JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Photographers have always flocked to Jackson Hole. And why not? The Teton Range is to landscape photography what Paris Hilton is to prurient, lascivious oogling.
But a new photo exhibit now making the rounds in Jackson Hole strays far from the usual meanders of the Snake River. Documentary-style black-and-white portraits of employees who own "affordable housing" were made. The point, explained Ed Riddel, who is on the marketing committee for the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust, is to "communicate the really diverse cross-section of professions represented by the Housing Trust. You see teachers, physical therapists, flyfishing guides."
The photos will be exhibited at a gallery, library, and brewery as the year progresses, notes the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
Front Range season pass sales up
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Sales of season passes for next winter at Colorado’s Front Range resorts are reportedly brisk.
Vail Resorts, which has four ski resorts within easy driving distance of Denver, reports sales have increased 35 per cent as compared to last winter. Intrawest did not divulge numbers, but reported increased sales of season passes for its two resorts, says the Summit Daily News. Passes for next year are running $309 to $349, although passes offering more than 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek are markedly higher.
Second homes studied
DURANGO, Colo. — The council of government in the Durango-Pagosa Springs-Cortez area is launching a study of the economic impact of second homes, similar to what was done in the ski counties along the I-70 corridor.
Planners first want to determine how many properties fall into this category. Anecdotally, the answer is many – and growing rapidly. For example, the energy boom in Texas and Oklahoma is producing more money for vacation homes. As is the area around Pagosa Springs, called Archuleta County. It has been one of the faster growing places in the nation during recent years, precisely because of this boom in vacation and retirement homes.
Sources tell The Durango Telegraph that vacation homes, while they seem to be driving up real estate prices in the Durango area, are not the same tsunami as is found in Telluride. Telluride housing costs range from $600 to $1,200 per square foot; in Durango the high end amounts to $300 to $400 per square foot.
But aren’t all second homes massive mansions? Not necessarily, says Bobby Leib, director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce. "People see larger, single-family houses and assume they’re second homes. But it’s not always the case."
Meanwhile, the profusion of retirement, second homes, and lifestyle-driven relocations is remaking Main Street in Durango. There are probably fewer T-shirt shops, but definitely more art galleries, notes the Telegraph. "Tourism still creates the vast majority of jobs in our community. But second-home owners really have a much bigger impact on our local economy than people think," said Leib.
Flyfishing at core of new resort
GRANBY, Colo. — Flyfishing has become big business in the last 20 years. Now, a land developer at Granby is branding a project with a well-known flyfishing name, Orvis, to create a high-end project mixing golf, fishing and horseback riding.
The project is called Orvis Shorefox, and if that name sounds a bit like Starbucks, it’s probably not coincidental. It was minted with the possibility of franchising at other locations.
Orvis is a partner in the project, but the on-the-land developer is a consortium headed by Jerry Jones, a former ski industry executive at Vail, Keystone, and Snowmass. As now configured, the Orvis Shorefox project at Granby will get 600 dwelling units, a golf course, and two hotels (one of them 80 feet tall). As well, the property will have an equestrian center, a fishing lodge, and a large (25,000 square feet) store that sells Orvis flyfishing gear.
All of this is to occur in the crook of land west of Granby formed by the Colorado River and the Fraser River. The location is equidistant between the Winter Park ski area and the western portal to Rocky Mountain National Park. Final annexation into Granby is expected in late June.
This Orvis Shorefox targets a higher income bracket somewhat comparable to that hit by the high-end resorts along the I-70 corridor. A nearby project called Grand Elk, which includes Jones and several other partners, has a lower price. It has a potential 800 units.
Grand Elk reports 90 per cent of homesites have been sold. Of the buyers, 85 per cent come from the Front Range and intend vacation and weekend homes. Homes top out at $800,000. Lower priced are the pre-fabricated log cabins that run from $249,000 to $387,000.
Mountain towns in context
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Crested Butte is celebrating its 125 th anniversary this year as a town. Located at an elevation of nearly 9,000 feet, it was created in 1880 because of its coal deposits as well as ample trees that are needed in mining.
In its early years, Crested Butte relied largely on immigrant laborers, many from Croatia and Transylvania. Although large-scale mining ended decades ago, that Slavic flavor lingers in a multitude of ways, including a phone book still thick with surnames ending in "ech" and "ushion" and "ak."
While some of the dwindling old-timers embrace the new recreation-based economy and lifestyle, others tend to grumble. One such grumbler, Fritz Yaklich, recently took issue with the use of certain words and phrases. There was, he insisted, nothing "pristine" about the environment around Crested Butte. Furthermore, he said, he was quite tired of hearing people who had lived in Crested Butte for 20 years described as "long-term residents."
Ah, yes, context is everything. In Vail, the original developers were being called "pioneers" 20 years after the ski area founding. In some old ranch towns of the Rocky Mountains, "newcomer" is sometimes stretched to include those whose family has only been around a generation or two. But, as one ski town manager is fond of noting, in all cases you can vote after 30 days.
