Behind the Springs special edition: lucky number 13

Published on January 10, 2020

Colorado Springs is lucky number 13! We feel lucky in Olympic City USA to make it on the New York Times’ prestigious “52 Places to Visit in 2020” list. Jen and Ted talk about all the reasons that our city is making headlines like this and why so many people want to live in or visit Colorado Springs!

This is one of several “special episodes” we will record throughout 2020 when we have big news to share. Thank you for listening! Tell us what you'd like to hear about on Behind the Springs. Email us at BehindTheSprings@ColoradoSprings.Gov

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Want to hear more episodes of Behind the Springs? Check us out on your favorite streaming service or listen on our website. Or just check out these popular episodes. Don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe!

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Episode Transcripts

Intro: (00:00)
Colorado Springs, nearly 500,000 people, Olympic city, USA, garden of the gods, Pike's peak. It's a growing city. Our local government has a lot of employees. What does Nestle do? They do, how does it impact my life? This is where you find out behind the Springs in inside. Look at your local government.

Ted: (00:29)
Jen, Jen, Jen! We're here with a special edition of behind the Springs and we're live streaming. This one I was asking you before you ever been on live TV before. I have have you?

Jen: (00:38)
I have.

Ted: (00:39)
Spoiler alert. We used to both work in news. If, uh, if our listeners and now our viewers didn't know, but this is a special edition of behind the Springs. Um, Jen, do you want to enlighten the people on our big uh,

Jen: (00:55)
drum roll, drum roll announcement. Um,

Ted: (00:59)
tell the people let's not keep them waiting. Why are we here talking to them today?

Jen: (01:03)
We are here because we have a new awesome ranking for Colorado Springs. We are ranked number 13 on New York times prestigious 52 places to go in 20 [inaudible]

Speaker 4: (01:20)
[inaudible]

Ted: (01:20)
New York times 52 places now. Is that, is that in the country.

Jen: (01:24)
that is in the world, the world?

Ted: (01:26)
I mean, I'm looking at the list right now and I'm going to turn the screen here once I get number one or I always do give them the rundown.

Jen: (01:36)
Number one is Washington, D C, but we are the third highest ranked us place among the seven included. There's only seven.

Ted: (01:46)
Can we give the list of the seven and then we'll start jumping into some of the other places. Now again, 52 best places to visit in 2020. This is a very prestigious list that New York times comes out with every year. But um, D C was first.

Jen: (01:59)
DC was first. I don't have all of the U S um, destinations, but for example, um, grand isle Louisiana is number 19. Austin, Texas is number 27. And Richmond, Virginia is number 32 glacier national park, um, in Whitefish, Montana is number 52.

Ted: (02:17)
Yeah, that was the, uh, that rounded it all out. There's what it looks like. If you want to go to New York times website number 13 Colorado Springs there. And they have a cool little shot of a was at the Broadmoor zip lines. Yes.

Jen: (02:30)
Is that the Broadmore and it's someone's zip lining. It's really cool. And it's a fun article just to go and see because it gives you kind of a little video or image of each place and really, I mean amazing, awesome places around the world and it's just so cool that we're on that.

Ted: (02:46)
Well, and to put this into perspective as well, we named some of the American places that there are, Paris is ranked 31 in here and this is a ranking list. Uh, what is it that they go through and.

Jen: (02:58)
this is what they do. They poll, um, they take a polling of [inaudible] of its own travel desk of the New York times travel desk, which is a lot of folks like travel professionals, correspondence, New York times, contributors, people who've been all over the world. Those are the folks who put this list together. So pretty cool.

Ted: (03:15)
Yeah. It's a, it's a pretty prestigious list to be on. I'll read just a little bit. There's a, a small blurb about each place to go, but it says a gateway to Alpine vacation lands since trains first arrived in 1871 cause we're about to hit that sesquicentennial here and in another year and a half Tenille is, it's the 150th anniversary of the start of Colorado Springs. Everyone knows that word. I know. I just throw it around like it's a common lingo, but July of next year, that's when we're going to be celebrating that sesquicentennial. But they'd say, uh, from the gateway to Alpine vacation land since trains first arrived in 1871, Colorado Springs Springs a new in 2020 in April, the $90 million us Olympic and Paralympic museum opens with a design by, I'm not going to read that name. The architects behind the reinvention of the museum of modern art. Another. Yes, yes. And I'm trying not to butcher any names, but I'm butchering the reading nonetheless. And another opening. This one in autumn will be up on top of the 14,115 foot Pike's peak or the new zero energy Pike's peak summit complex sheath right now in weathering steel and sandstone quarried in New Mexico will give travel travelers a, now give me that word.

