“I think the project is becoming real to the community, and all of the trepidation of whether it would fall apart for whatever reason has sort of been put to rest,” said Paige Byron, associate director of philanthropy for the Wyoming Division of the Trust for Public Land.

Astoria Hot Springs closed in 1999 after 40 years of operation, when the property was bought and the pool backfilled. Several bankruptcies left the land divided among several owners in various stages of development, setting the stage for the “most complicated real estate transaction I’ve worked on in 20 years and the most complicated rezoning package ever presented to the county,” said Chris Deming, senior project manager for the Trust for Public Land.

Some said the rezoning, approved last September, was a win for the community even if the hot springs never returns. In addition to reducing resort zoning and overall development, the deal relocated 88 percent of the resort units that were planned to line the Snake River near the springs.

Deming said the Trust taking ownership of the property assures the springs’ pending return — as long as the nonprofit is successful in raising the money it will take to redevelop the pools.

“This is real,” he said. “This can come back, but we need their support to make it happen.”

While the details of the property are still being sketched out the basics of the project are known: The swimming and soaking pools will be developed on a 5.2-acre site adjacent to the river, while nearly 95 acres surrounding the site will be developed and preserved as a passive park.

The Trust has vowed to design the entire project and build the first phase, including the hot springs park. Once completed the plot will be handed over to a long-term steward, not yet identified, to build the passive park and ensure that it remains in perpetuity.

Colorado landscape architecture and ecological planning firm DHM Design was hired to head the process. Feedback gathered at several public events has influenced details of the design, Deming said.

For example, swimmers said they wanted to see a leisure pool as well as soaking pools, so both have been included in the plans. The former is planned to run in the 93 to 98 degree range, while the soaking pools will run 102 to 104 degrees. A cold plunge pool, cooled to somewhere between 65 and 70 degrees, is also included in the drawings.

Public workshops held on Sunday and Monday yielded additional suggestions likely to tweak the final design, including the addition of another picnic area near Johnny Counts cabin and benches near the soaking pools.

Should fundraising and the development process coincide as hoped, final development plans will start moving through the county process in the fall. The Trust hopes to start construction next summer and open to swimmers in the summer of 2018.

“Our benchmarks are on target and we now have only one thing that we need to do in order to break ground on time,” Byron said, “and that’s raise the money we need to raise.”