Yampa Street, located in the heart of downtown Steamboat Springs, runs parallel to the Yampa River from 5th Street to 12th Street and is approximately a half mile in length. The roadway corridor provides access to a mixed-use district with properties on both sides of the road. Along the corridor, there are numerous restaurant and retail stores, the city Core Trail runs parallel to the road for a number of blocks, and the road serves as an important interface with properties along the downtown side of the Yampa River.  Owing to its roots as a former industrial zoned area of the city, there is a lack of defined drainage and pedestrian order. However, the roadway has now become a very active pedestrian and bicycle use area.

The existing road includes two asphalt paved travel lanes, internment bike lanes, intermittent sidewalk and a mixture of parallel, diagonal and back-in diagonal public parking spaces. Sidewalks exist in portions of the corridor but do not provide continuous linkage on both sides of the road. The roadway corridor experiences significant traffic, pedestrian, and bicycle use, especially in the summer months. Parking and pedestrian movement issues are exacerbated by snow storage in the winter months. The eight side-streets connecting to Yampa Street serve as the primary access points to the corridor and have significant turning movements during peak times. Currently there is no public transit use on this road but it does accept many private shuttle destination trips during all times of the year. As a result of the numerous businesses lining Yampa Street there is also a volume of truck deliveries. The road has been overlaid with asphalt several times during but the exact pavement depth is not known. Numerous dry and wet utilities lie within the roadway and right-of-way.

Much of Yampa Street lies within the Yampa River floodplain and development of properties along the frontage, especially between the road and the river, are challenged to comply with floodplain regulations.

In 2015, the Steamboat Springs City Council authorized staff to move forward with a targeted three year Downtown Improvement Program and hired Landmark as the lead consultant.

Our professional services includes significant property owner and public coordination efforts including public presentations and one-on-one meetings to describe project design, construction timing and impacts, details associated with assessment of sidewalk cost to the property owner, access and service connection interruptions, potential negotiation for utility and/or temporary construction easements, and encouragement for private property owners to undertake private amenities and landscaping efforts.