Fourth Street Crossing is slowly but surely coming together with the parking garage open and the Bluebird Market and Indigo Hotel expected to open this fall.

As Fourth Street Crossing is bringing the town of Silverthorne’s dream of a downtown area to life, the town also expects more development of the areas surrounding the project on Adams Avenue. The town owns some of the surrounding land and will look into moving its public works campus to make room for more downtown activity.

Among other improvements, the roads around the development now have street parking and curbs, gutters and sidewalks.

Silverthorne Town Manager Ryan Hyland and Assistant Town Manager Mark Leidal said adding this infrastructure furthers the downtown feel the town is looking to create. They want the businesses in and surrounding Fourth Street Crossing to be easily accessible to pedestrians.

“What we desperately needed is what we have now and what will continue expanding out,” Hyland said. “The pedestrian is your primary focus in the downtown; auto is something you accommodate.”

Leidal added that Adams Avenue now has stop signs on most blocks to slow down traffic.

“You don’t drive down Frisco Main Street or Breck at 40 miles an hour,” Hyland said.

Another aspect the development will create is an alley that will run between Blue River Parkway and Adams Avenue, which Hyland said he hopes will one day lead from the future Fourth North development all the way to the Blue Village of the Outlets at Silverthorne. It will primarily serve pedestrians but will be open for cars to access the hotel and townhouses, as well.

“It creates just another extension of the downtown,” Leidal said about the alley.

The Old Dillon Inn will also have an access point from the alley so that folks can visit the bar after the rest of the market closes, contributing to the speakeasy vibe the market’s developers hope to see come to fruition. Fourth Street Crossing developer Milender White is still looking for the right operator to take over the Old Dillon Inn.

Leidal added that right across Blue River Parkway is pedestrian access to the Town Center, including the pavilion, Silverthorne Performing Arts Center and the recreation center. He said the idea is to have more walkable spaces in town that aren’t directly along the parkway.

Timeline

The parking garage is now open and free to the public to use. Parking for the Mint is permanently relocated to the garage as a pedestrian plaza is being constructed around it.

“We wanted to create some density to create a downtown environment,” Leidal said. He said while the parking garage will be partially hidden by other aspects of the development, it is meant to serve all of the restaurants and retail stores in Fourth Street Crossing.

The top level of the parking garage is where Silverthorne will host its August First Friday celebration from 5:30-8:30 p.m. Aug. 6 with live music from Alma’s Split Window. Vendors that will move into the Bluebird Market, such as Colorado Marketplace and Bakery, will have food available for purchase at the event.

Scott Vollmer, director of property operations with Milender White, said this will be an opportunity to introduce the community to the space.

“That’ll be a really great showcase for us to show off the site and have people enjoy the great views from the top of the parking garage overlooking the Gore Range,” Vollmer said.

The transit station should open within the parking garage any day now. Vollmer said they are just waiting for the ink to dry on their agreement with Summit Stage to use the space.

Vollmer said he is hopeful to get the market open as soon as possible but that it is hard to predict how tenant improvements within the market will go now that the external shell is just about complete. He said the market is basically opening 12 restaurants under one roof, which can make coordinating difficult.

Most of the market will be filled by food vendors, but Vollmer said the three 500-square-foot retail spaces in the building will rotate inhabitants often to continuously attract different pop-up style businesses.

“It’s going to be a little bit more of like a revolving or rotating mix of retail concepts,” Vollmer said.

The townhouses, which Leidal said are sold out, will also have the opportunity for commercial storefronts or offices on the ground floor along Adams Avenue and Third Street.

Future plans

Milender White also has most of the next block north under contract with preliminary site approval. A small apartment area and the old fire station, which is owned by the town, will stay in place, and a final site plan for the rest of the area will go to council this fall.

Hyland said the proposed project — known as Fourth North — is likely to have a hotel and parking garage as well as more mixed-use residential and retail buildings. It will also include more than 130 bedrooms within several shared apartment rentals for workforce housing.

Tim Fredregill, development executive with Milender White, said tenants in these units would rent out a bedroom and bathroom within what is likely to be a four-bedroom, four-bathroom unit, catering to the more transient workforce in the county. The apartment building would include a courtyard with amenities like barbecue fire pits, patio heaters and a clubroom.

Fredregill said the Fourth North area would be another pedestrian friendly area where the alley meets with a central plaza larger than what will be at Fourth Street Crossing.

“It’s basically feeding off the energy of Fourth Street Crossing and continuing some of those same themes as you move to the north,” Fredregill said.

An additional parking garage in this area will also feature a 65-foot outdoor climbing wall on its exterior.

“We think it’s going to stay fresh enough with the intricacy of what the parking wall folks are designing on it that there’s going to be both moderate routes and more aggressive routes,” Fredregill said.

He added that they are looking for a business to manage the climbing wall in conjunction with a small retail space inside the garage, preferably an outdoor industry focused operation.