The iconic chapel at the U.S. Air Force Academy outside of Colorado Springs, which is registered as a national historic landmark, will be closed to visitors beginning Sept. 4 for a $158 million restoration and preservation project. Crews will begin removing furniture and conducting other preparation work for the actual restoration which is scheduled to begin Nov. 1. The chapel had originally been scheduled to close in June, but the project was delayed.

A Boston-based firm, Harbinger Development, paid $17.5 million for a 25,000-square-foot parking lot in downtown Denver at the corner of 17th and California streets. The land had previously been tabbed as the site of a proposed 81-story, 1,000-foot skyscraper which would have been the tallest building in downtown. The selling price of the lot, $17.5 million, was the highest-per-square-foot price ever paid for undeveloped land in the city.

As of this week, it has been a slow wildfire season, with just 24,570 acres having burned so far this year. That compares with 621,784 acres that had burned through the corresponding period a year ago. The respite was very much needed as 10 of the state's top 20 destructive wildfires have burned since 2015. Last year, a new state record was set in terms of total land burned on state and federal land, 1.7 million acres. However, California fire officials remain vigilant as the autumn months are historically the worst for wildland fires.

The Aspen Skiing Co. has notified the U.S. Forest Service it will fund "the planting of several hundred seedling trees per acre on approximately 200 acres of land associated with the Lake Christine Fire," as an offset to its plan to remove trees on its planned Pandora expansion on Aspen Mountain. Skico plans to build a chairlift and open 180 acres of new terrain on the upper east side of Aspen Mountain, which is known as Pandora, and the expansion 106 acres where trees will be cut. About 4,240 tons of timber will be removed.

The Mesa County commissioners Tuesday approved a conditional land use permit for Mind Springs Health for a 17,750-square-foot facility that would combine the nonprofit's two substance abuse programs into a single location in Clifton. The programs, the Women's Recovery Program, currently located at the Grand Junction Regional Center and a program known as the Circle, will be located at a facility on land near the intersection of E and 32 roads.

With little development going on in the Grand Junction area for a decade or so, the city of Grand Junction has not changed the level of impact fees on new development. That is about to change, and change perhaps in a dramatic way. The Grand Junction City Council Monday reviewed a study recommending raising impact fees on developers to offset the impact of their development on municipal services. The city currently charges $225 per single-family home. The proposed fee schedule could hit a maximum of $3,405 per home.

Colorado Mesa University students, Quaid Hamilton, Holly Hernandez, Nathan Montgomery, Bryce Langley, Lance Lacone, Ryan Burke, Megan Garchar, Brian Kilman and Zach Tentis, were awarded a Heartland Emmy for their filming and production of a 2018 Minor League All Star baseball game. The game between The Pioneer League All Stars and the Northwest League All Stars in Grand Junction aired on KGJT, MLB.com and Altitude Sports.

Across western Colorado, the period from mid-July through mid-September is known as monsoon season. However, Chris Cuoco, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, says the term refers to "just a change in the pattern of the wind." Moreover, the pattern in western Colorado is nowhere as significant as the Asian monsoon season that brings drenching rainfall. So far this year, the monsoons haven't really hit western Colorado, but Cuoco says over the next 90 days there is "a higher-than-normal chance of precipitation."

Gov. Jared Polis and Betsy Markey, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT), were in Ignacio Tuesday to announced that the town of Ignacio and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe were recipients of awards from the 2020 Rural Technical Assistance Program. The town of Ignacio will be part of the Community Placemaking initiative and the Creativity Lab of Colorado. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe will participate in the Certified Small Business Community program.

The state requires real property to be assessed every two years for tax purposes and Gary Peterson, the Routt County Assessor, reports that the total assessed value in the county for 2019 rose to $1,252,542,270, a 10 percent increase from $1,135,110,450 in 2018. Across the county, residential values were up 16 percent, with the greatest increases in Hayden and Oak Creek. Residential property, countywide, grew from $580 million in 2018 to $680 million in 2019. Commercial property increased 22 percent in value, from $263 million in 2018 to $283 million in 2019.

Kiplinger Personal Finance ranked some 1,700 public and private four-year schools using measures of academic quality and financial measures to arrive at its top college, 2019:

1. Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, Calif.
2. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
3. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa.
4. Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
5. Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.
6. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
7. Davidson College, Davidson, N.C.
8. Duke University, Durham, N.C.
9. Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.
10. MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

Alpine Banks of Colorado (OTC:ALPIB), the holding company for Alpine Bank, announced that its Class B Nonvoting Common Stock is now trading on the OTC Pink Open Market under the symbol “ALPIB.” "OTC Pink Open Market trading will broaden the appeal of our stock to new investors and provide more robust liquidity options to current shareholders,” said founder and Chairman Bob Young. “As we grow, Alpine Bank remains committed to our values of Independence, Integrity, Communities, Compassion and Loyalty.” The following market makers are known to be making a market in Alpine Banks of Colorado (ALPIB) stock: Michael R. Natzic or Katy Ehlers at Community Banking & Wealth Management Group, 800-288 2811; and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company in Glenwood Springs, 866-503-6632. Additional information can be found on the Investor Relations page of our website at the link below.