Tracking the global T-shirt
SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. — Ever wonder where the T-shirts sold in your local neighborhood come from? Or where they go?
Pietra Rivoli, an economist at Georgetown University, was in Florida in 1999 when she bought a T-shirt with a parrot on it. Investigating, she learned that the cotton for the T-shirt came from near Lubbock, Texas, where a couple – although in their mid-80s – still farm 1,000 acres of cotton. Crucial to their efforts is a federal farm subsidy that assures them 73 cents a pound, while the international market for cotton is 50 cents a pound.
Following the cotton to Florida, Rivoli found it was then shipped to China, where it is assembled into the T-shirts. From China, the T-shirts are shipped to Florida, where they are screen-printed and shipped off to various tourist markets.
But wait, T-shirts with parrots and ski resort names have a life after being sold. Often, after a time, purchasers donate the shirts to Goodwill or other such organizations. In turn, these recycled T-shirts are often shipped to Africa, where there is a huge market for discarded clothing from developed countries. Others are shredded and turned into pillow stuffing, car seats and even caskets.
At a Squaw Valley Institute talk on business globalization, Rivoli said she began her project without any convictions of whether globalization was good or bad, but her conclusion – contained in a book called "The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy" – is that globalization is more good than bad.
What Rivoli dislikes are subsidies – such as that paid to cotton farmers in the U.S. – that interfere with the working of the free international market. One consequence is that farmers in Africa cannot afford to grow cotton themselves, because it costs them more than farmers in Texas, explained the Tahoe World, which reported her comments.
Skier days only one measure
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The New York Times this past week reported that rivers across the Rockies were gushing with runoff from a record winter. While that may be true in areas near Telluride, Taos, and Mammoth, the story just a few hundred miles north was substantially different. Consider Steamboat, where skier days declined 3 per cent this winter.
The winter ranked 18 th in snow among the last 25. Because of the lack of powder days, the season-pass holders – who now are generally older, many retirees or part-time residents – were disinterested in skiing. That dropped Steamboat below the million mark in skier days for the first time in 16 years.
But Andy Wirth, the marketing vice president for Steamboat, warns against viewing the business health of a ski area based strictly on skier visits. The purchases of season passes has been up. The business from Front Range skiers stayed steady, while the business of destination visitors didn’t drop that much. Overall, he told The Steamboat Pilot, Steamboat did well financially.
New meaning to ‘play through’
CANMORE, Alberta — The golfing expression of "play through" takes on a whole new meaning at the SilverTip golf course near Canmore.
When the golf course was built in the early 1990s, bears and other wildlife were known to frequent the area. Indeed, the golf course is part of a giant wildlife migration corridor. As such it was the original intent that wildlife would be permitted to pass through. No grizzly bears were in the area then, but they are now.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook notes that SilverTip often closes parts of its golf course during summer in order to ensure the safety of golfers. However, if the course were closed when bears were spotted only on the periphery, it would be closed 25 percent of the time. Golfers, said a resort spokesman, are unruffled by the prospect of bears. After all, say the duffers, this is a mountain golf course.
Conference centre goes to voters
VAIL, Colo. — It’s back to the voters for a second time on ambitious plans in Vail to build a $45 million conference centre.
Voters in 2002 said yes to an increased lodging tax, but the cost of the conference centre – especially the projected annual short-falls – are greater than what was originally projected. Town officials now estimate they could need another $10 million in revenue to make the conference centre work.
Does a large conference centre in Vail really make sense? That’s still the underlying issue. Many conference planners say a conference centre must be within a half-hour of a major airport. Vail has a semi-large airport within about 35 miles, but the non-ski season schedule is skimpy. The Denver airport is nearly two hours away.
But while major cities have been on a binge in building both convention and conference centres, the meeting market for conferences has actually been shrinking. Whether the setting of Vail is sufficiently different to defy these trends is the crucial question.
Studying the story of Park City, the Vail Daily found evidence that might well give Vail conference boosters cause for pause. Located less than an hour from a major airport, a similar-sized conference centre there was projected to have $700,000 to $900,000 annual operating expenses.
"We looked at it and said… that’s not something we wanted to redirect money for marketing to," said Bill Malone, director of the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. Meeting planners commonly want discounts, but nobody’s going to discount rooms during winter, added Malone, so the convention centre becomes a May-through-October proposition.
While the Vail council remains split on whether a $45 million conference centre makes sense, members agree on one thing: The project sinks or swims with the vote in November.
Landfill getting dumped on
EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — Eagle County is getting dumped on by its resort neighbors, reports the Vail Daily. Landfill operators report about 10 per cent of the trash comes from the adjoining Summit County, Aspen, Glenwood Springs, and Steamboat Springs area.
