Douglas County advances Zebulon sports complex amid major parks investment

Douglas County has moved Zebulon one step closer to construction, approving KT Development to design, build, program and operate the 46-acre regional sports complex planned for northern Douglas County. The unanimous March 31 vote also came alongside action on infrastructure and site-grading, a financial consultant contract with Stifel, and a financing resolution tied to Certificates of Participation, signaling that the county is pushing the project through multiple channels at once.

Zebulon is being built on land tied to a former DuPont/Chemours facility that was remediated for reuse, with a 2025 land exchange with Sterling Ranch making the site possible. County officials say the complex is named for western explorer Zebulon Pike and is intended to serve both youth and adults with ice rinks, multi-sport courts, a sports dome with indoor turf fields, a fitness center, and outdoor soccer, baseball and softball fields. The county says more than 400 acres of open space are being preserved as part of the broader land arrangement around the project.

The sports complex sits inside a larger parks investment program that county leaders have linked to rapid growth and long-standing demand. Douglas County says it is one of the fastest-growing counties in Colorado, and its parks and recreation work now includes projects in Parker, Castle Rock, Lone Tree and northwestern Douglas County. That push rests on a 1994 sixth-of-a-cent sales and use tax that funds the Parks, Trails, Historic Resources and Open Space program, and on strong voter backing in 2022, when more than 87% of voters approved extending the fund.

The county’s own survey data shows where that pressure is coming from. In 2024, open space ranked as the single highest priority, while sports fields and sports complexes also placed among the most requested improvements. County materials say 900 respondents or mentions, 22%, identified sports fields, sports complexes, activity and event centers as a desired improvement, a figure that helps explain why Zebulon has become one of the county’s highest-profile capital projects.

The same report also points to more immediate, lower-cost ways residents can get involved. Douglas County’s Dougnad Arbor Day event is set for Friday, April 24, from 9 a.m. to noon at Douglas County Fairgrounds Regional Park in Castle Rock. Volunteers will help plant trees and can expect donuts, coffee and swag. County park staff, who handle the design, development, maintenance and patrol of county parks and regional trail systems, are also continuing routine work that keeps public spaces usable, from playground mulch to trail upkeep.

Bingham Lake Park in The Pinery, with its picnic shelter, restroom, fishing dock and two parking lots, shows how that day-to-day work and community volunteerism overlap. An earlier Earth Day shoreline cleanup there drew seven volunteers, produced seven bags of trash and logged 14 service hours, a small but concrete measure of how Douglas County is trying to pair major capital spending with visible local maintenance.