Jen: (04:35)
I don't know.

Ted: (04:36)
[inaudible] some sort of eye view. I think it's a 360 degree view, but this is the technical word for it. So you can see I didn't pass a literature in school, but um, but, but pretty cool. They also talk about the culinary scene that's, that's up and coming here as well as uh, some of the other resorts in our, in our area. But again, a very prestigious list. Now this isn't the only list that

Jen: (05:02)
we've been on recently. About eight months ago, we made a huge deal out of the fact, and rightfully so. I think that we are the number one most desirable city by us news and world report. And that was a really exciting thing. We remember we had our fingers. Do you have your little number one, our phone thing,

Ted: (05:18)
trying to drink some coffee. This is the weird thing about, uh, doing it live on video than I,

Jen: (05:23)
we have our foam fingers for those just listening. Um, our number one foam fingers out because we, we gave these to employees across the city. We put together this great video, we can link to it on our podcast page, but we put together this fun video of employees all over the city, uh, with their phone fingers saying we're number one. And even though we're not number one on this list, I think number 13 is pretty awesome.

Ted: (05:43)
No, I, I mean in again in the world, some of the other places, I think we're surrounded by a, uh, an area in South Africa and then a place in Poland,

Jen: (05:52)
right? Those, the two we're sandwiched in between [inaudible] between their international and I think what you said and what the right upset about the museum is spot on. And the Pikes peak summit complex. Those are two, I mean to have so many exciting things coming in 2020, but in April we're going to have this amazing museum that's going to bring visitors from all over and it's going to be such a great place for locals to visit. And then the Pike's peak summit complex is, is going to be where you're, you're going to want to take your relatives and friends.

Ted: (06:24)
Sure thing. I used to bring people to Colorado Springs, Pike's peak garden of the gods, these natural beauties. We also are now seeing some of the things that are manmade that we're building here are going to be bringing tourists here, fans of the Olympics, downtown stadium. So we're going to have other athletes coming to town. We're going to have people that really want to go to Pike's peak again, even if they've already been there just because they want to check out the new summit complex. This revitalization of downtown. This is something where everything is kind of linking together to create, um, as they say on New York times the 13th ranked place to go visit in 2020. And I could see it going up even higher

Jen: (07:02)
going forward. I agree. And I think, you know, we have a couple of, um, a couple of reactions that we've gotten from um, you know, our, our visit cos um, those folks have just said this is such a big deal for um, you know, for obviously the museum but also all the city for champions projects that are going on. I know that you mentioned the stadium and then we have a new air force Academy visitor center and we have, um, a great, um, sports medicine complex going up. I mean, there's just so much happening, so it's a really fun time to live here and to be so proud that people want to come visit. I think it's, it's really exciting.

Ted: (07:38)
Well and just to remind folks that are joining in on our Facebook live, uh, here as we started off, we were ranked number 13 in New York times 52 best places to visit in 2020, and that is around the world. So that's a huge honor to get. And we were just discussing, uh, some of the reasons why we're ranked that high, but also some of the other rankings. And uh, I'll read off a couple and then maybe you can read a couple as well here. Um, but these are some of the more notable rankings of recent number one hottest neighborhoods to watch in 2019. That was by true truly, uh, uh, saying strong job growth and young buying market push Colorado Springs to the top of our hot, our list of hottest hoods. They got the, the cool lingo over at Trulia, uh, most desirable place to live by comp, Tia, uh, number two cities. That will be the next dream outdoor hubs by outdoor number two. We should probably be number one on that outdoor hubs, right? Yeah, I know. We gotta, we gotta push up that next, next year. And then number three, best place to live in the U S say by us news and world report. And then you want to round out some of those.

