If advocates for a new athletic complex behind Ridgway Secondary School were running a 5-kilometer race to raise the funding needed for the project, they’d now be approaching mile marker 3.

The finish line is just over the hill, a few hundred feet away. One final kick, with a little help from others, and they’ll get there.

Two significant financial contributions in the last month — a $1 million grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and a $350,000 grant from the Daniels Fund, a Denver-based charitable foundation — have pushed the total amount of funds committed to the Cimarron Athletic Field to $3.3 million. That’s about $300,000 shy of the $3.6 million supporters say is needed to build the full project.

It’s been a little more than a year since backers unveiled an ambitious plan to the Ridgway School Board: to replace the natural grass soccer field behind the secondary school with synthetic turf and add an eight-lane, all-weather track and other track amenities like areas for high jump, long jump, pole vault, discus and shot put. The project will also feature climbing structures, fitness equipment and an outdoor classroom with shaded benches and tables. The space will be open to the public outside of school hours and activities.

Since then, the Cimarron Athletic Field Committee, a group consisting of parents and Ridgway School District leaders, has researched project options, applied for grants and asked businesses, local governments and philanthropic individuals and organizations to buy into their vision. Committee members are aiming for a space they say would not only create needed recreational amenities for students and the public but provide a shot in the arm for the local economy because it could draw users from throughout the San Juans and host regional school competitions.

The big financial boost from DOLA and the Daniels’ Fund elevates the chances that the project will be built all at once rather than split into phases and stay on the construction schedule identified at the beginning of this year. Officials hope to break ground in spring 2025 and host the first competitions in the fall.

Outside of one game in 2020, the Ridgway boys’ and girls’ soccer teams haven’t played on the field behind the secondary school since 2019 because of poor drainage and problems with the irrigation system. The teams have played their home games on the other side of town at the Athletic Park next to the Solar Ranch subdivision.

The Ouray and Ridgway track and cross and country teams, meanwhile, have to travel to Olathe if they want to run on a track because that’s the closest one they can use. Otherwise they practice on concrete, running along the Uncompahgre River Trail in Ridgway or at Fellin Park in Ouray.

“At the start we did think it was a compelling project because there is such a gap in this region,” said Pete Hessler, who along with his wife, Leslie Chang, have led the fundraising effort. The couple’s twin daughters, Ariel and Natasha, are members of Ridgway’s track and cross-country teams.

The $1 million grant from DOLA is the single largest contribution to the project yet. Project supporters drove eight hours to Wray in northeast Colorado in September to give a seven- minute presentation to the committee making recommendations on project funding to DOLA Executive Director Maria De Cambra.

Ouray County Commissioner Michelle Nauer, Ridgway Mayor John Clark, Ouray Mayor Ethan Funk and Telluride Mayor Pro Tem Meehan Fee joined the meeting online and made their pitches for the project. Ridgway freshman Emery Cornell also joined in, thinking she would just hold up a trophy but deftly responded when committee members asked her questions.

Chang said Patrick Rondinelli, a regional manager for DOLA and former Ouray city administrator, helped shape the Cimarron Athletic Field Committee’s arguments. She said the Cimarron committee was told that applications from school districts seeking DOLA funding were traditionally “not competitive.”

“That really challenged us,” she said.

The Ridgway School District was the only school district in the state that sought funding during the grant application period. DOLA officials were sold largely on the project serving both students and the public and the potential economic impact to the region.

Chang and Hessler said one thing that has struck them as they’ve talked with potential donors is the number of people who have connections to the sport of running — those who ran track and field when they were in high school or college or whose children do so now. Hessler said while the infrastructure for track and field is pricey, the cost for kids to participate is relatively inexpensive, especially compared to other individual and team sports.

“It’s an extremely low-cost sport at the individual level,” he said. “There’s a long history of people coming from all kinds of backgrounds. You don’t have to go to summer camps.”

Supporters initially estimated the full project would cost $3 million. They bumped up that estimate earlier this year to $3.3 million to account for adding some Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant parking spaces near the field and constructing a detention pond to help with water filtering and drainage. They’ve since added roughly $300,000 more to the price tag as a contingency for Dynamic Program Management, the company the Ridgway School District uses to oversee its capital construction projects.

The district earlier this year asked for proposals from contractors interested in building the project. Representatives from Dynamic and the district’s legal counsel are currently negotiating with their first-choice contractor, and the goal is to have a contract before the Ridgway School Board for its approval in January, Superintendent Susan Lacy said.

Chang said the Cimarron committee still has a few grant applications pending and hopes to host an event in January for local families and businesses who might consider donating.

“We still need to close it out,” she said of raising the full amount of money needed. “We don’t want to come this far and come up short.”

To learn more about the project, visit cimarronathleticfield.com.