Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado received close to $1 million in state funding to purchase and install broadband equipment across the region.
The money granted by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs will go toward connecting five Southwest Colorado data centers into a statewide fiber network called the Alpine Loop. Data centers are locations that store computing machines and their related hardware equipment.
If all goes well, the loop will branch from Denver to Grand Junction into Southwest Colorado and then out toward Walsenburg.
The equipment will connect the five data center carrier neutral locations to the loop. A carrier neutral location is a location that is not owned or operated by a service provider.
The data centers will be located in Pagosa Springs, Bayfield, Durango, Mancos and Cortez.
Last year, Region 9 completed a road map of what was needed to complete the broadband connection of the middle mile for the five-county region.
“For economic development, it's huge because right now we're limited in terms of (access to) telehealth, online education and remote work,” said Region 9 Executive Director Laura Lewis Marchino. “All of those things are impacted if somebody doesn't have reliable service.”
Now, the organization is trying to piece together funding to make it a reality. Earlier this year, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe lit up their broadband connection for which the tribe received over $60 million in state funding.
Rural areas of Southwest Colorado are the primary focus for Region 9 as residents and businesses in locations like on the Montezuma-La Plata county border near Mancos have struggled to have reliable service.
The data centers will be carrier-neutral and won’t favor any particular internet service provider, Marchino said.
She added that Region 9 and local governments are trying to help construct a way to connect to the loop rather than having a private company conduct the work.
“If they had to build the whole highway and then connect all the houses, they wouldn't do it,” she said.
She said that is because the return on investment for private companies isn’t worth the money put into those large-scale projects.
To further propel economic development in the area, Region 9 also secured two other grants.
One was a $34,000 grant from DOLA for support training and data platforms that strengthen the skills for regional economic development professionals.
“It's really important for our economy that we have trained people and we’re not competing with each other across county lines (for talent),” Marchino said.
She said part of economic development is understanding infrastructural needs and sometimes traditional education does not cover those topics.
The organization plans to host four events this year educating economic development professionals in those areas.
Also, Region 9 will receive a $90,000 grant to work with Eco Strat USA to identify timber industry assets. The grant was a request by Archuleta County officials for timber removal contracts.
With different methods of fire mitigation such as thinning becoming more popular, Region 9 is tasked to evaluate how the industry can grow.
“We're trying to do an assessment of what our timber industry looks like right now, and what's missing,” Marchino said. “What can we do so that everyone wins? Do we need a pellet mill? Do we need to have more truckers?”
She said contracts for wood removal on public lands are in demand.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
