The entire, 7,000-acre SWAN Ranch property used to be a working cattle ranch and part of the Warren Livestock Ranch. W.N. McMurry, Casper, owner of W.N. McMurry Construction and a partner in Granite Peak, and his daughters acquired SWAN Ranch in 2000.

Granite Peak is developing only the property’s 4,000-acre west side.
Vertical construction at the ranch started in late 2010, and all the buildings under way, or recently completed, are steel, pre-engineered structures, according to Guerttman. But just east of SWAN Ranch, on 27 acres east of I-25 donated by McMurry, the state is building the cutting-edge, $17-million Southeast Wyoming Welcome Center to replace the old center on the west side of the highway.

“This is a robust and progressive project. … We’re trying to present a progressive image of Wyoming with it,” said Joe Carrasquillo, a principal at Denver architecture firm Anderson Mason Dale, which designed the new, contemporary-style center.

Futuristic Welcome Center
The 27,000-sq-ft welcome center, being built by Sampson Construction Inc., broke ground in this spring and is scheduled to open in summer 2012. The building is made of steel, concrete and rammed earth and features high-performance windows and a skin that incorporates photovoltaic. To help the structure blend with its environment, AMD surrounded it with manmade landforms and tree lines.

The state built the $6-million High Plains Road Interchange, at I-25 and High Plains Road, to serve both the welcome center and SWAN Ranch.

Granite Peak did significant infrastructure work on SWAN Ranch’s first phase, including moving some 2 million yd of dirt. The developer estimates it has spent as much as $15 million on the infrastructure of that phase.

The project has a “fairly good” water supply, according to Granite Peak, provided by a well that connects to the city of Cheyenne’s sewer system. The city is running a 42-in. water main through the park that will provide municipal water starting in 2013. Denver-based engineering consultant CTL|Thompson Inc. conducted groundwater and wastewater studies at SWAN Ranch.

Granite Peak is building its own 22,000-sq-ft, two-story office building at the ranch and expects to complete it in early 2012.