Triview Metropolitan District’s new home in Monument was officially welcomed by the community on the tails of a new intergovernmental agreement with the town.

Triview Metro officials celebrated the opening of the district’s new building on Aug. 14 in Monument with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house, giving residents and community partners an opportunity to tour the facility and learn more about the infrastructure and services managed by the district.

Jason Gross, president of the Triview board of directors, welcomed attendees and recognized representatives from local government, community organizations, developers, builders and other agencies that work alongside the district.

“To make a great community, it takes all of us to do that,” Gross said. “Thank you for being our partners with Triview, and we’re looking forward to doing that more in the future.”

Gross also recognized his fellow board members and emphasized the distinction between the role of elected directors and the professional staff responsible for the district’s day-to-day operations.

“Elected officials are only as good as the paid professional staff that actually do the hard work of caring for our community,” he said. “We may be good at our own jobs, but we’re not experts in water infrastructure, quality control, wastewater treatment or roads.”

Gross said the new building itself was made possible through the expertise and leadership of Triview’s professional staff.

The district operates with about 25 employees responsible for a broad range of services, including water infrastructure and quality, wastewater collection, roads, inspections, parks, open space and equipment.

During a tour following the ribbon cutting, Gross provided attendees with a snapshot of the amount of infrastructure managed by the relatively small staff. He said Triview maintains about 130 miles of roadway, 68 miles of potable water mains, 47 miles of sewer lines and 539 fire hydrants.

The district serves about 7,500 residents and has more than 2,200 water taps, including roughly 2,000 single-family homes and 80 commercial properties. Triview also maintains about 10 parks and playgrounds and oversees about 2,500 acres which include open space and landscaped areas.

“As you can see, those 25 people are very, very busy,” Gross said. “They’re covering a lot.”

The building was also designed to reflect its Monument surroundings. Gross pointed out the facility was positioned specifically to provide a view of Mount Herman from its main conference room. Displays throughout the building provide visitors with a look at Triview’s service area, infrastructure and history.

In lieu of its history, copies of a 1987 article from The Gazette were on display which discussed Monument’s annexation of the Triview area. Gross said Monument had a population of about 900 at the time, while the annexation created the potential for the town to grow to more than 7,000 residents.

“It’s really fun to read, because the issues they talk about in 1987 are the same issues we’re dealing with today,” Gross said.

District General Manager Jim McGrady used the tour to highlight the employees responsible for overseeing the district’s infrastructure, including Senior Public Works Inspector and Project Manager Tom Martinez, who joined Triview after previously working for the Town of Monument.

“Tom has been exceptionally involved with all of the roads and inspections, helps design. Anything public works, Tom does,” McGrady said.

Martinez has been particularly involved with the ongoing Higby Road project, he said.

“He spends a lot of time at Higby Road, probably about eight hours a day out there,” McGrady said. “That project, if you don’t know, is doing exceptionally well.”

The opening comes as Triview and the Town of Monument are strengthening their cooperation on transportation planning. On Aug. 3, the Monument Town Council voted 7-0 to approve an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with Triview to jointly develop an area-wide transportation plan. Town officials said the data-driven study will identify transportation needs, roadway and intersection improvements, bicycle and pedestrian connections and other projects necessary to accommodate future growth.

The partnership developed after Monument and Triview officials discovered they were separately considering studies of many of the same roads and transportation issues. Rather than conduct parallel studies, the two entities developed a joint scope of work intended to serve both the district and the broader Monument community.

Triview agreed to pay half the cost of the transportation plan. The resulting document is expected to help Monument and Triview identify needed infrastructure improvements, estimate their costs and determine what portion should be paid by developers whose projects contribute to increased traffic and infrastructure demands.

The agreement also addresses lessons learned from previous projects such as Higby Road. During the council discussion, officials said earlier planning for the road did not provide enough information to accurately determine what developers should contribute toward improvements, leaving Monument and Triview to address costs as the project’s full scope became clearer.

The new transportation plan is designed to provide a more comprehensive picture of how individual developments affect traffic throughout the community rather than evaluating projects solely on a case-by-case basis.

For Gross, the new headquarters also provides an opportunity to show residents what happens behind the scenes to provide the services they use every day. During his opening remarks, he invited attendees to view photographs and displays of Triview’s infrastructure throughout Colorado, including the systems responsible for supplying the district’s water.

“When you turn the tap, you have good water,” Gross said. “We’re very proud of what we do, and we’re happy to show it off to you.”

In July 1987, the Monument Town Board unanimously approved annexation of the 1,674-acre Regency Park development, extending the town south to Baptist Road and nearly tripling its size. The development envisioned 2,574 homes and significant commercial and industrial growth, with a projected population of about 7,000 compared with Monument’s residents at the time.

Developers ultimately brought the entire property into Monument and established a metropolitan district to help fund roads, water, sewer and other infrastructure. Town officials viewed annexation as a way for Monument to help guide the rapid growth already beginning between Monument and Colorado Springs.