Finding Common Ground in Plan for Grand Canyon’s Future

Two decades of torrid debate and protracted planning are expected to culminate shortly with a decision that will significantly alter how future generations visit the Grand Canyon, and may eventually change the look of parks across the national system.

The plans seek to address an urgent challenge. The number of annual visitors to the canyon has doubled in the last 10 years to 5 million, and in the summer, the crowds can cause a half-hour traffic jam backed up from the entrance at the South Rim all the way to the aging little town of Tusayan.

As befits the scale of this magnificent yawning canyon, the debate about the development of one of America’s most-loved national parks has been equally bellicose and grand. Early on, one developer suggested putting up an outlet mall just outside the park while some passionate environmentalists opposed any development whatsoever. But now, the outlines of a resolution to the lengthy planning brawl testify to a growing alliance in the Rocky Mountain West among environmentalists and developers willing to work together.

Decision to Come in June

“I don’t know if I can find the right adjective: Immense,” said Tom Gillett, whose job is to implement the plan for the Forest Service. “Typically we deal with rocks and trees and squirrels. This is hugely complex.”

The National Park Service plans to choose in June between two privately financed proposals that could transform the south entrance from a cheesy strip of cut-rate hotels and tacky gift shops into a master-planned gateway community with greatly expanded hotel room space, retail shops and housing for park employees.

In the park itself, congestion from cars would be greatly reduced, dilapidated buildings would be torn down and visitors would be able to ride along the rim on a new bike path. A light-rail system--the first in a national park--is planned to move people from their cars and into an expanded network of alternative-fuel buses. As far as the park service is concerned, the days of Americans viewing natural wonders through the windshields of their cars and minivans must come to an end.

The front-runner among the two remaining proposals--a $330-million scheme dubbed Alternative H by the government and Canyon Forest Village by the builder--is an ambitious blueprint for housing for as many as 900 area employees, hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial space, 1,220 hotel rooms, a youth hostel, a Native American marketplace, a visitor center run by the Museum of Northern Arizona, and an extensive bike trail. To preserve the fragile ecosystem, local ground water would not be tapped and 1% of the project’s revenues would be set aside to support regional conservation efforts.

Another change is a crucial part of the park’s management plan: in the works is a 17-mile-long light-rail system designed to carry as many as 4,000 visitors an hour into the park from a transportation hub in Tusayan, about six miles from the gorge. Eventually, only visitors who have reservations for hotels in the town would be allowed to drive past the entry point.

The $150-million rail system is to be built and operated privately.

At times the debate has been harsh. Some have called Alternative H an “environmental Disneyland.”

“This is a very, very high-profile project,” said park Supt. Robert Arnberger, who called the plans the most significant change ever at the park. “I feel like a bug under a microscope.”

Because some of the development would take place on public lands, the Park Service and Forest Service had to put the proposal through an environmental impact review. During a recent public comment period, the Forest Service received some 3,000 responses to the proposals, 83% supporting Alternative H. The Forest Service is officially neutral, but the Park Service supports H.

That proposal is the brainchild of Scottsdale developer Tom De Paolo, who formerly developed outlet malls and approached the Forest Service eight years ago about building one in Tusayan. His sensibilities have changed considerably since then.

“There’s a certain amount of risk by proposing change at a place like the Grand Canyon,” De Paolo said. “It’s a special place and people feel strongly about it. As they should.”

Not only is the project being watched as a model for other parks, so too is the partnership with the private sector.

“It’s the single most discussed, written-about topic in the national park system [and] in the state of Arizona and Coconino County,” said Paul Babbitt, Coconino County’s supervisor and the man responsible for applying zoning regulations to whatever plan is chosen. Babbitt is the brother of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

A multi-agency task force has spent five years sifting through eight proposals for redefining Tusayan.

“Tusayan isn’t a community; it is a commercial establishment that is there for one thing: to reap commercial reward from visitors to the Grand Canyon,” Arnberger said. “The gateway community sets the tone. What about the Great Smoky Mountains? [In Gatlinburg, Tenn.] You’ve got to go through Dollywood, a miniature golf course and Ferris wheels to get to one of the most beautiful places on the Earth.”

To transform Tusayan into a functioning community, the Park Service would like to relocate such services as a school, medical clinic, post office and housing for some 500 employees outside the park. In fact, the woeful state of employee housing, which Babbitt likens to a “Virginia plantation,” was the impetus for much of the building proposed at Tusayan.

After an extended review, only two of the privately financed proposals made the cut. Aside from Alternative H, there is Alternative F, which was put forth by a group of business owners in Tusayan. It calls for minimal development and no additional hotel rooms, and has been supported by the mayors of Flagstaff and Williams, who reason that hotels and retail development at Tusayan would draw dollars away from their communities.

Alternative H depends on a land swap: Some 2,200 acres of private land scattered throughout the Kaibab National Forest would be exchanged for 272 acres the Forest Service holds near Tusayan. The rationale is to rid the forest of so-called inholdings--small parcels of private land held in the middle of national forest.

As soon as De Paolo and his investors announced their plans, there was strong opposition, so De Paolo began a campaign of self-education. He made a pest of himself at Coconino County planning sessions and picked the brains of environmental leaders. Many of those ideas were folded into Canyon Forest Village’s plan, which sympathetic environmentalists say incorporates some of the most sophisticated ecological and conservation practices.

De Paolo hired Kansas City architect Bob Berkebile, whose plans for the new town abide by the region’s three-story height limit and will incorporate the park’s historic rustic design in the stone and wood buildings.

Building materials--many of them recycled--will come from the region, 10% of all energy needs will be supplied by solar systems and the community will use a biological waste-water treatment plant that uses no chemicals. De Paolo’s commitment to “green” issues helped win the backing of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Wilderness Society and the Grand Canyon Trust, among others.

“Our analysis of the situation was that it was not a question of some development and no development,” said Brad Ack of the Grand Canyon Trust. “It was a question of which development. We withheld judgment until the environmental analysis came through. People say this is about ‘strange bedfellows.’ We look at it this way: You can either be part of the process or stand on the sidelines and wring your hands.”

Sierra Club Remains Opposed

The project’s only dissenting voice in the environmental community now comes from the Sierra Club of Northern Arizona, which opposes any development at the canyon.

Park Supt. Arnberger sees the process as a model for coalition-building in the West. “People are tired of extremism” both by environmentalists and their opponents, he said. “What we are looking for is reason.”

After a development alternative is selected, Babbitt estimates the project will take another year to move through the planning-approval process.

“What will work here won’t necessarily work at every park,” said Brad Traver, a Park Service official supervising much of the planning. “But the components will. The process and the cooperation--that’s all a model. We’re finding it works better when we all work together. What a novel idea.”