A new company will be checking on the bats and wrangling the tortoises at Colossal Cave Mountain Park in Tucson.
Pima County is in negotiations with Santa Fe-based Ortega National Parks to operate the 2,400-acre county park, located at 16721 E. Old Spanish Trail.
The park includes the caves, a museum, a petting zoo, a campground and trail rides. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the contract next month.
After a 2013 audit found dropping attendance, financial problems and deferred maintenance at the park, the board voted last year not to renew the contract with the Maierhauser family, which through nonprofit Escabrosa Inc. has run the park for nearly 60 years. The contract expires in August.
The Ortega contract is expected to include regular operations, rehabilitation projects and future development projects.
“It’s very much a rehabilitation and a re-imagining of what that park should be,” said Mike Holmes, operations program manager for Pima County’s economic development and tourism office.
For starters, beginning in August, the county will drop the $5 admission fee, so anyone who wants to hike, jog, ride their horse or do some birdwatching can enter the park.
“This is the people’s park and we really want to open it back up for the people to enjoy,” Holmes said.
The Ortega company operates concessions at five national parks and two national monuments among other businesses, and it has experience renovating historic buildings.
Company president Shane Ortega said the new contract is a homecoming of sorts. His father, Armand Ortega, is a Tucson native who visited the park as a child and took his own children to see the caves.
Those memories and the Sonoran desert views are what drew the Ortegas to take on the project, he said.
Initial plans call for a $500,000 investment in the park to revamp the cave tours and add a deli and beer garden to the patio area. Ortega said future projects, if approved by the appropriate authorities, could include a ranch house bed and breakfast and a zipline attraction.
