Living in Three Springs: Inside Durango’s Planned Neighborhood by the Hospital

Look down at the sidewalk sometime while you’re walking through Three Springs. There are leaves pressed into the concrete. Actual leaf imprints, cottonwood and oak, set in when the walks were poured.

It’s a small thing. It also tells you exactly what kind of neighborhood this was meant to be, because nobody puts leaves in a sidewalk by accident. Three Springs was designed, hard, from the ground up, by people who had opinions about how a street should feel. Whether that lands as delightful or slightly precious depends on the person. Around here, opinions run both ways.

Either way it’s the most deliberate piece of town planning in Southwest Colorado, and after twenty-plus years of building it’s become a real neighborhood with real kids and real dogs and a real complaint about parking.

Where It Is and How It Started

Three Springs sits east of downtown Durango at the corner of US Highway 160 and Three Springs Boulevard. About ten minutes from downtown, give or take the light at Grandview. The Durango-La Plata County Airport is roughly nine miles further out.

The land is a valley of about 681 acres, according to the developer, with more than half set aside as open space, parks, schools, and recreation.

The origin story is worth knowing, because it explains the neighborhood. In 2001 the Southern Ute Indian Tribe acquired the property and contributed land to Mercy Hospital, per reporting in The Durango Herald. Mercy opened its new campus there in 2006, the first purpose-built hospital the region had gotten in about a century. The neighborhood grew outward from the hospital, developed by the Tribe’s growth fund. That’s not a marketing detail. It’s the reason the streets are laid out the way they are.

Traditional Neighborhood Development, Explained Without the Jargon

Three Springs was built as a traditional neighborhood development, which is planner-speak for: front porches close to the street, garages tucked behind on alleys, narrow roads that make you drive slow, and everything you need within a walk.

In practice that means the streets feel more like an older town than a subdivision. Houses look at each other. Kids ride bikes in the alleys. There are twelve or so pocket parks scattered through the neighborhood, which sounds like a brochure line until you actually live there and realize your four-year-old can get to a swing set without crossing a road.

Three Springs Plaza is the center of it. Open green, benches, a stage. Summer concerts pull a crowd that spills out onto the grass with camp chairs and dogs.

The design also means small lots, shared alleys, and a homeowners association with an architectural review process that takes itself seriously. That’s the trade. You do not get to do whatever you want with your front yard. Some people find that a relief.

The Hospital Changes Everything

Mercy Hospital, now operating as CommonSpirit Mercy Hospital, is the anchor. It’s the largest medical facility in Southwest Colorado and carries a Level III trauma designation.

What that does to a neighborhood is interesting. A meaningful share of residents work at the hospital or in the medical offices along Mercado Street. Nurses walking home in scrubs at seven in the morning after a night shift is an ordinary sight. There’s a Durango Police substation in the neighborhood.

The other effect: buyers who aren’t medical professionals still want to be near the hospital, especially retirees. Being five minutes from an emergency room is worth something when you’re seventy-five and the nearest alternative is Farmington or Grand Junction.

Mercado Street holds most of the commercial life. Coffee, restaurants, a fitness center, medical offices, a market. It is not downtown Durango and doesn’t pretend to be, but the density of things you can walk to is higher here than in any other Durango neighborhood outside of the historic core.

Trails, Which Are the Real Amenity

The Spur Line Trail runs through the neighborhood, roughly six miles of beginner-friendly path good for biking, walking, and snowshoeing when the snow sticks. The trail system ties into the Telegraph system, which is Durango’s main in-town mountain biking network, and Switcher Loop runs about 2.7 miles with real elevation change if you want to actually work.

What that means practically: you can leave your garage on a bike and be on singletrack in about eight minutes. In Durango that’s the currency people care about.

There’s also the long-term SMART 160 trail project, meant to eventually connect Durango’s Animas River Trail all the way to Bayfield. Progress is incremental. Ask anyone who’s been waiting.

