LAKE PUEBLO — Lake Pueblo State Park's North Shore Marina will look different this summer. Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced the North Shore Marina will be closing on April 1, 2025 and is scheduled for demolition on July 1, 2025.
WATCH: North Shore Marina at Lake Pueblo State Park to close on April 1
The marina is under the management of the Colorado Springs-based O'Neil Group, which took over the lease in November of 2022 after the former owners could no longer financially maintain the marina.
Kelli O'Neil is the operations manager at the North Shore Marina. She said they were working on an agreement with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW).
“We believe even today that we had an outstanding working relationship with CPW. They were good partners to us,” said O'Neil.
She said when the O'Neil Group took over operations of the North Shore Marina, they were aware the docks needed to be fixed.
“Just was a little more complicated, and we knew that going in that we would have to replace the docs,” said O'Neil.
O'Neil said the docs are the original ones and are decades old. She said they agreed with the state to replace these docks and improve the marina.
“Well, the Marina itself is a big lift, and it will run us somewhere between 17 and 18 and a half million,” said O'Neil.
She said that was a price they were willing to pay, and the O'Neil Group had begun making plans to fix it.
“We hired engineers, architects, designers. We traveled to different places in the United States to look at marina’s and kind of chose what we thought would be the best design to fix our needs and the community around us. So, we are truly at the tail end of all of our engineering sets of plans,” said O'Neil.
She said the final straw came from other state requirements that she says we're not financially feasible.
“If it weren't for the issue of the bottom, you know, this is a viable project,” said O'Neil.
She said CPW asked them to clean up the lake bottom below the marina.
“We don't even know what exposure is down there, the dock, carts. We know there's multiple boats, grills, umbrellas, gas tanks, motors, you name it. It's down there,” said O'Neil. “So when it ended up being in the last contract, we had no idea what the scope was and what the expectation was. We didn't have it, we didn't have the equipment for it. We don't have the specialty divers."
She said they did not want to commit to a project when they did not know how many items were below the marina and how much it would cost to remove them.
“I think we thought it would probably be in the hundreds of 1000s of dollars to clean it up, and that's if we didn't hit an EPA issue,” said O'Neil.
Several long-time visitors and people who dock their boats and jet skis at the north shore showed up at the North Shore Marina to voice their concerns and frustrations about it being demolished.
‘“It's horrible,” said Shane Tilley.
“It's super frustrating,” said Chirs Howlett, who keeps his house boat at the marina.
Howlett says it is his family’s weekend getaway.
“Now we do not get to do that,” said Howlett. “I have worked my whole life, my goal was to get a house boat and now I have to pull it out.”
Howlett is trying to find a new home for his boat called the Sea Wolf, but he only has around two weeks before it has to be out of the water.
Howlett said he has to get creative.
“I actually had to take a leave of absence from work to build a boat trailer, to take my boat out of the water,” said Howlett.
He said several other people are in his position.
Cole McCarthy said he and his parents have been coming to the marina for years. McCarthy has a boat he likes to surf behind and said he has made countless summer memories slipping his boat up at the North Shore Marina.
“Come down for the night, spend the evening, you know, cruise and watch the sunset, have dinner. It is sad to hear it is being taken away from us. It is just something we all enjoyed as a community. It's disheartening and horrible,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy said he is thankful that he has a trailer for his boat, but he knows others are struggling to find a place their boat is going to go. He said going forward, they will have to pull out the boat every time instead of leaving it at the marina.
“This has been an awesome place for us to enjoy for a number of years,” said McCarthy.
Tilley, McCarthy and Howlett are not alone. Many families and long timers are sad to hear the news the marina is closing. Several boat owners said they would do anything they could to save the North Shore Marina.
O'Neil said they had a good relationship with CPW, but ultimately it came down to cost.
One of the boat owners, Dustin Jones, says his biggest question for CPW is about a long term plan.
News5 asked that question to CPW for answers. CPW said in an email, “Colorado Parks and Wildlife is considering what other options are available and we will have further information as soon as possible.”
WATCH: Looking to the Future: How will the closure of North Shore Marina affect longtime visitors
CPW says if they can’t move their boats before April 1st, they are asked to send them an email or call them.
Jones says he thinks repairs are necessary.
“(There) just needs to be more negotiations and more talking done in order to ensure that everybody comes out of winners in this,” said Jones.
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