Arnold to Fill a Hole with 24 Football Fields Worth of Dirt

A one-acre parcel of land at the corner of Jeffco Boulevard and Ridgecrest Drive will be filled with construction dirt collected from Hwy 141 road improvements and a . The dirt is free, but the expense of clearing the land, moving a water line and adding both storm and sanitary sewers will cost the city $242,926.

Two nearby homes on Ridgecrest Drive and the former location of Arnold Rental on Jeffco Blvd will benefit from the site improvement. In exchange for allowing the city to fill under their properties, Arnold will bring a sewer line up to the homes and business, said Greg Hall, Arnold’s director of administration.

Community Development Director Mary Holden said the city had acquired the scrap of unusable property some time ago.

Hall said they plan to fill the city-owned property with 37,800 cubic yards of fill dirt from current construction projects. That’s the equivalent of a football field with a mound of dirt 24 feet tall.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in that corner,” said Hall. He noted that the neighboring former location of Arnold Rental is for sale, which might lead to an interested buyer purchasing both lots.

Hall said that utilities are currently being moved at the fill site, to make way for dirt from the two construction projects. One of the projects is the addition of a fourth lane to the intersection of Hwy 141 nearby . The other project is leveling a parcel of land for a future CVS Pharmacy near the Applebee’s at Hwy 141 and JeffCo Blvd.

Hall estimated Arnold's portion of the construction projects will be complete by next spring. At that time the CVS property will be ready for construction and the corner of Ridgecrest Drive and Jeffco Blvd will be ready for sale.