Jen: (08:45)
Yeah, this is great for anybody listening, just you know, and who's nearby. I'm even up in Denver. Come on over and check us out. Um, but we're the number three top place for a family weekend getaway. Yeah. I mean this is a great, um, place for even a staycation if you live here, but if you live nearby, a great place to just come visit for the weekend with your family. Number five, best city to find a job. Number six, top moving destination by hire a helper and number six, best city for veterans to live by veterans United, which is an awesome desert.

Ted: (09:14)
Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's huge, especially with our military presence.

Jen: (09:17)
Don't you feel like Ted, there's some people listening that might be like, Oh, why, why, why are we telling everyone? Don't tell everyone everybody's moving here. It's so, you know, it's, it's hard. I mean growth is hard too.

Ted: (09:28)
No, we, we hear from people that uh, that aren't the biggest fans of growth. They've been here 20, 30, 40 years. Um,

Jen: (09:35)
it's like keep it a secret, but I don't think it's possible anymore.

Ted: (09:38)
No, I think the secret's out, especially when you're getting into some prestigious, uh, uh, media places like New York times, uh, annual list here and also to kind of promote this podcast as well. I know you might be watching us on Facebook, but Jen and I are the co hosts of behind the Springs podcast and this is our first time bringing it as a live stream as well. Um, this is something that we want to keep hitting on in our podcast. We bring on the mayor, we bring on different department heads. One thing we were just discussing yesterday about, um, what we should have on future shows is maybe the planning department maybe talking about this growth and uh, and how the city has been planning for this and why it's so vital for the city's future.

Jen: (10:20)
Yeah, we'd love to hear from you on our Facebook comments. What would you like to hear on the podcast? Not what do you hate about growth in the city? We don't really want to hear about that. We'd love to hear about what, what is concerning to you when it comes to growth and our city and what we, what our role is, what can we help, I guess, um, relay in terms of information and what we do and, um, you know, what our role is. I think some people get confused about that. So we'd love to have your suggestions on, uh, which guests you'd like to hear from and what would be beneficial to you. Um, when it does come to growth. I also, um, have found it interesting that just recently we have moved up from 42nd largest city to 39th, and I think a lot of people don't realize that, um, just how big of a city we are kind of like it or not. I think some people are really charged about it and some people have mixed feelings, but, um, that's it is what it is. We are 39th in the country.

Ted: (11:17)
Yeah, we're definitely seeing the growth. But, um, but yeah, you know, let it be known that the city is doing the best that they can to to make sure that growth very important and that it's a, it's a vital thing to keep this community going. But a huge thing for this community is tourism and there's a lot of communities that might be our size or comparable across the country that are just work destinations aren't travel and play destinations. We right now are finding that combination of both. That's why we're getting that, that fast growth and we should be very happy that people are coming here, people are spending their money. Uh, we're, we're getting these accolades of a top place to come visit, which is definitely going to push the needle for the amount of tourism that we're going to see in these upcoming years. So, uh, anytime you can get tourists as well as people that want to come here to work too, that is a great, a great to two-pronged a sword.

Jen: (12:11)
I think a lot of people visit and then they're hooked and they come back and they say, I'm going to come back and live. And they do it. So I'm excited that they're joining us here in the city. But anyway, we just wanted to come on live and say hooray. Hooray. And um, hopefully you'll listen to this podcast and get as excited as we are and you'll continue to spread the news about behind the Springs and give us your input on what you would like to hear about next.

Ted: (12:34)
Yeah, and we'll throw a link to that New York times article, um, in the comment section below as well. So please go and find us and listen to the rest of our podcast that we've already done. We started up kind of midway through the year last year, uh, but you can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, uh, basically anywhere that you listen to a podcast or go over to our website, Colorado springs.gov and look for behind the Springs rate. Like subscribe, please, uh, and let us know what you would like to hear about next. So thank you very much for watching this special podcast, our first live stream on, on Facebook here, number 13, lucky number 13. Skip that a pause again. So, and maybe even, you know what, because it's our first live stream, a little airborne in there. All right. Thank you all for watching.