In Silverthorne, the Rec Center's New Wing Is Being Built on Somebody Else's Tax Bill
October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
"Why would we not at least consider that option of opening up to our residents first?"
That was Silverthorne council member Tim Applegate, pushing back at a September 2025 meeting on a staff recommendation that would let anyone, resident or not, register for the town's first-ever licensed childcare program on equal footing. It sounds like a small procedural fight over waitlists. It is actually a pretty clean window into how Silverthorne pays for the things its own residents use every day.
The $29 million expansion of the Silverthorne Recreation Center is entering its final stretch this fall, and if you have a punch pass or a family membership, you have probably already felt its ripple effects: shifted class times, a construction wall across part of the indoor track, a Kid's Korner that moved to the lobby. What most pass holders have not clocked is the funding mechanism underneath all of it, and why that mechanism is exactly why residents don't get first dibs on the parts they've been waiting years for.
Silverthorne is one of roughly six municipalities in Colorado that does not collect property tax. That is not an oversight. It traces back to the Outlets at Silverthorne, whose first village opened in 1989 and whose final village was finished in 1994. Sales tax revenue from the outlet mall ran high enough, quickly enough, that the town dropped its property tax altogether and has operated without one ever since.
That history matters here because it changes who is actually funding a town amenity like the rec center. In a town that collects property tax, residents can reasonably argue they are the ones paying for the gym, the pool, the childcare room, and should get first access. In Silverthorne, that argument gets murkier. Recreation director Steven Herrman put it plainly at the same September meeting: residents get a 20 percent discount on a Silverthorne Recreation Center pass, but the town's finance structure means officials feel a different obligation to residents than a property-tax town would.
The rec center expansion is funded by the town's lodging tax, which Silverthorne voters raised from 6 percent to 8 percent through a 2024 ballot initiative specifically to cover this project and other capital work. Lodging tax is paid overwhelmingly by short-term guests booking hotel rooms, condos and vacation rentals, not by the families who live in Silverthorne year-round and use the rec center on a Tuesday afternoon in February.
Mayor Ann-Marie Sandquist made that connection out loud at the meeting, noting the tax increase that's paying for the expansion was largely supported by local businesses and tourists rather than residents footing a property tax bill. That is the mechanism behind Applegate's frustration. The building is being paid for by people who mostly never set foot in it, which is part of why staff leaned toward opening registration to everyone at once rather than carving out a resident-only lane.
Construction has run from spring 2025 toward a fall 2026 completion, a timeline the town has repeated consistently even as a mid-2025 progress report flagged a rough patch. An August 2025 update to council described limited progress in July of that year, work stoppages, and anticipated impacts to steel work. The construction contract includes a $1,500-per-day penalty for finishing late, which gives you a sense of how tightly the town is holding the builders, JHL Constructors, to the calendar they agreed to alongside architecture firm Collab Architecture and owner's representative Artaic Group.
As of this fall, the addition works out to roughly 24,000 square feet layered onto the recreation center's existing 65,000-square-foot footprint, which already houses four pools, two water slides, an indoor track and a full gymnasium. The new space breaks down into a few distinct pieces worth knowing if you're a regular:
That last item is the one people have been asking about the longest, according to recreation programs manager Mindy Nicholds, and it's the one at the center of the registration debate.
Staff ultimately proposed opening registration to everyone at the same time rather than giving Silverthorne addresses a head start. Nicholds framed the town's community broadly during the meeting, extending it beyond permanent residents to include businesses, visitors and second-home owners, a definition that lines up with how the project is actually funded. Council member Jonnah Glassman backed the approach, pointing out that residents in property-tax towns are effectively subsidizing more of their municipal services than Silverthorne residents are.
Herrman raised a related wrinkle: people living just outside town limits in areas like Wildernest, in unincorporated Summit County, could reasonably feel shut out either way, since he was elected to represent Silverthorne residents specifically, not the broader unincorporated county. That is a reminder that "Silverthorne" as a mailing address and "Silverthorne" as a town boundary are not the same thing, something that comes up in plenty of contexts around here, not just childcare rosters.
None of this has been formally finalized in the sources available as of this writing. But the direction staff has taken, and the reasoning behind it, tells you something concrete: don't assume a Silverthorne address guarantees a spot in that first childcare cohort. Registration is shaping up to be open to everyone at once, so if you want in, the practical move is to watch for the announcement rather than assume priority.
The recreation center has stayed open through the entire build, a point Herrman emphasized as a credit to staff and to members putting up with shifted programming. If you're a current pass holder, a few things to keep on your radar this fall:
The aquatics area closes each year for annual maintenance, and this year that closure runs September 8 through September 22. During any rec center closure tied to construction or maintenance, Silverthorne Recreation Center members can use their pass at the Breckenridge Recreation Center, a swap arrangement the town has leaned on more than once during this project.
Fall program registration is open now, and if a class you want is full, the recreation center's standard advice is to get on the waitlist rather than wait and hope a spot opens closer to the date.
Watch the town's official channels, not just the rec center's front desk, for the childcare program's actual launch date and registration window. The town has been running a construction blog series through its news page walking through each new space in detail, and that's likely to be where the formal opening date and registration process get announced first.
The town of Silverthorne has more detail on the project timeline and specifications on its recreation center expansion page, and Summit Daily has covered the construction delays and childcare debate in more depth if you want the full council discussion.
Silverthorne has grown from roughly 1,700 residents in 1990 to more than 5,000 today, and a building designed for an earlier version of the town was bound to run out of room eventually. The interesting part isn't that the town built more space. It's that the way Silverthorne pays its bills, no property tax, a visitor-funded lodging tax instead, is the same logic now shaping who gets to walk through the new door first.
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