Another year of expansive growth is on the horizon for Colorado Springs in 2024.

Residents can expect the shape of the city to change as the next phase of development is likely to continue in the sprawling 24,000-acre Banning Lewis Ranch on the city’s far eastern edge. Looking to make its debut in 2024, a new outdoor amphitheater on the city’s far north side hopes to open in the summer. Developer Norwood Development Group and a joint venture by The O’Neil Group and Kansas City, Mo.-based VeLa Development Partners all seek to transform downtown Colorado Springs, with both groups proposing plans for new high-rise office and apartment buildings.

A proposed 36-story apartment building with 497 units, five parking levels with 489 spaces and 41,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities has been proposed on the southwest corner of a block bounded by Sahwatch and Costilla streets and Cascade and Vermijo avenues in downtown Colorado Springs.

COURTESY of THE O’NEIL GROUP; LAMAR JOHNSON COLLABORATIVE

The dominant smokestacks of the 100-year-old Martin Drake Power Plant will be gone from the downtown skyline by the end of the year as Colorado Springs Utilities continues demolition of the plant. The city will then begin the process with residents to decide what to do with the site.

In the courtroom, the trial of Jon Hallford and Carie Hallford could begin this year. The Hallfords, owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home, face more than 250 felony charges related to the improper storage of 190 bodies at a building in Penrose, which law enforcement raided in early October.

In July, crews worked to demolish the decommissioned Martin Drake Power Plant in downtown Colorado Springs as new apartments were being built in the background.

Christian Murdock, Gazette file

Leadership across the Pikes Peak region will also change hands in 2024, as voters decide various municipal and countywide elections in the spring and fall. The towns of Calhan and Green Mountain Falls and the city of Woodland Park will hold municipal elections in early April. In November, the towns of Palmer Lake and Monument will have their municipal elections. Countywide elections in El Paso and Teller counties will also take place in November.

Here are some things we anticipate 2024 has in store for Colorado Springs and nearby communities:

• Fort Carson troops could return to Europe as part of ongoing work to deter Russian aggression against NATO countries. The timing of a deployment has not been announced.

• The federal government will create a new single-component Space Force in 2024 that will allow members to flow between part-time and full-time positions. The new component is expected to absorb the 310th Space Wing at Schriever Space Force Base. The wing currently has 1,300 airmen assigned to it and it is the only wing in the Air Force Reserve with space duties. For example, the wing provides a backup command and control center for satellites that provide strategic and tactical weather prediction.

• The town of Monument could decide between joining two major multimillion-dollar water projects. The Northern Delivery System could delivery water to Monument from Pueblo Reservoir. The Loop system could allow the town to receive its own groundwater for reuse. The town is waiting on more precise cost estimates from The Loop.

• Jon Hallford and Carie Hallford, owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home, are due in El Paso County court for their preliminary hearings on Jan. 4 and Jan. 11, respectively. The couple faces more than 250 felony charges in the improper storage of 190 bodies at a building in Penrose, which law enforcement raided in early October. The charges relate to abuse of a corpse, forgery, theft and money laundering. In November, the Hallfords were arrested in Oklahoma after allegedly fleeing Colorado to avoid prosecution. Their trial could begin in 2024.

• The Colorado Springs Planning Commission is expected to hold a hearing Jan. 10 on proposed changes to the next phase of development in the 24,000-acre Banning Lewis Ranch community on Colorado Springs’ far eastern edge.

Homebuilder Oakwood Homes proposes transforming 502 acres of the 511-acre project area predominantly into residential uses and building between 1,381 to 3,146 planned units. Developers propose rezoning about 9 acres in the southwest corner of the site to designate it for commercial use. A master plan amendment plans for two parks totaling 15 acres in Village B2, down from about 34 acres of park space shown on the current master plan.

Oakwood Homes in mid-November requested postponing the hearing until after the new year to allow time to better understand resident concerns about the project and provide the community more information. A resident petition on Change.org to stop the proposed amendments to the master plan had 1,139 signatures as of the morning of Dec. 27.

• El Paso County Public Health expects to largely complete an extensive remodel of a satellite site in Fountain along U.S. 85/87 by Jan. 31.

The department purchased the 30,403-square-foot area in 2020 with $2.4 million in federal funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and used the site during the pandemic to provide COVID-19 vaccinations and testing. In 2022, the health department began a remodel of the facility, costing just over $1 million.

When it reopens, the area is expected to house staff that provide immunizations and run the Woman, Infants and Children program. Other on-site staff will work with the Fountain Valley Communities That Care program. The site also features a conference space to host gatherings up to 500 people.

• Manitou Springs expects to start the long-awaited remodel of the more than century-old Carnegie Library at 701 Manitou Ave. in February. The $4.5 million project has been in the works since 2015. The work will update the structure that opened in 1911 and was built in the classical Italian Renaissance style. The general contractor, Centennial-based Fransen Pittman, estimates construction will take 8½ months to complete.

