priorities. Managing that coordination from an engineering standpoint required clear communication across every stakeholder group throughout design and construction.
The physical constraints of the site were equally demanding. The new facility sits adjacent to the Health and Human Services building, which is a high-traffic, continuously occupied facility that had to remain fully operational throughout construction. With limited space for staging and equipment movement, our team developed careful construction phasing plans to sequester the active work zone while protecting access to the adjacent building.
The utility environment on the site was among the most complex aspects of the project. Relocating and adding utilities across the campus required coordinating simultaneously with the City of Aspen, Pitkin County, Comcast, City Water, Aspen Sanitation District, CenturyTel, and the local gas provider. We organized and led the multi-party utility coordination meetings that brought all of these entities together to align on sequencing, phasing, and design. The drainage system for the new ambulance facility also required careful integration with the existing hospital drainage network to ensure both systems performed correctly as a combined system.
The results
The completed facility is a genuine upgrade to the region’s emergency services infrastructure, transforming the facility into a purpose-built operations center that reflects the standard Aspen’s community expects, replacing a structure that had outlived its usefulness. The utilities function as designed, the drainage systems perform as modeled, and the site works for both the ambulance district and its neighbors.
Beyond the physical structure, the project demonstrated what’s possible when complex, multi-agency coordination is managed with discipline and clear communication. Projects with this many stakeholders and competing operational demands don’t come together by accident. They come together because someone is running the process.
Elevation: 7,908
Location: Aspen, CO
Build infrastructure that holds up
If your municipality is planning roadway improvements, utility expansions, or system upgrades, we are ready to support your team.
