Minutes after several agencies broke ground on the new Summit House atop Pikes Peak on June 4, Jim Johnson outlined the challenge his construction company would have in building the new complex.
"We do like challenges, and every project is unique," said Johnson, who’s CEO of GE Johnson. "We start blasting again on [June] 26th, and you’ll see a full summer of activity."
A strong storm halted traffic from both visitors and workers on the mountain Tuesday, but construction actually hasn’t been all that active this summer.
The three-year project has been stalled, said Jack Glavan, manager of America’s Mountain.
"Right now, we’re in a slight delay as we complete the memorandum of agreement requirements that the Forest Service and Parks Service have requested," Glavan said.
Glavan said construction workers are waiting for results of an historical landscape analysis on top of Pikes Peak as a way to limit the impacts of new construction on the mountain’s historical components.
"Previous ones including the Army Weather Station and the auto summit house have been with us since the early 1900s and 1950s. So, they’re very historic. We’re on a national historic landmark above 14,000 feet," Glavan said.
In the mean time, Glavan said crews have focused on temporary utility connections. They’re waiting to start construction of the actual summit house itself, a $50 million project years in the making.
"So, right now, we’ve completed the field work, and we’re just waiting for basically the approval that that’s all been accepted. And then, we should be able to start again," Glavan said.
Glavan told News 5 he expects the hiccup to be cleared up in a matter of days.
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(January 2018) The Pikes Peak summit complex gets a new completion schedule
