A 32-acre parcel of land just south of Interstate 70 in Clifton sat in limbo for decades until a bill aimed at speeding up the process for Mesa County to purchase it passed both houses of Congress in late December.

The Clifton Opportunities Now for Vibrant Economic Yields Act (H.R. 2997) now awaits the signature of President Joe Biden. Once it is signed into law, the land will be available for Mesa County to purchase. Then, it opens the door for major commercial business opportunities that can bring jobs and increased sales-tax revenue to the Clifton community. 

“That whole area could blow up for some business in Clifton, which Clifton needs,” Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis said. “I’d love to get into some private hands where they can put it to good productive use and start generating sales tax to have some better interest in Clifton.”

Davis didn’t know exactly which businesses will be interested, but he suggested, “Walmart or Costco – who knows? – could come in and utilize that.”

Davis said the county had been trying for a long time to get the Bureau of Land Management to basically relinquish the land, but they have such a long process.

“It’s been at least eight years that we’ve been working on trying to get through this process,” he said. “I was talking to Jeff Small, (Rep. Lauren) Boebert’s chief of staff, and said, ‘I don’t know what to do. It’s like they keep telling us a couple years, a couple years, and it just keeps going.’  And (Small) said, ‘Well, why don’t we run a piece of legislation and get it passed?’

“So it’s literally come to kind of like an act of Congress to try to get this land into Mesa County, which is what we needed to do.”

Davis said Colorado’s U.S. senators, Michael Bennett and John HickeLooper, were hesitant to help at first and told the county they just needed to let the wheels turn and let it happen naturally. 

Davis then indicated that over the past year, there was a sudden shift.

“They said, ‘We want to go ahead and pick up this piece of legislation that Boebert authored, and we’re going to run it on the Senate side.’ So they got support from both Bennett and Hickenlooper.”

Asked what the next steps are, Davis said the commissioners already are “pushing hard just on the administrative side. Like, we’re doing all the surveys we need to do.”

Davis said a purchase price has not been determined, and the county will have to get an appraisal to determine fair market value.

“I assume it will be low, given there is no access yet,” he said.

Davis added the county will pay for the land with money from its capital or economic development fund.

Davis said the ultimate goal is to put the sale in the hands of Industrial Development Inc., which is a nonprofit, sister organization to the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce, and it tries to incentivize businesses to come to the Grand Junction area.

“That’s been one option for us,” Davis said of IDI, “so that way it’s kind of like there’s a degree of separation between government and private.”

MORE INFORMATION

The federal land being made available to Mesa County to purchase is 32 acres. Its north border is Interstate 70, and the Government Highline Canal serves as the south border. The west border will be 32 Road, and the east border will be slightly past 

32 1/4 Road. Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis said there are no plans yet for an access road to the property, but it possibly could be from F 1/2 Road behind the Central Distributing building.