The landfill’s central location was cited as among the reasons, but Vail may be getting Aspen’s trash partly because of price. Aspen’s landfill is more pricey than Vail’s and also about out of room. The reason for the higher Aspen prices is to encourage more recycling. No space problem exists yet at the Eagle County landfill that services Vail.
Tahoe home not cheap
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Sometimes it takes a village to make a home. That would seem to be the story of a $60 million estate in Incline Village that has been reported as the fourth most expensive property on the market in the United States.
The property actually has three houses, including 13,000 feet of garage space – suitable for a serious car collector. But what really seems to add panache to the property are the two piers and the 340 feet of frontage on Lake Tahoe, notes the Tahoe World.
Mixed use all the rage
TRUCKEE, Calif. — If you go to the old mining towns of the West, you will see bars next to grocery stores next to houses, often with apartments upstairs – and all of this in close proximity to the mines themselves.
Then came the zoning craze of the 20 th century, which tidily separated businesses, industrial areas, and homes.
We’re coming full circle again, with "mixed uses" being the rage once more, whether in big cities or ski towns. Consider Truckee, where affordable housing and land suitably cheap for cheap housing are rare. While Truckee itself has no ski areas, there are several close by. As well, much of the adjacent land is being carved up into vacation homes.
To this situation comes Ciro Mancuso, a developer, who is redeveloping an area near downtown and the railroad tracks. Apartments are being built above an auto-repair shop, for example. Such housing, he notes, costs more, as constructing noise barriers and fire walls hike costs. However, Truckee now requires that developers of commercial projects also figure out housing for 15 per cent of the employees that are to result from the development, a concept called linkages.
Mancuso tells the Sierra Sun that the housing in question is unlikely to be used for families, but on the other hand, it’s not likely to become expensive. "It’s the type of housing that will stay in the workforce," he said.
School uniforms mandated
GRANBY, Colo. — To casually drive through Granby, you might not think of it as a place of risqué middle-school youngsters, girls with spaghetti-strapped tank-tops that show front-side cleavage and the boys with low-hanging trousers that display back-side cracks.
Yet that’s the story in this blue-collar service center for Winter Park and Grand Lake (the west portal to Rocky Mountain National Park), and now the school board has approved a dress code that includes uniforms. Boys and girls must wear tops of T-shirts, polo shirts, hoodies, fleece vests and blouses. All will have the school’s logo on it. Bottoms are left to the discretion of the students – except that they must not be "oversized, baggy and/or low cut. They must ride at least to the top of the student’s hip bone. Girls’ skirts and jumpers must be knee length.
The problem, explained Nancy Karas, the middle school principal, is that the young adolescents have been showing way too much skin and underwear. The Sky-Hi News also reports that hats, sunglasses and headbands are also being banned.
Trails get more summer use
TELLURIDE, Colo. — Ski areas have been getting steadily more use during summer seasons in the last 20 years. At Telluride, that use is reflected in plans to create six new trails for use by hikers, mountain bikers, and horse-back riders. Mountain Village, the on-mountain municipal twin to Telluride, got federal funding for the project, notes The Telluride Watch.
Indoor riding arenas planned
JACKSON, Wyo. — Big, indoor riding arenas are being considered in two of the West’s more wealthy resort valleys.
In Jackson, the town council has endorsed a 50,000-square-foot arena that would be used by 4-H and various horse-riding groups. Although it’s not yet clear who will pay the $2.1 million cost, construction is ambitiously eyed in September.
The Vail Daily reports that something similar has been talked about in Eagle County. There, horse enthusiasts are pushing for a 25,000-square-foot pavilion that would cost $2 million. However, Eagle County commissioners are divided as to whether this pavilion would be used by more than a relatively few horse riders.
County may hire gun
SILVERTON, Colo. — Many ski areas shoot artillery from howitzers at slopes dangerously thick with unstable snow. Now, the San Juan County commissioners are looking at getting a big gun of their own, in order to set off avalanches along the county road that connects Silverton with the Silverton Mountain Ski Area.
A new estimate pegs the cost of the cannon to as low as $5,000, with annual operating costs of between $11,000 and $30,000, reports the Silverton Standard.
Victorians being scraped away
SILVERTON, Colo. — In its latest incarnation as a ski town, Silverton is now dealing with the phenomenon of "scrapers." A house built 104 years ago, when Silverton was a hard-working mining town and Victorian styles reigned, is being scraped off for understandable reasons. After all, the house had no foundation. Still, the scraping was met with leeriness by the Silverton Standard.
"While today’s scrapers may be relatively insignificant barns or deteriorating shotgun shacks, tomorrow’s may hold more importance," said the newspaper, which wants more community oversight of what can and can’t be scraped.
"We like our history here in Silverton. It provides us with a large portion of our identity as a community," explained the newspaper. "Our tourist economy relies heavily upon our history – people don’t visit Silverton to see its modern buildings, after all."
