At least $20 million in local tax dollars will be spent over the next few years reclaiming “No Man’s Land,” a stretch of west Colorado Avenue long plagued by poor drainage, no sidewalks and general blight.

The strip of Colorado Avenue from 31st Street to the Manitou Springs city limits earned the moniker “no man’s land” because it seemed to belong to no one. A piece of road in unincorporated El Paso County, sandwiched by city of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, it has been neglected, and looks it.

For years, El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark and others have been pushing to change that by redesigning sections of the area, giving it sidewalks and even getting the city to annex parts of it.

This year, the Westside Avenue Action Plan aims to remedy much of what ails the strip of Colorado Avenue by improving its look and infrastructure with a project to be funded through the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority.

Plans unveiled during a Tuesday El Paso County commissioners meeting show that the project could transform “No Man’s Land.”

“Somehow it got the name ‘No Man’s Land,’ but now it’s everyone’s land, because everyone has come together to support this project,” Clark said.

While neglected, the corridor is busy. Lined with stores, restaurants, inns and bed and breakfasts, the area is nonetheless considered a gateway to tourism for the area.

Tourists passing through “No Man’s Land” are heading to Manitou Springs, or Garden of the Gods. But the area can be a less-than-ideal place to run a business – owners have grappled with the challenges of sitting in two law enforcement jurisdictions.

The plan brings together the county, the city, Manitou Springs and the Colorado Department of Transportation to engineer fixes for the area, and on Tuesday, Steve Murray, the project’s leader, told the commissioners that the final designs are 90 percent complete. The design will be finalized in April, and construction is expected to begin in the fall and continue until the end of 2018, Murray said.

“It will start with a lot of storm and sewer design,” he said. “That’s a lot of the construction you will see this fall.”

The project is an ambitious, multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the area, complete with at least one permanent closure on Ridge Road, new bridges and two new intersections. But a hefty price tag is attached to utility work – namely putting miles of electric lines underground. The utility work alone could cost between $3.5 million and $4 million, said Murray, a lead consultant with Felsburg, Holt & Ullevig, the firm responsible for the project’s design.

The hope is that Colorado Springs Utilities will cover some of that cost, Murray said. Utilities has not yet determined what its role in cost-sharing will be, said Steve Berry, a spokesman for Utilities.

The project design tackles improvements in two main areas, along Ridge Road and Columbia Road. Under the new plan, the northern portion of Ridge Road will be closed, and pinched off to create a t-intersection with a traffic light. The closed part of the road will become a landscaped island with trails and a bus stop, said Murray.

Work along Columbia Road also promises to be extensive. A new bridge will be built over Adams Crossing, and 1,000 feet of Fountain Creek will be realigned. The project will also build a new pedestrian bridge, to the tune of $500,000, over Fountain Creek near the Manitou Springs city entrance.

The project has also set aside $150,000 for new street lights in the area, and could involve some voluntary property acquisitions, Clark said.