Lake Pueblo’s North Shore Marina to close and be demolished due to costly repairs

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) - At Lake Pueblo, boat owners at the North Shore Marina are scrambling to find another place to dock.

They received a letter from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) on Wednesday informing them that the marina will close permanently in less than three weeks.

It's set to be completely demolished come July and that's a big problem for boat owners renting slips there.

CPW says the sudden closure is due to continuing maintenance repairs that have been deemed too expensive to carry out.

While boat owners say they understand the reasoning, they're not very happy about the extremely short notice. 

"To move this boat, it's extremely difficult...It's 56 foot. You have to have probably a 65/70 foot trailer at least, which you don't usually have in your backyard. And expensive. We're probably looking at $10,000 to move this boat," houseboat owner Chuck Snow said.

Snow has docked his watercraft at Pueblo's North Shore Marina since 2009.

"We didn't come to Pueblo for Pueblo itself. We could have gone anywhere in the state and we chose Pueblo because of the reservoir. We love the lake," Snow said.

Now he along with many others is being told to pack up and ship out. "What's upsetting more than anything is this, the short notice."

Park Manager at Lake Pueblo State Park, Joe Stadterman said, "While we have set a deadline, we want to be reasonable and make this as painless on boat owners as we can."

On Wednesday, CPW sent out a notice informing boaters that the more than 500 slips at the marina will permanently close come April 1st. That's when the current lease with The O’Neil Group expires..

Stadterman said, "CPW's position is that we own this infrastructure that is potentially dangerous and we think that the first step to the future of the North Marina is to remove the existing one."

They say an in-depth evaluation shows it would be an enormous cost to rebuild the marina and damaged docks; prompting them to determine that demolition is the only viable option.

"Over the years, it's incurred storm damage through all the bending and twisting and tearing of the docks through our windstorms that are pretty common here," Stadterman said.

When CPW took possession back from the last concessions operator in 2022, they discovered an imminent threat of electrocution due to faulty wiring along the docks.

After investing more than $130,000 and bringing in The O’Neil Group to take over, issues have persisted.

"We've done everything we can at CPW and The O'Neil Group has done everything that they can and at the end of the day, the deal just didn't work out," Stadterman said.

CPW encourages anyone unable to remove their boats by the March 31st deadline to reach out to them at lake.pueblo.park@state.co.us.

As for the marina itself, demolition is set to take place on July 1st.

For more on the closure, click here.