SLV Demographics-SBDC

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San Luis Valley-Demographic Profile

*New*, click here for the BSC's interactive San Luis Valley demographic information page.

The San Luis Valley, an area the size of the state of Connecticut, is located in south central Colorado. It is surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountain ranges. The San Luis Valley (SLV) consists of six counties: Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande and Saguache. The population of the SLV has reached a total of 47,487 per Colorado Labor Market Information 2000 projections.

Alamosa, a SLV community of approximately 9,000 people, is home of Adams State College (ASC). ASC's on campus student enrollment for 2005 is approximately twenty-two hundred students. The college has been voted "One of America's 100 Best College Buys" by Business Week for the past two years. ASC has been selected by Colorado Commission on Higher Education to be prime deliverer of graduate teacher education programs for rural southern and western Colorado. Bus lines and a small commuter airport service Alamosa. Denver is 220 miles to the north and Albuquerque, New Mexico is 200 miles to the south. The historic cities of Taos and Santa Fe are only one to two hours away from Alamosa.

The SLV's high altitude (7,500 ft. on the Valley floor with surrounding mountains ranging from 10,000 to 14,000 ft.) has been utilized for Olympic training and has been considered for other types of physical training and high altitude equipment testing. The SLV's cool climate is associated with lower rates of disease transmission for raising poultry and certain kinds of crops. A high number of days with sunshine and normally dry conditions offers potential for projects that are able to harness solar energy for their operations or help reduce energy cost. Wind energy also offers some potential in the area. This region has also been successfully utilized as a motion picture/TV filming location, which represents a source of additional income in millions of dollars.

Some of the San Luis Valley's major employers which have 100 or more employees include: Rakhra Mushroom Farm, Walmart, City Market, Valley Wide Health Services, San Luis Valley Medical Center, Alamosa Schools, Adams State College, Battle Mountain Resources, Monte Vista Schools, St. Joseph Hospital, Del Norte Consolidated Schools and Center Consolidated Schools (source: SLV Planning Commission 1992).