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Newsletters
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Title: |
A New Look, a New Program, And an Addition for The Peaks |
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Author: |
Seth Cagin, Telluride Watch |
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Date: |
11/14/2006 |
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The Telluride region’s biggest hotel, The Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa, this week won final approval for a major overhaul from the Mountain Village Design Review Board. The last hurdle, approval of a modest zoning change to lower density, is likely tonight at the regular meeting of the Mountain Village Town Council. Construction could start as early as this spring.
The existing hotel structure will be given a new look, the number of rooms in the existing building will be reduced but enlarged, and two new structures on an adjacent lot, connected to each other by a bridge, will contain additional hotel rooms and condominiums.
In a major shift of program – one consistent with the currently dominant trend in resort development – all the inventory in all three buildings is being made available for sale, either as full-fledged condominiums or as condo-hotel rooms.
The Peaks may be closed for the remodel for a ten-month period, starting at the end of this ski season. If all goes as planned, the region’s biggest supply of hotel rooms, with 177 of them, will be offline next summer, and won’t be available for visitors until next Christmas. Less likely, portions of the hotel may remain open during construction. Either way, adverse short-term economic impacts are all-but-certain.
“But after the ten months, the economic impacts will be very positive,” said Russ Flicker, of The Blackstone Group, investors who acquired the property in August 2005 with plans to renovate it. “There will be additional bedbase and significant improvements to existing infrastructure of a hotel that desperately needs it.”
When it fully reopens, the hotel will be modernized, with a new look and a different mix of inventory: a total of 163 hotel rooms and the existing 26 condominiums (all of them already sold to individual owners) in the old building; and one condominium, 35 hotel rooms and two employee units in the new buildings. The new structures are slated to open within a year after the existing building does.
Given its mass, scale and location, The Peaks is possibly the most recognizable building in the region, visible from miles around and prominent in photographs of the Telluride Ski Area. The façade, rendered in pastel stucco of several hues, each articulating a different plane, was controversial when it was first built, and remains a conspicuous feature of the regional landscape. The remodel will change the exterior color to shades of white, beige and gray, and introduce additional stonework and new balconies aimed at breaking up the mass. The roof color will also be changed to a charcoal gray concrete tile, a departure from the burnt sienna that has been a consistent motif in the Mountain Village center, but which may be varied with DRB approval.
The darker colors are closer to the ground, “to anchor the building,” architect Noel Michaels of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill told DRB on Thursday, and the colors grow lighter higher up the façade, capped by the dark roof.
In summarizing the overall program, Flicker told the DRB Thursday: “We’re taking an existing structure and making it better.”
The application has been in the Mountain Village approvals process since early last summer, with numerous issues debated and resolved by Thursday’s final DRB hearing. As a result, DRB’s final approval came easily, with discussion focused on a handful of details. DRB members generally were highly complimentary of both the project’s near-final design, and also the applicants’ responsiveness to direction provided at previous meetings.
“You clearly did what we’ve asked to you,” said DRB member Russell Gies. “You’ve just done a great job on the building.”
“Fantastic!” commented DRB member Bill Hoins. |
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