Pueblo West no longer a dusty frontier town
June 26, 2005
Under normal circumstances, there would be little reason to doubt that most growth in Pueblo County will continue to occur in the Pueblo West area in the foreseeable future. The U.S. Army made that a virtual certainty last week with the recommendation that Fort Carson’s headquarters flag be changed from the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment to the much larger 4th Infantry Division.
It could be several years for the change to be complete, if approved by Congress this year, but it eventually could mean that the assigned troop size of Fort Carson could double from 14,500 to as many as 30,000.
Don Saling, who said the sparsely populated northern area of the Pueblo West Metropolitan District already has experienced growth from Fort Carson families, definitely would become home to many 4th Infantry Division personnel.
“It’s where the most affordable land is available for houses” within desirable commuting distance from the army post, he said. “There’s just not much else available.”
He said lots are still priced as little as $7,000 in north Pueblo West, nearest Fort Carson, which is considerably more affordable than residential building sites to the south. Housing and building lots further north, in southern El Paso County, are becoming fewer in number and far more pricey.
If the military-headquarters shift happens, it will put more pressure on Pueblo West to change its status from an unincorporated metro district to an actual city – a transition that already has been discussed but faces political resistance.
Regardless, it would put more pressure on the city of Pueblo to confront growth issues outside its municipal boundaries, where Pueblo West already has had an impact on politics, economics and public policies.
Whenever residential growth occurs, commercial growth is sure to follow.
As things now stand, Pueblo has enjoyed a tax bonanza from the boom-like growth in Pueblo West, since most of its residents spend their dollars – and their sales tax – in the city. But if commercial development begins to accelerate in Pueblo West, the older city will see its sales-tax revenue drained.
The first big shift of that kind will occur next year, when a new Wal-Mart Supercenter opens in Pueblo West and customers stop driving into Pueblo to buy groceries, clothes, toys, household appliances, jewelry and thousands of other consumer items. Even automotive supplies and gasoline will be available at the new Wal-Mart, further loosening the commercial neck-lock that Pueblo has had on Pueblo West residents.
As auxiliary growth occurs around the superstore, outlets offering banking, liquor sales, automotive services and sit-down restaurant services will open in Pueblo West, weakening Pueblo’s consumer pull.
Of course, jobs will be created, which will help ease the critical unemployment rate in Pueblo – to a small degree. Pueblo West residents will scramble to fill the new employment demand, which number 400 jobs at the Wal-Mart supercenter alone. But as business is drained from Pueblo, the employment base there will be threatened temporarily.
The evolution portends an indefinable but undeniable change in dynamics between Pueblo and Pueblo West, a relationship that hasn’t been all that comfortable in the past.
In the past, Pueblo has had a strong advantage in recruiting new businesses, and its heavily Democratic base has dominated regional political issues, but as Pueblo West grows its consumer base and predominantly Republican political registration is changing the county’s balance.
When a Pueblo city councilman spoke last week at a Pueblo West civic group, someone in the audience whispered about the possibility of Pueblo West changing its name to distance itself from the seemingly intransigent image of Pueblo as an industrial, gentrifying city.
The army’s announcement last week puts a more-pressing demand on Pueblo to include the Pueblo West factor in its planning – and its attitudes – on issues ranging from transportation to business development to social services to job training to community aesthetics.
In the past, Pueblo could look across a stretch of prairie and ridicule the little, dusty development on the western horizon. But those days are far gone now, whether Puebloans recognize it or not.
And if Fort Carson nearly doubles its personnel size, it only accelerates the rate of evolution in Pueblo County.
