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Tuesday was a swallow-hard day for the Eagle County Board of Commissioners.

The commissioners agreed to pay $4.5 million over initial staff estimates to install a geothermal heating and cooling system at the county administration building in Eagle. The staff had initially estimated the cost of the system at roughly $9.5 million and had secured $4.15 million in grant funding for the project.

With those numbers in mind, the county had budgeted for the project this year. The county at the end of 2024 issued a request for proposals, and received only one bid in response, from RA Nelson. That bid, minus some later “value engineering” but also adding in necessary upgrades to the building’s electrical system, brought the grand total to $14 million.

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County Resiliency Director Tori Franks brought that sobering budgetary news to the commissioners along with a handful of other options, along with estimates of the impact on greenhouse gas emissions and utility costs.

Doing nothing not an option

Standing pat isn’t on the table. The current boiler system is original to the building, which was finished in the early 1990s, and is due for replacement. A chiller in the system needs to be replaced now, and the rest of the system could probably be nursed along for perhaps another five years, Franks said.

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A direct replacement of that system would cost roughly $7 million, with no greenhouse gas reductions. Because of new technology, the system would save about $36,000 per year in utility costs.

A second option would be replacing the current gas-fired system with an electric system. That system would reduce greenhouse gas emissions but would result in a $35,000 per year increase in current utility costs.

The geothermal system would save $72,000 per year in utility costs and could be installed in about a year.

Franks said the county could re-issue the request for proposals. That may or may not bring the cost down, she said, but would probably delay the project by between 18 months and two years.

But with the delay, Jesse Meryhew, the county director of facilities, said the chiller in the building’s current system might ultimately fail, leading to the failure of the air conditioning system.

Another possibility is a partnership with Holy Cross Energy. That could help with some costs, particularly regarding the energy field to be drilled between the old courthouse to the west of the administration building and Eagle Town Park, but isn’t an immediate possibility, Franks, said.

But there are complications with that, she added. The state grant that will help fund the geothermal field requires Eagle County own that field for 10 years, Franks said. In addition, while Holy Cross is interested in geothermal energy and is a “trusted partner,” the energy cooperative hasn’t talked about getting involved in the Eagle County project.

Decision time

Asked for a decision, the commissioners ultimately decided to move forward.

Commissioner Matt Scherr noted that while this is a risk a business might not take, the county’s administration building is the “big, symbolic” building in the county’s inventory.

And, he noted, the potential exists to use the administration building as the centerpiece of a networked system in downtown Eagle.

“If you don’t start, you’ll never know,” Scherr said.

And, while state grant funding seems to be exhausted at this point, Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney, fresh off a meeting of the Colorado Association of ߣÏÈÉú Towns, noted that geothermal seems to be an energy source that the Trump administration seems to support, so there may be some hope there.

Commissioner Tom Boyd said the project reflects the county’s investments in the future and is something local government is “built well to lead … we can lead the way.”