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This article was taken from the Daily Planet on April 10, 2006: |
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Author: |
Matthew Beaudin |
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04/11/2006 |
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As two of the Mountain Village's giant development projects - the St. Regis Hotel and the Monument Realty project - are on the tail end of their planning processes, another large development is just entering the planning pipeline.
The Honig Aviation, or the Lot 126 Resort Development project, would sandwich much of County Club Drive and could add 75 hotel rooms and 55 condominium units to Mountain Village. Developers were unsure at this phase of how many square feet their project would tip the scales at.
"We're in the conceptual phase of review," said one of the project's local consultants, Mollye Wolahan.
The land for the project, a majority of which recently sold for $25 million, is a patchwork of smaller lots that add up to nearly 5 developable acres in total, just outside the Mountain Village Core.
The current design features a residential element on the lower side of the road, with a hotel element stepping up the hillside. Planners said they were trying to create a feeling of a village within the Village.
The project's main architects, Palo Alto, Calif., based Hill Glazier, have on their resume such hotels as the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, Calif., and the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole and Vail.
Since the lot is outside of the Core, it's zoned for a lower height - it could come in half as tall as the Monument Realty project in parts - Wolahan said there's less pressure to design up.
The building heights are expected to come in at roughly 48 to 55 feet, Wolahan said; as it's currently designed the project will not be visible on the ridgeline from the Telluride Valley Floor.
Wolahan also said the project's developers will seek little variance from the town's building codes, though they will have to prove their project can provide a public benefit as the variances they do seek - a lot rezone and a height variance - demand the project run the course of a PUD process.
Those benefits, Wolahan said, will come in the form of more affordable housing than required, the addition of a sidewalk to Country Club Drive to facilitate walking to the Core, and improvements to the existing trails in the area, among other things.
As the land is currently zoned, developers are required to build 16 dormitory-type units for employees. Instead developers say they will build 16 to 22 apartment units offsite and two onsite employee-housing units.
She would not speculate, however, as to which hotel operator would manage the development, but did say, "We're bringing a very high end resort development."
The probable addition of another elite hotelier to Mountain Village has raised some eyebrows, as average occupancy rates for the winter season hover around 50 percent. But Scott McQuade, CEO of Marketing Telluride, Inc., said elite hotels often bring more visitors to town rather than drain existing occupancy rates.
"I think that that will be an advantage," he said. "Those properties are well marketed by their corporate entities. They're not only going to attract their people - they're going to attract people to the Telluride region."
McQuade said the additions would also contribute to the "buzz factor" of the region. "It catches peoples' eyes," he said.
What's more, Wolahan said the new hotel would be about guest selection. "People want options when they come to a resort," she said. "Right now they don't have options."
The next hurdle for developers will come during their second trip to the Mountain Village's Design Review Board on May 9. In the last meeting, board members said setbacks from the road and the amount of access points to Country Club Drive needed to be reviewed, in addition to moving taller parts of the development away from the ridgeline and into the middle of the lot, though they were mostly impressed with the first attempt.
"The goal now is to really minimize the height variances," Wolahan said. "It would be great to get through the process this summer, this fall." |
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