• The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum is expected to reopen sometime in March. The historic 120-year-old downtown building closed temporarily beginning July 25 to undergo an eight-month, $6.2 million capital project installing a new heating and air system inside the former courthouse that will also improve exhibit space. During construction, the building has been closed to the public. Officials opened a Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum annex across the lawn at Plaza of the Rockies to display new exhibits during the museum’s closure.

• The towns of Calhan and Green Mountain Falls in El Paso County, and the city of Woodland Park in Teller County, will hold municipal elections this April. Later in 2024, in November, the towns of Palmer Lake and Monument in El Paso County will hold municipal elections. Countywide elections in El Paso and Teller counties will also take place in November, with voters selecting board of county commissioners seats in both governments — in districts 2, 3 and 4 in El Paso County and in districts 1 and 3 in Teller County.

• Two major downtown building projects are expected to be in the spotlight in 2024 as they move through the Colorado Springs city government planning and review process and their developers seek to launch construction later in the year.

Norwood Development Group, the Springs real estate company whose projects over several decades have included shopping centers, residential developments and apartments, plans to construct a 12-story, 194,000-square-foot office building on the northeast corner of Cimarron and Sahwatch streets.

It would be downtown’s first high-rise office project since Norwood built the 13-story south tower of the Plaza of the Rockies, which opened in 2001.

Norwood aims to begin construction of the 12-story building — to be called 30 West — in 2024 and complete it two years later. Besides offices, the building’s amenities would include a rooftop lounge, fitness center, golf simulator and other features designed to attract employers and give their workers a reason to come back to the office from their remote work space.

Meanwhile, a 36-story high-rise with 497 apartments has been proposed for Sahwatch and Costilla streets in downtown by a joint venture composed of The O’Neil Group, a Springs-based private equity company whose projects include the Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation business park, and VeLa Development Partners of Kansas City, Mo.

The apartment tower, to be called VeLa Peakview, would become Colorado Springs’ tallest-ever building and would be designed to appeal to renters who want to be close to downtown employers and amenities such as coffee shops, restaurants, bars, museums and entertainment centers.

The O’Neil Group and VeLa Development have targeted construction to begin next September, with completion by December 2026.

• Notes Live, a Colorado Springs entertainment company, has targeted a summer opening for the Sunset Amphitheater, an 8,000-seat, open-air amphitheater that’s under construction at the Polaris Pointe commercial and retail development, southeast of Interstate 25 and North Gate Boulevard on the city’s far north side.

The Sunset, with VIP seating, fire pits and a separate restaurant and event center, would host A-list entertainers and performers and provide Springs residents with a local music venue comparable to Red Rocks and Fiddler’s Green in the Denver area.

A civil lawsuit, however, has challenged the project, saying amphitheater concerts would violate a state noise ordinance. That lawsuit is pending.

• The Colorado Springs Airport will mark its 30th year in the fall.

The facility, on the city’s far southeast side, opened in October 1994; a half-dozen airlines currently serve the Springs Airport, with nonstop flights to Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, D.C., Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City, among other cities.

Springs officials have lauded the airport as a more convenient alternative to Denver International Airport. They’ve also watched as the airport’s Peak Innovation Park, a business park, has taken off in recent years with the addition of a massive, nearly 4 million-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center and the presence of defense contractor Northrop Grumman and research nonprofit Aerospace Corp.

• Kroger and Albertsons, the parent companies of King Soopers and Safeway, could merge in 2024, under a proposal by the grocers. The merger still needs approval from federal regulators.

The two chains said in September they plan to sell off more than 400 stores nationwide under their merger, including 52 in Colorado. King Soopers stores were not expected to be among those units to be sold, a Kroger spokeswoman said at the time; that suggests Safeway stores would be candidates among the 52 units to be sold in Colorado.

A Kroger spokeswoman said in September that the location of stores to be sold was unknown.

• Goodbye Kum & Go; hello to more Maveriks. The Utah-based Maverik convenience store chain completed its purchase of rival Kum & Go of Iowa in 2023. As a result, 120 to 140 Kum & Go stores in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming — including about two dozen in the Colorado Springs area — will be re-branded as Maveriks starting in January, chain officials have said.

• Colorado Springs Utilities officials expect demolition of the 100-year-old Martin Drake Power Plant to finish by the end of summer 2024. Final grading and reseeding of the site where the plant currently sits, one of the last remaining urban power plants in the nation, should be completed in the fall, with full project completion estimated for the end of 2024.

Utilities’ operations likely won’t be completely removed from the location until around 2030, including the electric substation just south of the old Drake structures and relocating six new modular natural gas generating units that now stand where coal once piled up near the plant. As for remediation, the city-owned utility will take the site to “brownfield” status at the end of demolition efforts.

The Colorado Springs City Council, whose members also make up the Colorado Springs Utilities Board of Directors, will then work with residents to decide what to do with the site.