Parks brief Landmarks Board on Civic Area Phase 2; board urges care preserving band shell, ditch and historic features

Boulder Parks and Recreation and design firm Rios presented an update on Civic Area Phase 2 to the Landmarks Board on Sept. 3, seeking feedback on a preservation‑focused framework for future enhancements to the Huntington Bandshell and related civic‑area features. Staff emphasized early‑stage concept work and asked the board for guidance rather than formal approvals.

Project manager Shihomi Kurigawa said the city is working from the 2015 Civic Area master plan and currently has about $18 million budgeted for Phase 2, with funding likely to focus on Central Park improvements. “With that, we do have $18,000,000 in funding,” Kurigawa said, and she described an iterative design process that will return to the board for specific landmark alteration requests.

Nut graf: The presentation combined heritage research and a National Park Service‑sponsored guidebook approach for historic outdoor theaters, asking the Landmarks Board to endorse a framework that balances preservation of the visitor’s landscape experience with contemporary program, accessibility and safety needs. Public comment and Historic Boulder advocates urged daylighting and protecting the city’s historic irrigation ditch and the Huntington Bandshell’s character‑defining seating.

Rios urban designer Abby Stone reviewed case studies, including Red Rocks and the All Hallows amphitheater in Washington, D.C., to show how other historic outdoor venues balanced modern production needs with landscape experience. Stone quoted the guidebook’s finding that “the integrity of Hoyt’s simple plane squeezed between the majestic Rocks has endured” and said lessons from multiple precedents could inform careful upgrades rather than wholesale replacement.

Historic Boulder and several public speakers asked the board to preserve the daylit Boulder/White Rock irrigation ditch that runs toward the farmers market and to avoid altering character‑defining elements of the Huntington Bandshell. Leonard Siegel, representing Historic Boulder, said the Huntington Bandshell’s seats are “a character defining feature” and warned that altering them without reviewing redesign plans would conflict with preservation standards. Margo Smith and other public commenters urged that the irrigation ditch be kept visible for its educational and historic value.

Parks staff and designers proposed a nine‑step framework drawn from the National Park Service‑funded guidebook Preserving Landscape Experience in Historic Outdoor Theaters. The framework calls for formally recognizing preservation of the landscape experience as a project goal; assembling a core stakeholder group to represent visitor experience; documenting the theater’s historic relationship to the landscape; hiring a multidisciplinary design team with theater‑production expertise; and analyzing how terraces, seating, stage structure, trees and circulation shape visitor experience and accessibility.

Board members broadly supported the framework while emphasizing caution. Chelsea Castellano said the project should not “freeze” the theater in time but must guard the threshold where proposed changes could jeopardize the structure’s integrity. Board member Michael Ray called for acoustical expertise and noted that non‑event day uses and everyday safety are key issues. Members repeatedly recommended early engagement with Colorado Preservation, Inc.’s Endangered Places program and careful language about Frederick Law Olmsted: several speakers reminded the board that Olmsted Jr., not Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., had direct involvement in the region.

Parks staff said the project team will continue design development, integrate stakeholder feedback (including safety and social‑behavior strategies) and return with more detailed proposals and any formal landmark alteration applications as designs are refined. No board action was requested or taken at the meeting; staff will bring specific LAC applications back to the Landmarks Board when design details are mature.

Ending: The board endorsed the concept of a preservation‑forward framework and urged that future proposals include documented trade‑offs, acoustic and accessibility analyses, and explicit treatment of the irrigation ditch’s history and status before any decision about covering or burying it.