Quincy Farm's Season Is Over. Its Next Chapter Is Taking Longer Than the Plan Said.

The 2026 program calendar at Quincy Farm is finished, and the Quincy Farm programs page closes with a simple note: "See you at Earth Day 2027." In June the City adopted a long-term vision for the farm, and that vision calls for a big change on the west side. The Anderson House comes down and the land around it goes back to natural vegetation. The City's October 20 council packet now lists that demolition as moved to 2028. That means the 17.5-acre farm at Quincy Avenue and the High Line Canal will look much the same through 2027. The main change you'll see next year is on the east side, and it's mostly restrooms.

So the farm you walk past this winter is pretty close to the farm you'll have through next year. It's also a farm that finished a lot of work in 2026.

What got finished in 2026

According to the City's August 2026 Village Crier, the City finished three major projects at the farm over the past year: the Big Barn rehabilitation, the pond restoration and a new bridge over the High Line Canal.

The pond. The pond dates to the 1930s and counts as a contributing feature of the farm's listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Over the years it filled with sediment, got shallow, and kept getting algae blooms. Crews dredged and reshaped it to be smaller and deeper, which should improve water quality and cut water lost to evaporation and seepage. They also added floating islands, rock jetties, and bird and bat boxes. Western States Reclamation did the construction, Matrix Design Group gave ecological guidance, and Icon Engineering, the City Engineer, designed it. A $241,088 grant from Arapahoe County Open Spaces helped pay for it, and the City celebrated the finished project on July 21.

Emily Black, the City's Parks Project and Operations Manager, told the Village Crier that "It will take time for the new plants to fill in, but these improvements will help create a healthier pond and better habitat for birds and other wildlife." The same issue lists birds documented at the pond, including American White Pelicans, Black-crowned Night Herons, Double-crested Cormorants, Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets. It also says the pond is recognized as Colorado's first documented breeding site for Hooded Mergansers.

The footbridge. The old canal footbridge has been replaced with a new wooden one. The City's 2027 Annual Plan draft says City Parks staff built it themselves rather than hiring a contractor, which saved the City a significant amount.

The east-side trail. This one got less attention. Staff built a crusher fine trail through the east-side pasture, like the one already on the west side, and planted about 40 fruiting trees and shrubs along it, each with its own irrigation.

The Big Barn. The restored barn is now a community program and event space. Cherry Hills Land Preserve's annual Barn Party is held there in September. The City's planning document expected more than 225 Cherry Hills Village residents to attend and calls it the Village's largest community event.

Visiting between seasons

You don't need a program to visit. The Quincy Farm website says both sides are open every day from sunrise to sunset. Here are the basics:

• Getting in: from the High Line Canal trail at Quincy Avenue
• Parking: one accessible space, and no other parking on site
• Buildings: closed to the public except during scheduled programs
• Bikes: no riding on the farm; use the bike rack
• Dogs: not permitted

The pond has one more request this winter. The Village Crier asks visitors to stay on the High Line Canal trail and keep out of the planted and wetland areas so wildlife isn't disturbed while the new vegetation fills in. The City's Vision document says the trail running through the property gets hundreds of users every day. With that much traffic, the request makes sense.

The plan Council adopted in June

The 2026 projects make more sense once you know where they're headed. City Council formally adopted the Quincy Farm Vision at its June 16, 2026 meeting. The Mayor's Report in the Crier says agreeing on a vision had "proven elusive over the last 14 years."

The Vision document splits the farm into two halves with different jobs:

"The west side of the Farm will be a quiet, tranquil open space featuring mountain views, where the Anderson House has been removed and replaced with natural vegetation. The Hopkins House will be rehabilitated."

The east side becomes the active hub, with the Big Barn as its gathering place and the existing farmhouse converted into a support building with restrooms, a simple kitchen, storage and meeting space. The Hopkins House is the small white house next to Quincy Avenue. The Annual Plan dates it to 1898, which makes it the oldest structure on the property. The Anderson House is the larger main house. Taking it down is the change that opens up the west side's mountain views.

All of this has to fit within the conservation easement on the farm, which Colorado Open Lands administers.

Two schedules in the same October packet

Here's where the timing gets interesting. The July 31 draft of the 2027 Annual Plan called for bidding out the Anderson House removal in 2027 and bringing a demolition contract to Council that year. It also called for a feasibility study on the Hopkins House in 2027, construction documents if time allowed, and construction starting in 2028.

The October 20 council packet contains both the proposed 2027 budget and the 2027 City Work Plan, and the two don't line up:

Those four lines add up to $730,000 in proposed Capital Fund money for Quincy Farm projects in 2027. So the money for the Anderson House is still in the budget even though the work plan pushes the demolition back a year. The Annual Plan says the cost per square foot is high because lead and asbestos mitigation has to happen before demolition.

None of this is final yet. The packet schedules the budget ordinance's public hearing and first reading for November 17, 2026.

What the east side gets first

If those schedules hold, the farmhouse across from the Big Barn is the next real change. The Annual Plan explains that the Big Barn has no restrooms, so the farmhouse renovation adds two ADA-compliant restrooms you get to from outside. It also replaces the damaged flooring and the worn-out roof, remodels one interior restroom for ADA access, removes the other one, and repours part of the outside concrete slab so the building is accessible. Cherry Hills Land Preserve plans to donate new kitchen appliances.

This project was scaled back once already. After a feasibility study showed what the renovation would cost, Council asked for smaller plans. The July draft said work was slated to begin this fall and run into winter 2027. The October work plan lists the farmhouse as a 2027 item moved from 2026, and it's on the Public Works and Parks list for 2027. The farmhouse also has more room for change than its neighbor. It started out as a stable, was gutted in the 1960s to become a house, and doesn't count as a contributing structure in the historic designation, so it has more flexibility than the Big Barn had.

A few smaller east-side items are also planned for 2027:

1. Continued work restoring the dryland pastures, following guidance from CSU Extension, with weed treatment by the City's contractor, Weed Wranglers.
2. More trees and new garden beds along the trail that was built this year.
3. Parking on the grass area for programs, which appears in the 2027 work plan as moved from 2026.
4. A Trail Passport Program to promote the City's new trail maps, added after the Council retreat.

The work plan also lists "Conservation Easement negotiations" among items added after the retreat. Any future change at the farm runs through that easement.

For the farm's two houses, the schedule is now 2028. For anyone walking the canal at Quincy Avenue this winter, the pond's new plantings, the 40 young fruit trees along the east-side trail and the restored Big Barn are the farm as it stands for the next year or so.

The Village Crier calls the pond's stretch one of the most frequently used sections of the High Line Canal trail. If you live near the farm and want to know how the City's plans for Quincy Avenue might affect your own timing, Mike Bomgaars is happy to talk it through. Let's connect for a free home valuation or market consultation.