Mountain Village – For a decade, this upscale complex of shops, hotels and well-appointed castles has languished while its popular older sister bustled.
Mountain Village is a 13- minute gondola ride up from Telluride, yet it is primarily a second-home community of 1,200 residents. Town leaders have fretted over how to create a buzz in the fancy village, because visitors and homeowners in search of shopping or entertainment typically gravitate to the historic mining town below.
Ten years after Mountain Village was incorporated, however, “the missing pieces are coming together, and they are coming together fast,” says Ernie Graham, a broker and owner with Telluride 360 Real Estate. “I don’t think you will recognize it in two to three years.”
New hotels are sprouting around the 92-acre village core, providing the essential supply of “hot beds” needed to support its commercial core. And since the town is roughly 69 percent built out, the race to develop the final 31 percent is frenzied.
Land values have skyrocketed, making it nearly impossible to find a homesite for less than $1 million, and big-money, big-name companies are staking claims in the village.
Locals are excited about proposed – but not yet officially announced – plans for a hotel on what is now a large, dirt parking lot known as the 50/51 parcel that anchors the village.
A height-variances measure went to voters twice last year, and residents’ overwhelming support drew the attention of resort developers. Local officials have approved the site for a luxury 100-room hotel and condo complex but with stipulations that include developing employee housing and community amenities such as an outdoor ice rink.
The site’s developer, Robert Levine, is reportedly in negotiations with Starwood Hotels to bring in a St. Regis Hotel. Starwood representatives declined to comment.
Other Mountain Village plans include the following:
“The key to success at any resort is having a broad base of loyalists, and Mountain Village has a significant base of loyalists. That is what will drive its success over time,” said Bryan Bruce, vice president with Intrawest’s Playground, a wing of the resort-development firm that markets and sells destination-resort real estate.
A host of big and small residential developers have converged on Mountain Village, building small communities of giant slopeside homes and condos. The town, which allows second-home owners to vote and has a very deep-pocketed homeowners association, is using the funds generated by the sales and development to build a 14,000-square-foot supermarket, a new post office, a proposed $18 million family entertainment and recreation center, an outdoor ice rink and other amenities that turn a resort village into an animated community.
“This is one of the busiest times our planning and building department has ever seen,” says Courtney Stuecheli, economic development manager for the town.
Through May, the value of building permits issued through the town’s planning department was more than $80 million, twice the value of the same period through 2004.
Since Mountain Village is the new kid on Colorado’s maturing resort landscape, its leaders and developers have the opportunity to learn from the successes and mistakes of its elders.
“Some of the things we have learned from the old-timers have to do with issues of sustainability, like affordable housing,” said Mollye Wolahan, director of community development for Mountain Village. She has expanded the town’s planning department for the first time in six years.
“We are at the state where we are actually building a community,” she said. “It’s a very exciting time.”
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
