The Weekly - May 12, 2020 - 11

F R O M TO P : CO U R T E SY CO LO R A D O S TAT E E M E R G E N CY O P E R AT I O N S C E N T E R, S COT T M A R T I N

converting a large portion of the
facility to those individual rooms,"
says Micki Trost, public information officer for Colorado's state
emergency operations center. "The
cost of construction was initially
projected to be $40 million. Since
we've reduced the scope, it's now
$25 million, and that'll give us
1,200 beds."
The state has contracts in
place for staffing, equipment,
and pharmaceuticals, as well as a
fleet of ambulances to transport
patients from hospitals to the
convention center, and a dispatch
center. "People cannot show
up at the convention center,"
Trost says. "They need to go to
a hospital, and if the hospital
has reached its capacity for ICU
patients, they let us know and we
will have them transported."
When opened for COVID-19
patients who are on the road to recovery but still need hospital care,
the facility will staff one nurse for
every 20 patients.
During a press walk-through in
early April, Colorado Gov. Jared
Polis told reporters: "We are buying the time we need by staying at
home to build this capacity."

A LONG SUMMER?
Elsewhere in the Show's home
state, owners and employees of
outdoor industry businesses are
trying to figure out what potentially reopening this summer will
look like.
To get a handle on how Colorado's outdoor industry was doing
under the governor's stay-at-home
orders in early April, the state's
Outdoor Recreation Industry Office asked businesses to complete
an anonymous impact survey.
The results painted a bleak
economic picture: Three out of
four businesses surveyed had
suspended some or all of their
operations, half of the businesses
had reduced employee hours, and
41% of businesses reported that

hit particularly hard, especially if
they don't deal with firearms."
Still, the results of the impact
survey showed some good surprises. "What we've learned is that
there are a handful of businesses
that adhere to some pretty strict
financial practices and set themselves up with a pretty big rainy
day fund," Fey says. "They were
well positioned; they weren't worried about having to shut down
in the next month or next three
months. So it's not them that we're
worried about-it's the ones that
don't have a cushion."
All of the manufacturers his office has heard from have received
funds from the Small Business
Association's Paycheck Protection Program, as have many of the
retailers and guide services, Fey
says. However, some respondents
indicated they couldn't stay open
another month without help. "So
we're following up with them
to see if they've gotten PPP or if
they've applied for an Economic
Injury Disaster Loan."

The Colorado Convention Center today (top)
and during Summer
Market 2019 (bottom).

NONPROFITS REPRESENT AN-

THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS IS MANAGING
CONSTRUCTION OF A TEMPORARY MEDICAL SHELTER
FOR COVID-19 PATIENTS ON THE COLORADO
CONVENTION CENTER FLOOR THAT IS SCHEDULED
TO BE ABLE TO OFFER LOCAL HOSPITALS AN
OVERFLOW SPACE OF 600 ROOMS BY MAY 15.

they would not survive more than
three months without assistance.
On average, respondents' businesses saw revenues cut in half by
the pandemic.
The impact survey helped
identify the most vulnerable businesses, says Nathan Fey, director

of Colorado's Outdoor Recreation
Industry Office. "I would say it's
the retail shops and the guide services," Fey says. (The latter is heavily represented in the survey-
guide and instruction services
comprised 28% of respondents.)
"The smaller retailers have been

other large segment of respondents to the impact survey, and
this, along with reports from the
ground, is causing concern for
conservation efforts. "We've already seen some impacts to public
land from having facilities closed:
toilet paper in forests; people are
not following what we all assume
are the best practices for Leave No
Trace." The office is working with
state and federal leaders on solving some of these issues, he says.
"We've also been really pushing
our federal partners on something
that looks like a conservation
corps," Fey says. This could help
address stewardship issues, as
well as concerns about impacts on
wildlife and trails-and provide
jobs. "And certainly putting people
back to work outside is crucial to
physical and mental health."
Though each state's recreation

OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER 2020 / THE WEEKLY 11

The Weekly - May 12, 2020

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