diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cmake/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cmake/package.py
index d99cda2f8c1..f2fa2290fb9 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cmake/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/cmake/package.py
@@ -168,8 +168,15 @@ def bootstrap_args(self):
             args.append('--sphinx-html')
             args.append('--sphinx-man')
 
+        # Now for CMake arguments to pass after the initial bootstrap
+        args.append('--')
+
+        # Make sure to create an optimized release build
+        args.append('-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release')
+
+        # When building our own private copy of curl then we need to properly
+        # enable / disable oepnssl
         if '+ownlibs' in spec:
-            args.append('--')
             args.append('-DCMAKE_USE_OPENSSL=%s' % str('+openssl' in spec))
 
         return args