What You’ll Actually Find for Sale

The housing stock is more varied than most Durango neighborhoods, which is the whole point:

Single-family homes, mostly modern craftsman with steeper roof lines, stone accents, and open plans. Alley-loaded garages on many of them.
Townhomes, a lot of them, and they turn over faster than the single-family stock.
Apartments, including the Confluence complex, which matters because rental supply inside a for-sale neighborhood keeps the streets from going quiet in the shoulder seasons.
Vacant lots, still available in phases, for people who want to build.

Homes here were built to modern energy standards. The developer claims homes at Three Springs use about a third less energy than typical code-built homes, and the commercial buildings on Mercado Street were built to LEED standards. Utility bills in January bear that out, more or less, compared to a 1970s ranch on the west side of town.

What you won’t find: acreage, horses, a shop building, or an old house with character. Everything here was built after 2003.

The Honest Downsides

It’s exposed. The neighborhood sits up out of the river valley on relatively open ground, and the wind comes across in spring like it has somewhere to be. March and April are gritty. That’s the price of the views, which are legitimately good in every direction.

Parking is a running conversation. Narrow streets and alley garages mean guest parking gets tight, particularly in the townhome sections.

It doesn’t feel like Durango to some people. That’s a real objection and worth taking seriously. If what you love about this town is the 1890s brick on Main Avenue and the crooked porches on the north side, a neighborhood where everything is twenty years old and beautifully coordinated might read as somewhere else entirely. Go stand in the plaza on a Wednesday evening before you decide.

And the neighborhood is still building out. There are undeveloped phases. There will be construction traffic, and there will be a house going up next to yours at some point. Ask about the phasing plan for whatever section you’re considering.

Getting Around

Durango’s transit system has historically served Three Springs and the hospital campus, and there’s regional service through the area as well. Routes and schedules change, so check the current City of Durango transit map rather than trusting anything you read in a neighborhood description, including this one.

Most residents drive. Highway 160 borders the neighborhood to the south, which puts you on a fast road into town or east toward Bayfield. Downtown parking is downtown parking’s problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Three Springs in Durango?

Three Springs sits east of downtown Durango at the corner of US Highway 160 and Three Springs Boulevard, roughly ten minutes from downtown and about nine miles from the Durango-La Plata County Airport. It occupies a valley of about 681 acres, more than half of which is set aside as open space, parks, and recreation.

Who developed Three Springs?

The neighborhood was developed by the growth fund of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, which acquired the property in 2001 and contributed land for Mercy Hospital. The hospital campus opened in 2006 and the neighborhood grew outward from it.

Is Three Springs inside Durango city limits?

Yes, Three Springs is part of the City of Durango and has been annexed and planned through the city’s development process. That means city services, city utilities, and city land use rules apply, in addition to the neighborhood’s own homeowners association covenants.

Does Three Springs have an HOA?

Yes. Three Springs is governed by covenants with architectural review, and dues vary by section and housing type. Because the neighborhood was built in phases with different products, request the current governing documents and assessment schedule for the specific address rather than assuming they match a neighbor’s.

What trails are accessible from Three Springs?

The Spur Line Trail runs through the neighborhood with about six miles of beginner-friendly path, and the system ties into the Telegraph trail network. Switcher Loop covers roughly 2.7 miles with more elevation gain for hikers and riders wanting something harder.

Is Three Springs a good place to live if you don’t work at the hospital?

Plenty of residents don’t. The neighborhood draws retirees who value proximity to emergency care, families who want walkable parks and trail access, and remote workers who want newer construction. Hospital employment is common here but nowhere close to universal.

How old are the homes in Three Springs?

All of them are new by Durango standards. Construction began after 2003 and continues in phases, so the housing stock runs from early-2000s builds to homes finished within the last year, with vacant lots still available in some sections.

Is Three Springs windy?

More than the Animas Valley floor, yes. The neighborhood sits on relatively open, elevated ground east of town, and spring afternoons in March and April can be genuinely blustery. The same exposure is what gives the neighborhood its long views.

A Practical Note

The single most useful thing you can do before buying in Three Springs is walk it at two different times: a Saturday morning and a Wednesday evening. The neighborhood reads completely differently depending on when you show up, and both versions are true.

If you want a second opinion on a specific section, or you’re weighing Three Springs against something older in town, the team at Blackmore Group Realty is happy to walk it with you and say what we actually think.

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