The City of Powell grew by about 0.3 acres last week.

At its March 4 meeting, the Powell City Council formally voted to annex a small sliver of city-owned land that technically had been outside city limits.

The triangle-shaped parcel sits just east of the city shop and just west of Homesteader Park.

The city has owned the property for years. Then-Deputy City Attorney Scott Kath suggested the land hadn’t been annexed sooner because “it wasn’t bothering anybody.”

However, the parcel’s out-of-town status was flagged as an issue last year, as the city began working on plans to build a new shop in that general area.

“We gave some discussion to, ‘Why don’t you just build it? No one’s gonna care,’” Kath recounted with a laugh. “But someday down the road, this is going to show that this is county property and [raise questions of], how did you do that and why did you do it?”

“So ultimately the best route to take was to do it legally,” he told the council.

Now that the property has officially been brought into the city, the next step will be to vacate an old, unused right-of-way for North Jones Street. The city had originally reserved the space to extend the street north of Fourth Street, but the route was blocked long ago by the development of Homesteader Park. The city is currently using the right-of-way (and the sliver of land) as a parking/staging/storage area. From the ground, the entire area — the right-of-way, the sliver of land and another city-owned parcel — all look like one property, as they’re all enclosed by a continuous fence.

City officials have begun laying the groundwork for a new 9,800 square foot shop, hiring Point Architects to design it in late 2022. The design work is nearly done, but construction won’t move forward until funding has been secured. City Administrator Zack Thorington said he’d like to visit with the city council about the possibility of building the new shop in the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Thorington sees a need for a new facility because the existing shop is showing its 70 years of age, with issues that include a leaking roof, outdated electrical system and not enough space for modern garbage trucks.

The annexation leaves the Dash Storage self-storage facility — which sits just south of the city’s parcel — as a kind of island, as it’s the only property in the area that remains in rural Park County.